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A detail of French orthography | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5474 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 1 of 10 16 April 2011 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've noticed that, in printed French material, the capitalized equivalents of "à" and "é" almost always lose their accents, I assume due to typing constraints. (Example: I usually see "aux Etats-Unis" although I could also theoretically type "aux États-Unis".)
My question is, when handwriting French, does one also practice this technique? Has it become common enough to see the accent left off in printing that people have carried this over to writing? Or would it just be confusing to do that? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| FrostBlast Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4880 days ago 168 posts - 254 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Icelandic | Message 2 of 10 17 April 2011 at 1:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's really up to the person who's writing. I personally always put my accents whether the letter is capital or not, as do most people of my age (or a little older, and pretty much all who are younger). I do know that for people of my parents' generation, it's much more common not to put the accents on capital letters. So I guess it's a matter of "language fashion" and education, in some way.
By the way, this does NOT affect the C-cédille ç Ç. You **always** put the cédille on those, be it a capital C or not. Edited by FrostBlast on 17 April 2011 at 1:10am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ikipou Diglot Newbie Norway lingua.ikipou.com/ Joined 4771 days ago 24 posts - 23 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 3 of 10 17 April 2011 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In theory capital letters should have the accent but, thanks to bad software/keyboard, it is now common not to have it.
Some more info: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_des_majuscules_en_fran%C3 %A7ais#Accentuation_des_majuscules_et_des_capitales 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5162 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 4 of 10 17 April 2011 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My understanding was always that people in Québec always used them, but that for people
in France, it was quite acceptable not to use accents on capitals. FrostBlast's account contradicts that a little, but my experience differs and I can't say I've noticed older people not using accents in Québec. In my job as a translator, we'd never let an unaccented capital go uncorrected. Edited by Arekkusu on 17 April 2011 at 5:54pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| FrostBlast Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4880 days ago 168 posts - 254 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Icelandic | Message 5 of 10 18 April 2011 at 12:35am | IP Logged | |||||
It might differ a lot more than I realized, and for other reasons than those I thought, then. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5474 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 6 of 10 18 April 2011 at 1:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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This is really interesting... so far it looks like there isn't a single absolute rule (although I'm sure L'Académie Française would have something to say about that!). I guess for now I'm going to keep it in handwriting and leave it off in typing, because on my computer, accents on capitals tend to look a bit deformed on the screen.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5162 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 7 of 10 18 April 2011 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
There is no rule that states that accents should be removed from capitals; it's just that some people don't use them. If I were you, I'd use accents regardless of whether it's lower or upper case. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5474 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 8 of 10 18 April 2011 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ah, okay. So you think it doesn't matter if my accent aigu ends up looking like a sort of smeared top line of the E? I suppose everyone would know what it's supposed to be, so it wouldn't really be a problem... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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