This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
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. Even in the late 17th century, with the publication of the first French dictionary by the Académie française, 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 homophones, e.g., saint/sein/sain/seing/ceins/ceint (all pronounced [sɛ̃]) and sang/sans/cent (all pronounced [sɑ̃]). This is conspicuous in verbs: parles (you speak), parle (I speak / one speaks) and parlent (they speak) all sound like [paʁl]. Later attempts to respell some words in accordance with their Latin etymologies further increased the number of silent letters (e.g., temps vs. older tans – compare English "tense", which reflects the original spelling – and vingt vs. older vint).
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, diaeresis, acute, and grave accents, as well as ligatures. A system of braille has been developed for people who are visually impaired.
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the publication of the first French dictionary by the Académie française, there were attempts to reform Frenchorthography. This has resulted in a complicated...
Frenchorthography was already (more or less) fixed and (from a phonological point of view) outdated when its lexicography developed in the late 17th century...
The circumflex (ˆ) is one of the five diacritics used in Frenchorthography. It may appear on the vowels a, e, i, o, and u, for example â in pâté. The...
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word boundaries, emphasis, and...
see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. A phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written...
"debt"): Old French doit > French doigt "finger" (Latin digitus) Old French pie > French pied "foot" [Latin pes (stem: ped-)] Frenchorthography is morphophonemic...
[ɸ] or /v/. In Frenchorthography, ⟨f⟩ is used to represent /f/. It may also be silent at the end of words. In Spanish orthography, ⟨f⟩ is used to represent...
was largely caused by the Norman language's planned adaptation to Frenchorthography. When Norse Vikings from modern day Scandinavia arrived in Neustria...
Françaises (French for "The French Letters"), a French literary publication Frenchorthography, the spelling and punctuation of the French language This...
North American, European or African. The GDT uses the 1990 Reforms of Frenchorthography with loanwords and neologisms. It also prioritises usage of each word...
The orthographic depth of an alphabetic orthography indicates the degree to which a written language deviates from simple one-to-one letter–phoneme correspondence...
/ / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers...
it mostly represents a vowel and seldom a consonant, and in other orthographies it may represent a vowel or a consonant. In Latin, Y was named I graeca...
represents the close back rounded vowel /u/ or a similar vowel. In Frenchorthography the letter represents the close front rounded vowel /y/; /u/ is represented...
language and some Spanish dialects, prominently Chilean Spanish. Frenchorthography classifies words that begin with this letter in two ways, one of which...
transcription are "Pushkin" and "Pouchkine", respectively the English and Frenchorthographic transcriptions of the surname "Пу́шкин" in the name Алекса́ндр Пу́шкин...
jurisdiction was called the Constabulary (connestablie; or in modern Frenchorthography which sticks closer to the correct pronunciation: connétablie). The...
social ambition. But the influence of Frenchorthography and prerevolutionary class structure on how English orthography styles surnames today is outweighed...
they are represented in French, which he feared would inhibit the learning of French.: 431 The creation of the orthography was essentially an articulation...
MARK Frenchorthography specifies a narrow non-breaking space before the question mark. (e.g., "Que voulez-vous boire ?"); in English orthography, no space...
Reforms of Russian orthography German orthography reform of 1996 Belarusian orthography reform of 1933 Reforms of Frenchorthography Dum-Tragut, Jasmine...
words List of language orthographiesFrenchorthography German orthography Greek orthography Hangul orthography Italian orthography Latin spelling and pronunciation...
à, è, and ù (as well as the acute-accented é), which are part of Frenchorthography, have their own separate keys. Dead-grave and dead-acute (and dead-tilde)...
The orthography of the Greek language ultimately has its roots in the adoption of the Greek alphabet in the 9th century BC. Some time prior to that, one...
French conjugation refers to the variation in the endings of French verbs (inflections) depending on the person (I, you, we, etc), tense (present, future...
Evans around 1840. The Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics are based on Frenchorthography with letters organized into syllables. It was primarily used by speakers...
learn French script. The French would mispronounce chữ quốc ngữ in Frenchorthography, particularly people's names and place names. Thus, the French constantly...
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