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 CE and has stayed more
or less the same since then, despite enormous changes to the pronunciation of the language
in the intervening years. This has resulted in a complicated relationship between spelling
and sound, especially for vowels, a multitude of silent letters, and a large number of homophones
(e.g., saint/sein/sain/seing/ceins/ceint (all pronounced [sɛ̃]), sang/sans/cent (all pronounced
[sɑ̃])). Later attempts to respell some words in accordance with their Latin etymologies
further increased the number of silent letters (e.g., temps vs. older tens – 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 a pronunciation, is much more ambiguous.
== Alphabet == The French alphabet is based on the 26 letters
of the Latin alphabet, uppercase and lowercase, with five diacritics and two orthographic
ligatures.
The letters ⟨w⟩ and ⟨k⟩ are rarely used except in loanwords and regional words.
The phoneme /w/ sound is usually written ⟨ou⟩; the /k/ sound is usually written ⟨c⟩ anywhere
but before ⟨e, i, y⟩, ⟨qu⟩ before ⟨e, i, y⟩, and sometimes ⟨que⟩ at
the ends of words. However, ⟨k⟩ is common in the metric prefix kilo- (originally from
Greek χίλια khilia "a thousand"): kilogramme, kilomètre, kilowatt, kilohertz, etc.
== Diacritics == The usual diacritics are the acute (⟨´⟩, accent
aigu), the grave (⟨`⟩, accent grave), the circumflex (⟨ˆ⟩, accent circonflexe),
the diaeresis (⟨¨⟩, tréma), and the cedilla (⟨¸ ⟩, cédille). Diacritics
have no effect on the primary alphabetical order.
Acute accent or accent aigu (é): over e, indicates uniquely the sound /e/. 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. Grave accent or accent grave (à, è, ù):
over a or u, used primarily to distinguish homophones: à ("to") vs. a ("has"), ou ("or")
vs. où ("where"; the letter ù is used only in this word). Over an e, indicates the sound
/ɛ/. Circumflex or accent circonflexe (â, ê,
î, ô, û): over a, e and o, indicates the sound /ɑ/, /ɛ/ and /o/, respectively, but
the distinction a /a/ vs. â /ɑ/ tends to disappear in Parisian French, so they are
both pronounced [a]. In Belgian French, ê is pronounced [ɛː]. 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). 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 of sur (on).
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. 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 canton de la Marne, formerly Aÿ-Champagne),
Rue des Cloÿs (alley in the 18th arrondissement of Paris), 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 (place in commune
de l'Aisne and family name), and Le Blanc de Nicolaÿ (an insurance company in eastern
France). The diaeresis on u appears in the Biblical proper names Archélaüs, Capharnaüm,
Emmaüs, Ésaü, and Saül, as well as French names such as 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 use French pronunciation, such as Kärcher (trademark of a pressure washer).
Cedilla or cédille (ç): under c, indicates that it is pronounced /s/ rather than /k/.
Thus je lance "I throw" (with c = [s] before e), je lançais "I was throwing" (c would
be pronounced [k] 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., cañon, 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 Académie française 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 ligatures œ and æ have orthographic
value. For determining alphabetical order, these ligatures are treated like the sequences
oe and ae.
=== Œ === (French: o, e dans l'o or o, e collés/liés)
This ligature is a mandatory contraction of ⟨oe⟩ in certain words. Some of these are
native French words, with the pronunciation /œ/ or /ø/, e.g., sœur "sister" /sœʁ/,
œuvre "work (of art)" /œvʁ/. Note that 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
/e/, but in recent years a spelling pronunciation with /ø/ has taken hold, e.g., œsophage
/ezɔfaʒ/ or /øzɔfaʒ/, Œdipe /edip/ or /ødip/ etc. The pronunciation with /e/ is
often seen to be more correct. When œ is found after the letter c, the c
can be pronounced /k/ in some cases (cœur), or /s/ in others (cœlacanthe).
