French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

. 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. Even in the late 17th century, with the publication of the first French dictionary by the

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

, there were attempts to reform French orthography. This has resulted in a complicated relationship between spelling and sound, especially for vowels; a multitude of silent letters; and many

homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...

s—e.g., ''/////'' (all pronounced ) and ''//'' (all pronounced ). This is conspicuous in verbs: ' (you speak), ' (I speak) and ' (they speak) all sound like . Later attempts to respell some words in accordance with their Latin etymologies further increased the number of silent letters (e.g., ' vs. older ' – compare English "tense", which reflects the original spelling – and ' vs. older '). Nevertheless, there are rules governing French orthography which allow for a reasonable degree of accuracy when pronouncing French words from their written forms. The reverse operation, producing written forms from pronunciation, is much more ambiguous. The French alphabet uses a number of diacritics including the

circumflex The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around"a ...

. A system of braille has been developed for people who are visually impaired.

Alphabet

The French alphabet is based on the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, uppercase and lowercase, with five

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

s and two orthographic

ligatures Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...

. : The letters and are rarely used except in loanwords and regional words. The phoneme sound is usually written ; the sound is usually written anywhere but before , before , and sometimes at the ends of words. However, is common in the metric prefix kilo- (originally from Greek ''khilia'' "a thousand"): ''kilogramme, kilomètre, kilowatt, kilohertz,'' etc.

Diacritics

The usual

s are the acute (, ''accent aigu''), the grave (, ''accent grave''), the

(, ''accent circonflexe''), the diaeresis (, ''tréma''), and the

cedilla A cedilla ( ; from Spanish) or cedille (from French , ) is a hook or tail ( ¸ ) added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation. In Catalan, French, and Portuguese (called cedilha) it is used only under the ' ...

(, ''cédille''). Diacritics have no effect on the primary alphabetical order. * The

acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ch ...

or ''accent aigu'' (''é''), over ''e'', indicates uniquely the sound . An ''é'' in modern French is often used where a combination of ''e'' and a consonant, usually ''s'', would have been used formerly: ''écouter'' < ''escouter''. * The

grave accent The grave accent () ( or ) is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian and many other western European languages, as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other languages using t ...

or ''accent grave'' (''à'', ''è'', ''ù''), over ''a'' or ''u'', is used primarily to distinguish homophones: ''à'' ("to") vs. ''a'' ("has"); ''ou'' ("or") vs. ''où'' ("where"; note that the letter ''ù'' is used only in this word). Over an ''e'', indicates the sound in positions where a plain e would be pronounced as /ə/ (schwa). Many verb conjugations contain regular alternations between è and e; for example, the accent mark in the present tense verb lève εvdistinguishes the vowel's pronunciation from the schwa in the infinitive, lever əve * The

or ''accent circonflexe'' (''â'', ''ê'', ''î'', ''ô'', ''û''), over ''a'', ''e'' and ''o'', indicates the sound , and , respectively, but the distinction ''a'' vs. ''â'' tends to disappear in Parisian French, so they are both pronounced In Belgian French, ''ê'' is pronounced . Most often, it indicates the historical deletion of an adjacent letter (usually an ''s'' or a vowel): ''château'' < ''castel'', ''fête'' < ''feste'', ''sûr'' < ''seur'', ''dîner'' < ''disner'' (in medieval manuscripts many letters were often written as diacritical marks: the circumflex for "s" and the tilde for "n" are examples). It has also come to be used to distinguish homophones: ''du'' ("of the") vs. ''dû'' (past participle of ''devoir'' "to have to do something (pertaining to an act)"); however ''dû'' is in fact written thus because of a dropped ''e'': ''deu'' (''see

Circumflex in French The circumflex (ˆ) is one of the five diacritics used in French orthography. It may appear on the vowels a, e, i, o, and u, for example â in ''pâté''. The circumflex, called ''accent circonflexe'', has three primary functions in French: ...

