- French alphabet
The French alphabet is based on the
Latin alphabet . It uses the standard 26 letters. The words in the column "Letter name in French" are sometimes used when discussing the letters (compare English words such as "aich").Letter names
:
La nouvelle épellation
In "la nouvelle épellation" system, the consonant letters were read as follows: "be, ke, de, fe, gue, he, je, ke, le, me, ne, pe, ke, re, se, te, ve, we, kse, ze". Though more phonetically based than the traditional system, it never took hold. [cite book | first=Maurice | last=Grevisse | authorlink=Maurice Grevisse | year=1980 | title=
Le Bon Usage : Grammaire française avec des Remarques sur la langue française d'aujourd'hui | edition=11th ed. | publisher=Duculot | location=Paris-Gembloux | id=ISBN 2-8011-0242-3 ]Ligatures
Special ligatures exist for some words:
* œ (œil, fœtus, bœuf...)
* æ (et cætera, tænia, ex æquo...)Notes
* 'W' and 'K' are rarely used except in
loan words or regional words, 'ou' is used to represent the /w/ sound; while 'Q' appears more frequently than in English.
* vowels are A, E, I, O, U, sometimes Y;
* semi-vowels are Y, rarely W (except regionally, for instance in Belgium);
* usualdiacritic marks are acute ( ´ ), grave ( ` ),circumflex ( ˆ ),diaeresis (called "tréma" in French) ( ¨ ), and thecedilla ( ¸ ). The most frequent combinations are: à â ç é è ê ë î ï ô û ù ü ÿ.Fact|date=April 2008 Diacritics have no impact on the primary alphabetical order.
* thetilde diacritical mark ( ˜ ), used only above n, is occasionally used with the French alphabet, for well-known proper names of Spanish origin that have been incorporated in the language (El Niño , ...). Like the other diacritics, the tilde has no impact on the primary alphabetical order.
* Diacritics are not required on capital letters, however they tend to be used more often now than in the past.ee also
*
Alphabets derived from the Latin
*French orthography References
External links
* [http://www.parisbypod.com/2007/08/14/french-alphabet/ Recording of 3 different voices pronouncing the French alphabet]
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