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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.
Spelling and punctuation before the 16th century was highly erratic, but the introduction of printing in 1470 provoked the need for uniformity.. Several Renaissance humanists (working with publishers) proposed reforms in French orthography, the most famous being Jacques Peletier du Mans who developed a phonemic-based spelling system and introduced new typographic signs (1550).
This article covers French words and phrases that have entered the English lexicon without ever losing their character as Gallicisms: they remain unmistakably "French" to an English speaker. They are most common in written English, where they retain French diacritics and are usually printed in italics. In spoken English, at least some attempt ...
The spelling of some words was changed to keep the pronunciation as close to the original as possible (e.g. leaven). In other cases, the French spelling was kept, leading to a totally different pronunciation than in French (e.g. leopard, levee). [3]
[1] French also shows enormous phonetic changes between the Old French period and the modern language. Spelling, however, has barely changed, which accounts for the wide differences between current spelling and pronunciation. Some of the most profound changes have been: The loss of almost all final consonants.
The following words are commonly used and included in French dictionaries. le pull: E. pullover, sweater, jersey. le shampooing, [1] the shampoo; le scoop, in the context of a news story or as a simile based on that context. While the word is in common use, the Académie française recommends a French synonym, "exclusivité". [2] le selfie.
French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin) that specifically is classified under the Gallo-Romance languages.. The discussion of the history of a language is typically divided into "external history", describing the ethnic, political, social, technological, and other changes that affected the languages, and "internal history", describing the ...
Pages in category "Lists of French words of foreign origin" The following 6 pages are in this category, out of 6 total. This list may not reflect recent changes .