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Sylvius used the circumflex to indicate so-called "false diphthongs".Early modern French as spoken in Sylvius' time had coalesced all its true diphthongs into phonetic monophthongs; that is, a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation.
Î is a letter which appears in several French words, like naître (to be born), abîme (abyss), maître (master), fraîche (fresh), and more. Unlike Â, Ê, and Ô, the circumflex does not alter the pronunciation of î or û. The circumflex usually denotes the exclusion of a letter (usually an s) that was in a prior version of the word:
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language.It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100 –1200 AD, and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite enormous changes to the pronunciation of the language in the intervening years.
In some varieties, such as in Belgian French, Swiss French and Acadian French, vowels with a circumflex are long: fête [fɛːt] (party) is longer than faite [fɛt]. This length compensates for a deleted consonant, usually s. French words with deleted s include châtain and hôpital. Standard Friulian. Japanese.
There are some words that are pronounced with the short /a/, even though there is a circumflex; they are exceptions: câlin and bâbord, etc. Some words are pronounced differently in different regions; for example, the words lacet, nage and crabe are exceptions and are pronounced with the short /a/ in Eastern Quebec but the long /ɑ/ in Western ...
French phonology is the sound system of French. This article discusses mainly the phonology of all the varieties of Standard French . Notable phonological features include its uvular r , nasal vowels , and three processes affecting word-final sounds:
à la short for (ellipsis of) à la manière de; in the manner of/in the style of [1]à la carte lit. "on the card, i.e. menu"; In restaurants it refers to ordering individual dishes "à la carte" rather than a fixed-price meal "menu".
In some other words like mû, the circumflex has no disambiguating value; attempts have been made to abolish it in such words. See Circumflex in French . Û also often appears in words that used to have an "s" after the "u": the French word for August , août , used to be written aoust .