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Will the French ortograph be reformed? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5616 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 1 of 55 15 November 2010 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm learning French right now (currently residing in France). I friend of mine informed me of the movement to reform the spelling system, which to me seems like a great idea to facilitate the learning of the language.. French pronunciation/spelling is, in opinion, the greatest obstacle of mastering the language fluently.
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| Gatsby Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6163 days ago 57 posts - 129 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch | Message 2 of 55 15 November 2010 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Gosh, I hope not. I'm used to it the way it is. Once you know the rules, it really isn't difficult (except for place names) - much easier and regular than English spelling.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 55 15 November 2010 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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What is there to reform?
As far as I can see, the only unnecessary things are the circumflex and the N in 3rd person plural -ent verb conjugations. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 55 16 November 2010 at 10:14am | IP Logged | ||
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You could certainly throw away a lot of silent letters in endings, but there absolutely no reason to believe that it will ever happen. Written French is not a mere expression of spoken French as committed to paper, but a law unto itself, a self-contained divine expression of the national identity of the French people and something that a lot of people have spent time to learn, and no way they are going to accept anything that makes that a waste of time. Edited by Iversen on 16 November 2010 at 10:18am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| simonov Senior Member Portugal Joined 5590 days ago 222 posts - 438 votes Speaks: English | Message 5 of 55 16 November 2010 at 11:01am | IP Logged | ||
1. Get rid of the circumflex? a. quelques exemples en ce qui concerne la prononciation: votre livre, le vôtre âpre, après munir, mûrir etc. b. homophones: du, dû; sur, sûr; sure, sûre; mur, mûr etc. 2. Get rid of the N in 3rd person plural? So how would you read: ils ouvret, regardet, riet et se mettet à rire? Et puis il faut noter que: les animaux qui muent ne sont pas muets pour autant. (moult, shed hair/feathers/skin/change voice [adolescents in puberty] Edited by simonov on 16 November 2010 at 11:02am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5522 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 6 of 55 16 November 2010 at 11:25am | IP Logged | ||
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The circumflex is often an old s, so getting rid of it would lose etymological clarity. The same goes for eliminating silent endings, it would make it harder to see which words are related.
It sounds like a reform for the sake of reform, French spelling isn't hard. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 7 of 55 16 November 2010 at 1:57pm | IP Logged | ||
Q: What language do most French speakers speak? A: Latin. Spot the deliberate mistake. The circumflex is unnecessary precisely because it's main function is to indicate etymology rather than pronunciation. Etymology is external to the French language, so is irrelevant to French speakers. For me, the circumflex is useful as it helps me compare unknown words to English, Spanish and Italian equivalents, but to the average French speaker it's arbitrary and unnecessary. Good point about the -ET, Simonov, but there's still a phonetic confusion between the 3rd plural -ent and the adjectively -ent (different etc) that would be good to get rid of. My solution isn't any better than the current situation, true. But the problem is real and deserves a solution. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 8 of 55 16 November 2010 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Contrary to what has been stated here, there is a lot that can be changed in French spelling.
Although not as chaotic as that of English, French spelling is not as logical as that of Spanish. That said, French orthography has always been changing, albeit rather slowly and usually in a politicized atmosphere. I highly recommend the wiki article on the question, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reforms_of_French_orthography. The latest round of reforms dates from 1990 and attempts above all to eliminate certain inconsistencies. For example, oignon becomes ognon, nénuphar nénufar; certain circumflex accents disappear (boite, plait, diner). Again, I suggest people read the wiki article on the question before making wild statements: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectifications_orthographiques_ du_fran%C3%A7ais_en_1990#R.C3.A9sum.C3.A9_des_modifications. I personally applaud this attempt to eliminate some unnecessary complications of French spelling but lament the fact that it did not go far enough. In fact, the latest reform left nearly intact many useless grammatical complexities. Here are three examples that have been a source of useless head-scratching for both native and foreign speakers of French. Firstly, the plurals of nouns ending in -al that become either -als or -aux. The most well known example is cheval - chevaux. But we have festival - festivals. Secondly, past participles agree in gender and number with a preceding direct object. For example: la table que j'ai faite, les robes que j'ai achetées. The suggestion here is to make the participle invariable as in Spanish (la mesa que he hecho). Thirdly, eliminate that arcane set of rules surrounding the agreement of the past participles of pronominal verbs. This, by the way, is the number one problem of French grammar for everybody. People always scratch their heads over things like: elles se sont lavées ce matin, elles se sont lavé les mains. The proposal here again is to follow Spanish and make this part participle invariable. There are many other things that could be changed. Why do we say vous dites and vous faites when vous disez and vous faisez would be much more logical? In fact, French grammatical spelling could use some major housecleaning to bring the written language in line with contemporary spoken usage. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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