''). Since the 1990 orthographic changes, the circumflex on most ''i'''s and ''u'''s may be dropped when it does not serve to distinguish homophones: ''chaîne'' becomes ''chaine'' but ''sûr'' (sure) does not change because it distinguishes the word from ''sur'' (on). * The diaeresis or ''tréma'' (''ë'', ''ï'', ''ü'', ''ÿ''), over ''e'', ''i'', ''u'' or ''y'', indicates that a vowel is to be pronounced separately from the preceding one: ''naïve'' , ''Noël'' . **The combination of ''e'' with diaeresis following ''o'' (as in ''Noël'') is nasalized in the regular way if followed by ''n'' (''

Samoëns Samoëns () is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France. It is the principal commune for the canton which bears its name. The town of Samoëns is located in the Vallée du Giffre (Gif ...

'' , but note ''

Citroën Citroën () is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded in March 1919 by André Citroën. Citroën is owned by Stellantis since 2021 and previously was part of the PSA Group after Peugeot acquired ...

'' ) **The combination of ''e'' with diaeresis following ''a'' is either pronounced (''Raphaël'', ''Israël'' ) or not pronounced, leaving only the ''a'' ('' Staël'' ) and the ''a'' is nasalized in the regular way if ''aë'' is followed by ''n'' ('' Saint-Saëns'' ) **A diaeresis on ''y'' only occurs in some proper names and in modern editions of old French texts. Some proper names in which ''ÿ'' appears include '' Aÿ'' (commune in Marne, now '' Aÿ-Champagne''), ''Rue des Cloÿs'' (alley in the

18th arrondissement of Paris The 18th arrondissement of Paris (''XVIIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''dix-huitième''. The arrondissement, known as Butte-Montmartr ...

), ''Croÿ'' (family name and hotel on the Boulevard Raspail, Paris), '' Château du Feÿ'' ? (near Joigny), ''Ghÿs'' ? (name of Flemish origin spelt ''Ghĳs'' where ''ĳ'' in handwriting looked like ''ÿ'' to French clerks), '' L'Haÿ-les-Roses'' (commune between Paris and Orly airport), Pierre Louÿs (author),

Moÿ-de-l'Aisne Moÿ-de-l'Aisne () is a commune in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Demographics See also *Communes of the Aisne department The following is a list of the 799 Communes of France, communes in the French Departm ...

(commune in

Aisne Aisne ( , ; ; pcd, Ainne) is a French department in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France. It is named after the river Aisne. In 2019, it had a population of 531,345.Haüy . Nevertheless, since the 1990 orthographic changes, the diaeresis in words containing ''guë'' (such as ''aiguë'' or ''ciguë'' ) may be moved onto the ''u'': ''aigüe'', ''cigüe'', and by analogy may be used in verbs such as ''j'argüe''. **In addition, words coming from German retain their umlaut (''ä'', ''ö'' and ''ü'') if applicable but often use French pronunciation, such as ''Kärcher'' ( or , trademark of a pressure washer). * The

or ''cédille'' (''ç''), under ''c'', indicates that it is pronounced rather than /k/. Thus ''je lance'' "I throw" (with ''c'' = before ''e''), ''je lançais'' "I was throwing" (''c'' would be pronounced before ''a'' without the cedilla). The cedilla is only used before the vowels a, o or u, for example, ça /sa/; it is never used before the vowels e, i, or y, since these three vowels always produce a soft /s/ sound (ce, ci, cycle). The tilde diacritical mark ( ˜ ) above n is occasionally used in French for words and names of Spanish origin that have been incorporated into the language (e.g., '' El Niño''). Like the other diacritics, the tilde has no impact on the primary alphabetical order. Diacritics are often omitted on capital letters, mainly for technical reasons. It is widely believed that they are not required; however both the

and the Office québécois de la langue française reject this usage and confirm that "in French, the accent has full orthographic value", except for acronyms but not for abbreviations (e.g., ''CEE'', ''ALENA'', but ''É.-U.''). Nevertheless, diacritics are often ignored in word games, including crosswords, Scrabble, and '' Des chiffres et des lettres''.

