French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phoneme, phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1 ...
was already (more or less) fixed and (from a
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
point of view) outdated when its
lexicography
Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries.
* Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.
* Theoretica ...
developed in the late 17th century and 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 ...
was mandated to establish an "official"
prescriptive norm. Still, there was already much debate at the time opposing the tenets of a traditional,
etymological
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the form of words and ...
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
, and supporting those of a
reformed, phonological
transcription
Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including:
Genetics
* Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...
of the language.
César-Pierre Richelet
César-Pierre Richelet (8 November 1626 – 23 November 1698) was a French grammarian and lexicographer, and the editor of the first dictionary of the French language. Life
Richelet was born in Cheminon. His first position was regent of the ...
chose the latter (reformed) option when he published the first monolingual French
dictionary
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...
in 1680, but the chose to adhere firmly to tradition in the first edition of
its dictionary (1694).
Some proposals exist to simplify the existing writing system, but they still fail to gather interest.
16th century
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). Peletier continued to use his system in all his published works, but his reform was not followed.
18th century
:'—Académie, 1740, using accents for the first time
The third (1740) and fourth (1762)
editions
Edition may refer to:
* Edition (book), a bibliographical term for a substantially similar set of copies
* Edition (printmaking), a publishing term for a set print run
* Edition (textual criticism), a particular version of a text
* Edition Recor ...
of the Académie dictionary were very progressive ones, changing the spelling of about half the words altogether.
Accents Accent may refer to:
Speech and language
* Accent (sociolinguistics), way of pronunciation particular to a speaker or group of speakers
* Accent (phonetics), prominence given to a particular syllable in a word, or a word in a phrase
** Pitch acce ...
, which had been in common use by
printers
Printer may refer to:
Technology
* Printer (publishing), a person or a company
* Printer (computing), a hardware device
* Optical printer for motion picture films
People
* Nariman Printer ( fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist
* Jam ...
for a long time, were finally adopted by the Académie, and many
mute consonants were dropped.
:' → ' (to be)
:' → ' (monastic)
Many changes suggested in the fourth edition were later abandoned along with thousands of
neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
s added to it.
Very importantly too, subsequent 18th century editions of the dictionary added the letters ''
J'' and ''
V'' to the
French alphabet
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, ...
in replacement of consonant ''
I'' and ''
U,'' fixing many cases of
homography
In projective geometry, a homography is an isomorphism of projective spaces, induced by an isomorphism of the vector spaces from which the projective spaces derive. It is a bijection that maps lines to lines, and thus a collineation. In general, ...
.
:' → ' (vile)
19th century
Many changes were introduced in the sixth edition of the Académie dictionary (1835), mainly under the influence of
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...
. Most importantly, all ''oi''
digraphs that represented were changed to ''ai,'' thus changing the whole
imperfect
The imperfect (abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to w ...
conjugation
Conjugation or conjugate may refer to:
Linguistics
* Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form
* Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language
Mathematics
* Complex conjugation, the chang ...
of all
verb
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
s. The
borrowing of ''
connoisseur
A connoisseur (French traditional, pre-1835, spelling of , from Middle-French , then meaning 'to be acquainted with' or 'to know somebody/something') is a person who has a great deal of knowledge about the fine arts; who is a keen appreciator o ...
'' into English predates this change; the modern French spelling is '.
:' → ' (was)
The spelling of some plural words whose singular form ended in ''D'' and ''T'' was modified to reinsert this mute consonant, so as to bring the plural in morphological alignment with the singular. Only '', '' retained the old form, because it was perceived that the singular and the plural had different meanings. The Académie had already tried to introduce a similar reform in 1694, but had given up with their dictionary's second edition.
:' → ' (parents)
20th century
With important dictionaries published at the turn of the 20th century, such as those of
Émile Littré
Émile Maximilien Paul Littré (; 1 February 18012 June 1881) was a French lexicographer, freemason and philosopher, best known for his ''Dictionnaire de la langue française'', commonly called .
Biography
Littré was born in Paris. His father, ...
,
Pierre Larousse
Pierre Athanase Larousse (23 October 18173 January 1875) was a French grammarian, lexicographer and encyclopaedist. He published many of the outstanding educational and reference works of 19th-century France, including the 15-volume ''Grand dict ...
,
Arsène Darmesteter
Arsène Darmesteter (5 January 1846, Château-Salins, Moselle16 November 1888, Paris) was a distinguished French philologist and man of letters.
Biography
He studied under Gaston Paris at the École pratique des hautes études, and became profess ...
, and later
Paul Robert, the Académie gradually lost much of its prestige.