The ligature œ is not used when both letters contribute different sounds. For example,
when ⟨o⟩ is part of a prefix (coexister), or when ⟨e⟩ is part of a suffix (minoen),
or in the word moelle and its derivatives.
=== Æ === (French: a, e dans l'a 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
/e/, like ⟨é⟩. The sequence ⟨ae⟩ 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 ⟨ph⟩ in words like téléphone, ⟨th⟩ in words like théorème, or ⟨ch⟩
in chaotique. In the second case, a digraph is due to an archaic pronunciation, such as
⟨eu⟩, ⟨au⟩, ⟨oi⟩, ⟨ai⟩, and ⟨œu⟩, or is merely a convenient way to
expand the twenty-six-letter alphabet to cover all relevant phonemes, as in ⟨ch⟩, ⟨on⟩,
⟨an⟩, ⟨ou⟩, ⟨un⟩, and ⟨in⟩. Some cases are a mixture of these or are used
for purely pragmatic reasons, such as ⟨ge⟩ for /ʒ/ in il mangeait ('he ate'), where
the ⟨e⟩ serves to indicate a "soft" ⟨g⟩ inherent in the verb's root.
== Sound to spelling correspondences ==
=== Consonants and combinations of consonant letters
===
=== Vowels and combinations of vowel letters ===
=== Combinations of vowel and consonant letters
=== ^1 These combinations are pronounced /j/ after
a, e, eu, œ, ou, and ue, all but the last of which are pronounced normally and are not
influenced by the i. For example, in rail, the a is pronounced /a/; in mouiller, the
ou is pronounced /u/. Ue, however, which only occurs in such combinations after c and g,
is pronounced /œ/ as opposed to /ɥɛ/: orgueil, cueillir, accueil, etc. These combinations
are never pronounced /j/ after o or u (except -uill-, which is /ɥij/: aiguille, juillet);
in that case, the vowel + i combination as well as the l is pronounced normally, although
as usual, the pronunciation of u after g and q is somewhat unpredictable: poil, huile,
équilibre [ekilibʁ] but équilatéral [ekɥilateʁal], etc.
== 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 ⟨ph⟩, ⟨th⟩, and ⟨ch⟩ normally represent /f/, /t/, and /k/ in Greek
loanwords, respectively; and the ligatures ⟨æ⟩ and ⟨œ⟩ in Greek loanwords represent
the same vowel as ⟨é⟩ (/e/). Further, many words in the international scientific
vocabulary 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 the Roman conquest as the Latin languages began to replace them: written (Classical)
Latin and spoken (vulgar) Latin. Classical Latin, taught in schools, remained the language
of religious services, of scientific works, of legislative acts and of certain literary
works. Vulgar Latin, spoken by the Roman soldiers and merchants, and adopted by the natives,
evolved slowly, taking the forms of different spoken Roman vernaculars according to the
region of the country. These vernaculars divided into two branches in the Gallo-Romance language
family, the langues d'oïl north of the Loire and the langues d'oc in the south.
=== 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, 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 /ø/ or /œ/ (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 Académie française,
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 < Vulgar Latin *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). Use of ai in place of oi where pronounced
/ɛ/ rather than /wa/. 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 (Conseil supérieur de la langue française) in Paris. He designated
experts — among them linguists, representatives of the Académie française and lexicographers
— to propose standardizing several points, a few of those points being:
The uniting hyphen in all compound numeralsi.e. trente-et-unThe plural of compound words,
the second element of which always takes the plural sFor example un après-midi, des après-midisThe
circumflex accent ⟨ˆ⟩ disappears on all u's and i's except for words in which it is
needed for differentiationAs 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 mourirQuickly, 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 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, the guillemet all require a non-breaking space 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.
== See also == Punctuation in French
Elision (French) French phonology
French braille French manual alphabet
Circumflex in French
== Notes