Ligatures

The two

'' œ'' and '' æ'' have orthographic value. For determining alphabetical order, these ligatures are treated like the sequences ''oe'' and ''ae''.

Œ

(, ''o-e entrelacé'' or ''o et e collés/liés'') This ligature is a mandatory contraction of in certain words. Some of these are native French words, with the pronunciation or , e.g., ''chœur'' "choir" , ''cœur'' "heart" , ''mœurs'' "moods (related to moral)" , ''nœud'' "knot" , ''sœur'' "sister" , ''œuf'' "egg" , ''œuvre'' "work (of art)" , ''vœu'' "vow" . It usually appears in the combination ''œu''; ''œil'' "eye" is an exception. Many of these words were originally written with the digraph ''eu''; the ''o'' in the ligature represents a sometimes artificial attempt to imitate the Latin spelling: Latin ''bovem'' > Old French ''buef''/''beuf'' > Modern French ''bœuf''. ''Œ'' is also used in words of Greek origin, as the Latin rendering of the Greek diphthong ''οι'', e.g., ''cœlacanthe'' " coelacanth". These words used to be pronounced with the vowel , but in recent years a spelling pronunciation with has taken hold, e.g., ''œsophage'' or , ''Œdipe'' or etc. The pronunciation with is often seen to be more correct. When ''œ'' is found after the letter ''c'', the ''c'' can be pronounced in some cases (''cœur''), or in others (''cœlacanthe''). The ligature œ is not used when both letters contribute different sounds. For example, when is part of a prefix (''coexister''), or when is part of a suffix (''minoen''), or in the word ''moelle'' and its derivatives.

Æ

(, ''a-e entrelacé'' or ''a, e collés/liés'') This ligature is rare, appearing only in some words of Latin and Greek origin like ''tænia'', ''ex æquo'', ''cæcum'', ''æthuse'' (as named ''dog’s parsley''). It generally represents the vowel , like . The sequence appears in loanwords where both sounds are heard, as in ''maestro'' and ''paella''.

Digraphs and trigraphs

French digraphs and trigraphs have both historical and phonological origins. In the first case, it is a vestige of the spelling in the word's original language (usually Latin or Greek) maintained in modern French, for example, the use of in words like ''téléphone'', in words like ''théorème'', or in ''chaotique''. In the second case, a digraph is due to an archaic pronunciation, such as , , , , and , or is merely a convenient way to expand the twenty-six-letter alphabet to cover all relevant phonemes, as in , , , , , and . Some cases are a mixture of these or are used for purely pragmatic reasons, such as for in ''il mangeait'' ('he ate'), where the serves to indicate a "soft" inherent in the verb's root, similar to the significance of a cedilla to .

Spelling to sound correspondences

Some exceptions apply to the rules governing the pronunciation of word-final consonants. See Liaison (French) for details. : These combinations are pronounced after , all but the last of which are pronounced normally and are not influenced by the . For example, in ''rail'', is pronounced ; in ''mouiller'', is pronounced . , however, which only occurs in such combinations after and , is pronounced as opposed to : orgueil, cueillir, accueil, etc. These combinations are never pronounced after (except --, which is : aiguille, juillet); in that case, the vowel + ''i'' combination as well as the s is pronounced normally, although as usual, the pronunciation of after and is somewhat unpredictable: , , but , etc. There are no longer silent k's in French. They appeared in skunks, knock-out, knickerbockers and knickers, but from now onwards, the is also pronounced. The only consonants always pronounced equally in French are now and . Also, is always pronounced , even in .