Hence, new reforms suggested in 1901, 1935, and 1975 were almost totally ignored, except for the replacement of
apostrophes
The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes:
* The marking of the omission of one o ...
with
hyphen
The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (figure d ...
s in some cases of (potential)
elision
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
in 1935.
:' → ' (grandmother)
Since the 1970s, though, calls for the modernisation of French orthography have grown stronger. In 1989,
French prime minister
The prime minister of France (french: link=no, Premier ministre français), officially the prime minister of the French Republic, is the head of government of the French Republic and the leader of the Council of Ministers.
The prime minister i ...
Michel Rocard
Michel Rocard (; 23 August 1930 – 2 July 2016) was a French politician and a member of the Socialist Party (PS). He served as Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1988 to 1991 during which he created the ''Revenu minimum d'ins ...
appointed the
Superior Council of the French language to simplify the orthography by regularising it.
Rectifications of 1990
The council, with the help of some Académie members and observers from
Francophone
French became an international language in the Middle Ages, when the power of the Kingdom of France made it the second international language, alongside Latin. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the l ...
states, published reforms that it called ''""'' on 6 December 1990.
Those "rectifications", instead of changing individual spellings, published general rules or lists of modified words. In total, around 2000 words have seen their spelling changed, and French
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
was also affected.
Hyphens
Numerals are joined with hyphens:
:' → ' (700,321).
Elements of
compound nouns are fused together:
*if one element is a verb: ' → ' (wallet)
*in
bahuvrihi
A ''bahuvrihi'' compound (from sa, बहुव्रीहि, tr=bahuvrīhi, lit=much rice/having much rice, originally referring to fertile land but later denoting the quality of being wealthy or rich) is a type of compound word that denotes ...
compounds (where the individual sense of the elements has changed): ' → ' (midwife)
*in
onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...
s: ' → ' (quack).
Loan
In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...
compounds are also fused together:
:' → ' (hot dog).
:' → ', aligning the word with its modern English spelling.
Number
Compound nouns joined with hyphens (or fused) make their
plural
The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
using normal rules, that is adding a final ''s'' or ''x'', unless the modifier is an adjective (in which case both elements must agree), or the head is a
determined noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
, or a proper noun:
:' → ' (letter scales)
Loanwords also have a regular plural:
:' → ' (songs)
'
The ' (known as a
diaeresis in English) indicating exceptionally that the ''u'' is not silent in '' + vowel'' combinations is to be placed on the ''u'' instead of on the following vowel. Also, trémas are added to such words where they were not previously used:
:' → ' (''fem.'' acute)
:' → ' (ambiguity)
:' → ' (to argue)
A is also added to a ''u'' following an ' added to soften a ''g'', to prevent the ''eu'' combination being read as :
:' → ' (wager)
Accents
Verbs with their
infinitive
Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
in ''éCer'' (where C can be any consonant) change their ''
é'' to ''
è'' in the
future
The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ...
and
conditional:
:' → ' (I shall give up)
Additionally, verbs ending in ''e'' placed before an
inverted subject "je" change their ''e'' to ''è'' instead of ''é'':
:' → ' (do I like?)
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 ...
accents are removed on ''i'' and ''u'' if they are not needed to distinguish between homographs. They are retained in the
simple past
The simple past, past simple or past indefinite, sometimes called the preterite, is the basic form of the past tense in Modern English. It is used principally to describe events in the past, although it also has some other uses. Regular English v ...
and
subjunctive
The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...
of verbs:
:' → ' (driven), but ' unchanged (he must have driven), and
:' (the past participle of the very common irregular verb ', or the noun created from this participle) is kept to make the distinction with ' (the required contraction of ', which means ''some'' when used as an undetermined masculine article, or means ''of the'' when used as a preposition).
Wherever accents are missing or wrong because of past errors or omissions or a change of pronunciation, they are added or changed:
:' → ' (to receive – stolen goods)
:' → ' (event)
Accents are also added to loanwords where dictated by French pronunciation:
:' → ' (diesel)
Schwa changing into open ''e''
In verbs with an infinitive in ' or ', the
opening
Opening may refer to:
* Al-Fatiha, "The Opening", the first chapter of the Qur'an
* The Opening (album), live album by Mal Waldron
* Backgammon opening
* Chess opening
* A title sequence or opening credits
* , a term from contract bridge
* , ...
of the
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
could previously be noted either by changing the ''e'' to ''è'' or by doubling the following ''l'' or ''t'', depending on the verb in question. With this reform, only the first rule shall be used except in the cases of ', ', and their
derivatives
The derivative of a function is the rate of change of the function's output relative to its input value.
Derivative may also refer to:
In mathematics and economics
* Brzozowski derivative in the theory of formal languages
* Formal derivative, an ...
(which continue to use ''ll'' and ''tt'' respectively).