Words from Greek

The spelling of French words of Greek origin is complicated by a number of digraphs which originated in the Latin transcriptions. The digraphs , , and normally represent , , and in Greek loanwords, respectively; and the ligatures and in Greek loanwords represent the same vowel as (). Further, many words in the

international scientific vocabulary International scientific vocabulary (ISV) comprises scientific and specialized words whose language of origin may or may not be certain, but which are in current use in several modern languages (that is, translingually, whether in naturalized, loa ...

were constructed in French from Greek roots and have kept their digraphs (e.g., ''stratosphère'', ''photographie'').

History

The Oaths of Strasbourg from 842 is the earliest text written in the early form of French called Romance or Gallo-Romance.

Roman

The Gaulish language of the inhabitants of Gaul disappeared progressively over the course of Roman rule as the Latin language began to replace it.

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...

, a generally lower register of Classical Latin spoken by the Roman soldiers, merchants and even patricians in quotidian speech, and adopted by the natives, evolved slowly, taking the forms of different spoken Roman vernaculars according to the region of the country. Eventually the different forms of Vulgar Latin would evolve into three branches in the Gallo-Romance language sub-family, the

langues d'oïl The ''langues d'oïl'' (; ) are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest autochthonous relatives historically spoken in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands. These belong to the larger ...

north of the Loire, the langues d'oc in the south, and the Franco-Provençal languages in part of the east.Translation of Évolution de la langue française du Ve au XVe siècle. See also Langue romane (French) and Romance languages (English).

Old French

In the 9th century, the Romance vernaculars were already quite far from Latin. For example, to understand the Bible, written in Latin, footnotes were necessary. With consolidation of royal power, beginning in the 13th century, the ''Francien'' vernacular, the langue d'oil variety in usage then on the Île-de-France, brought it little by little to the other languages and evolved toward Classic French. The languages found in the manuscripts dating from the 9th century to the 13th century form what is known as Old French or ''ancien français.'' These languages continued to evolve until, in the 14th century to the 16th century, Middle French (''moyen français'') emerged.

Middle French

During the Middle French period (c. 1300–1600), modern spelling practices were largely established. This happened especially during the 16th century, under the influence of printers. The overall trend was towards continuity with Old French spelling, although some changes were made under the influence of changed pronunciation habits; for example, the Old French distinction between the diphthongs ''eu'' and ''ue'' was eliminated in favor of consistent ''eu'', as both diphthongs had come to be pronounced or (depending on the surrounding sounds). However, many other distinctions that had become equally superfluous were maintained, e.g. between ''s'' and soft ''c'' or between ''ai'' and ''ei''. It is likely that etymology was the guiding factor here: the distinctions ''s/c'' and ''ai/ei'' reflect corresponding distinctions in the spelling of the underlying Latin words, whereas no such distinction exists in the case of ''eu/ue''. This period also saw the development of some explicitly etymological spellings, e.g. ''temps'' ("time"), ''vingt'' ("twenty") and ''poids'' ("weight") (note that in many cases, the etymologizing was sloppy or occasionally completely incorrect; ''vingt'' reflects Latin ''viginti'', with the ''g'' in the wrong place, and ''poids'' actually reflects Latin ''pensum'', with no ''d'' at all; the spelling ''poids'' is due to an incorrect derivation from Latin ''pondus''). The trend towards etymologizing sometimes produced absurd (and generally rejected) spellings such as ''sçapvoir'' for normal ''savoir'' ("to know"), which attempted to combine Latin ''sapere'' ("to be wise", the correct origin of ''savoir'') with ''scire'' ("to know").