:' → ' (I label)
This applies also when those verbs are nominalized using the
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
':
:' → ' (pile)
Past participle agreement
Notwithstanding the normal rules (see
French verbs
French verbs are a part of speech in French grammar. Each verb lexeme has a collection of finite and non-finite forms in its conjugation scheme.
Finite forms depend on grammatical tense and person/number. There are eight simple tense–aspect ...
), the past
participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
' followed by an infinitive never agrees with the
object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an ...
:
:' → ' (I let them go)
This is an alleged simplification of the rules governing the agreement as applied to a past participle followed by an infinitive. The participle ' already followed an identical rule.
Miscellaneous
Many phenomena were considered as "anomalies" and thus "corrected". Some "families" of words from the same root showing inconsistent spellings were uniformized on the model of the most usual word in the "family".
:' → ' (idiocy)
This rule was also extended to suffixes in two cases, actually changing them into totally different
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology.
In English, morphemes are ...
s altogether:
:' → ' (haunch)
:' → ' (leveret)
Isolated words were adjusted to follow older reform where they had been omitted:
:' → ' (sickly sweet)
:' → ' (onion)
Lastly, some words have simply seen their spelling simplified, or fixed when it was uncertain:
:' → ' (mess)
:' → ' (
punch
Punch commonly refers to:
* Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist
* Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice
Punch may also refer to:
Places
* Pun ...
)
Application
These "rectifications" were supposed to be applied beginning in 1991 but, following a period of agitation and the publication of many books such as the Union of copy editors' attacking new rules one by one,
André Goosse
André Goosse (16 April 1926, Liège – 4 August 2019) was a Belgian grammarian. The son-in-law of Maurice Grevisse, he took over editing and updating Grevisse's last book, ''Le Bon Usage''. In 1988, he married the Belgian writer France Bastia. ...
's defending them, or
Josette Rey-Debove's accepting a few (that have been added, as alternative spellings, to
Le Robert
Le Robert (; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Wobè) is a town and the third-largest commune in the French overseas department of Martinique. It is located in the northeastern (Atlantic) side of the island of Martinique. It contains the Sainte Ros ...
), they appeared to have become, for a while, dead proposals.
21st century
In 2004, an international institutional effort to revive the 1990 spelling reforms arose. Notably, a French-
Belgian
Belgian may refer to:
* Something of, or related to, Belgium
* Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent
* Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German
*Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...
-
Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
* Swiss people
Places
* Swiss, Missouri
* Swiss, North Carolina
*Swiss, West Virginia
* Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
*Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
*Swiss Internation ...
association was set up to promote reform. In July of the same year,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
announced that the French version of their applications would soon comply with the new spelling rules. On 23 March 2005, a version of
Encarta
''Microsoft Encarta'' is a discontinued digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft from 1993 to 2009. Originally sold on CD-ROM or DVD, it was also available on the World Wide Web via an annual subscription, although later articles ...
was published using the new spelling, and, on 14 April 2005, an update of
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
was offered.
Officially,
French people
The French people (french: Français) are an ethnic group and nation primarily located in Western Europe that share a common French culture, history, and language, identified with the country of France.
The French people, especially the nati ...
, including public workers, are free for an undetermined length of time to continue using the old spelling. The new spelling is "recommended", but both old and new are considered correct.
In
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, the , which was reluctant at first to apply what it prefers to call the "modernisation", because of the opposition it received in France, announced that it was now applying its rules to new borrowings and neologisms.
More and more publications are modernizing spelling. Le Forum, from the Université de Montréal, and Les Éditions Perce-Neige have adopted the new spelling.
In 2009, several major Belgian publishing groups began applying the new spelling in their online publications.
The 2009 edition of the incorporates most of the changes. There are 6000 words that have both the traditional and alternative spellings. The 2011 edition of the Dictionnaire Larousse incorporates all of the changes.
On 3 February 2016, a report by French television channel TF1 that the reforms would be applied from the next school year caused wide outrage.
There are fringe movements to reform the language further: for example, that which is led by the linguist
Mickael Korvin
Mickael Korvin is a Franco-American author and translator. He is the creator of a French spelling reform called "nouvofrancet", an extremely simplified orthography for French.
Works
Fluent in the English and French languages, Korvin has alterna ...
who would like to radically simplify French, by eliminating accents, punctuation and capital letters, and, in 2016 inventing a new way to spell French called nouvofrancet.
See also
*
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:
...
*
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phoneme, phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1 ...
References
External links
http://www.orthographe-recommandee.info/(in French)
RENOUVO(Réseau pour la nouvelle orthographe du français, in French)
À la découverte de la nouvelle orthographe(Communauté française de Belgique, in French)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reforms of French Orthography
History of the French language
Académie Française