Classical French

Modern French spelling was codified in the late 17th century by the

, based largely on previously established spelling conventions. Some reforms have occurred since then, but most have been fairly minor. The most significant changes have been: *Adoption of ''j'' and ''v'' to represent consonants, in place of former ''i'' and ''u''. *Addition of a circumflex accent to reflect historical vowel length. During the Middle French period, a distinction developed between long and short vowels, with long vowels largely stemming from a lost /s/ before a consonant, as in ''même'' (cf. Spanish ''mismo''), but sometimes from the coalescence of similar vowels, as in ''âge'' from earlier ''aage, eage'' (early Old French ''*edage'' <

''*aetaticum'', cf. Spanish ''edad'' < ''aetate(m)''). Prior to this, such words continued to be spelled historically (e.g. ''mesme'' and ''age''). Ironically, by the time this convention was adopted in the 19th century, the former distinction between short and long vowels had largely disappeared in all but the most conservative pronunciations, with vowels automatically pronounced long or short depending on the phonological context (see

French phonology 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 sou ...

). *Use of ''ai'' in place of ''oi'' where pronounced rather than . The most significant effect of this was to change the spelling of all imperfect verbs (formerly spelled ''-ois, -oit, -oient'' rather than ''-ais, -ait, -aient''), as well as the name of the language, from ''françois'' to ''français''.

Modern French

In October 1989, Michel Rocard, then-Prime Minister of France, established the High Council of the French Language () in Paris. He designated experts — among them linguists, representatives of the

and lexicographers — to propose standardizing several points, a few of those points being: *The uniting hyphen in all compound numerals ::i.e. ''trente-et-un'' *The plural of compound words, the second element of which always takes the plural s ::For example ''un après-midi'', ''des après-midis'' *The circumflex accent disappears on all u's and i's except for words in which it is needed for differentiation ::As in ''coût'' (cost) → cout, ''abîme'' (abyss) → abime but ''sûr'' (sure) because of ''sur'' (on) *The past participle of laisser followed by an infinitive verb is invariable (now works the same way as the verb ''faire'') ::elle s'est laissée mourir → elle s'est laissé mourir Quickly, the experts set to work. Their conclusions were submitted to Belgian and Québécois linguistic political organizations. They were likewise submitted to the Académie française, which endorsed them unanimously, saying: "Current orthography remains that of usage, and the 'recommendations' of the High Council of the French language only enter into play with words that may be written in a different manner without being considered as incorrect or as faults." The changes were published in the ''

Journal officiel de la République française A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period *Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...

'' in December 1990. At the time the proposed changes were considered to be suggestions. In 2016, schoolbooks in France began to use the newer recommended spellings, with instruction to teachers that both old and new spellings be deemed correct.

Punctuation

In France, the exclamation mark, question mark, semicolon, colon, percentage mark, currency symbols,

hash Hash, hashes, hash mark, or hashing may refer to: Substances * Hash (food), a coarse mixture of ingredients * Hash, a nickname for hashish, a cannabis product Hash mark *Hash mark (sports), a marking on hockey rinks and gridiron football field ...

, and guillemet all require a

non-breaking space In word processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space, , also called NBSP, required space, hard space, or fixed space (though it is not of fixed width), is a space character that prevents an automatic line break at its position. In s ...

before and after the punctuation mark. Outside of France, this rule is often ignored. Computer software may aid or hinder the application of this rule, depending on the degree of localisation, as it is marked differently from most other Western punctuation.

Hyphens

The hyphen in French has a particular use in geographic names that is not found in English. Traditionally, the "specific" part of placenames, street names, and organization names are hyphenated (usually namesakes).. Summary ranslation: "Multi-word "specifics" are hyphenated.". For instance, (Square of the

Battle of Stalingrad The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (later re ...

[]); and (named after Blaise Pascal). Likewise, Pas-de-Calais is actually a place on land; the real (“strait”) is . However, this rule is not uniformly observed in official names, e.g., either or , but normally has no hyphens. The names of Montreal Metro stations are consistently hyphenated when suitable, but those of

Paris Métro stations Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Sin ...

mostly ignore this rule. (For more examples, see Trait d'union)

Notes

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

Alternate French spelling

Recording of 3 different voices pronouncing the French alphabetFrench alphabet pronounced by a native speaker (Youtube)
{{DEFAULTSORT:French Orthography Orthography Indo-European Latin-script orthographies