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30-590: Maître (spelled Maitre according to post-1990 spelling rules ) is a commonly used honorific for lawyers , judicial officers and notaries in France , Belgium , Switzerland and French-speaking parts of Canada . It is often written in its abbreviated form M or plural M in French and Mtre in Canadian English . The origin of the honorific Maître is from the civil law tradition, and

60-612: A ı ^ {\displaystyle tr{\hat {a\imath }}} ( French pronunciation: [tʁɛ] for je trais ) as opposed to t r a ı ¨ {\displaystyle tr{\ddot {a\imath }}} ( [tʁa.i] for je trahis ). Even these groups, however, did not represent true diphthongs (such as the English try / t r aɪ / ), but rather adjacent vowels pronounced separately without an intervening consonant . As French no longer had any true diphthongs,

90-751: A u ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {au}}} , e u ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {eu}}} , o u ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {ou}}} , are representations of diphthongs, such as m a ı ^ {\displaystyle m{\hat {a\imath }}} , p l e ı ^ n {\displaystyle pl{\hat {e\imath }}n} , m o ı ^ {\displaystyle m{\hat {o\imath }}} , m o y ^ {\displaystyle m{\hat {oy}}} , c

120-732: A u ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {au}}} , e u ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {eu}}} , o u ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {ou}}} , diphthongorum notae, ut m a ı ^ {\displaystyle m{\hat {a\imath }}} , p l e ı ^ n {\displaystyle pl{\hat {e\imath }}n} , m o ı ^ {\displaystyle m{\hat {o\imath }}} , m o y ^ {\displaystyle m{\hat {oy}}} , c

150-783: A u ^ s e {\displaystyle c{\hat {au}}se} , f l e u ^ r {\displaystyle fl{\hat {eu}}r} , p o u ^ r {\displaystyle p{\hat {ou}}r} , id est maius , plenus , mihi , mei , causa , flos , pro . Translation : a ı ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {a\imath }}} , e ı ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {e\imath }}} , o ı ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {o\imath }}} , o y ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {oy}}} ,

180-465: A u ^ s e {\displaystyle c{\hat {au}}se} , f l e u ^ r {\displaystyle fl{\hat {eu}}r} , p o u ^ r {\displaystyle p{\hat {ou}}r} , or, in Latin, maius , plenus , mihi , mei , causa , flos , pro . Sylvius was quite aware that the circumflex

210-411: A circumflex by association with the second person plural, thus: All instances of the first and second persons plural of the preterite take the circumflex in the conjugation ending except the verb haïr , due to its necessary dieresis ( nous haïmes , vous haïtes ). In general, vowels bearing the circumflex accent were historically long (for example, through compensatory lengthening associated with

240-419: A closed /e/ as a result of vowel harmony : compare bête /bɛt/ and bêta /bɛta/ with bêtise /betiz/ and abêtir [abetiʁ] , or tête /tɛt/ and têtard /tɛtaʁ/ vs. têtu /tety/ . In varieties of French where open/closed syllable adjustment ( loi de position ) applies, the presence of a circumflex accent is not taken into account in the mid vowel alternations /e/ ~ /ɛ/ and /o/ ~ /ɔ/ . This

270-604: A pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. He justifies its usage in his work Iacobii Sylvii Ambiani In Linguam Gallicam Isagoge una, cum eiusdem Grammatica Latinogallica ex Hebraeis Graecis et Latinus authoribus ( An Introduction to the Gallic (French) Language, And Its Grammar With Regard to Hebrew, Latin and Greek Authors ) published by Robert Estienne in 1531. A kind of grammatical survey of French written in Latin,

300-591: Is still widely used in France and Québec . Circumflex in French#Orthographic reform The circumflex, called accent circonflexe , has three primary functions in French: And in certain words, it is simply an orthographic convention. The circumflex first appeared in written French in the 16th century. It was borrowed from Ancient Greek , and combines the acute accent and the grave accent . Grammarian Jacques Dubois (known as Sylvius)

330-472: Is the case in southern Metropolitan French, where for example dôme is pronounced /dɔm/ as opposed to /dom/ (as indicated by the orthography, and as pronounced in northern Metropolitan varieties). The merger of /ɑ/ and /a/ is widespread in Parisian and Belgian French, resulting for example in the realization of the word âme as /am/ instead of /ɑm/ . Although normally the grave accent serves

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360-761: Is the first writer known to have used the Greek symbol in his writing (although he wrote in Latin ). Several grammarians of the French Renaissance attempted to prescribe a precise usage for the diacritic in their treatises on language. The modern usage of the circumflex accent became standardized in the 18th or 19th century. Sylvius used the circumflex to indicate so-called "false diphthongs ". Early modern French as spoken in Sylvius' time had coalesced all its true diphthongs into phonetic monophthongs ; that is,

390-413: Is these precepts that you should follow concerning the accents of the French language. All diligent printers should also observe these rules, because such things greatly enrich printing and demonstrate that nothing is left to chance." In many cases, the circumflex indicates the historical presence of a phoneme which over the course of linguistic evolution became silent, and then disappeared altogether from

420-476: The Académie Française . In more recently introduced neologisms , however, the French lexicon was enriched with Latin-based words which retained their /s/ both in pronunciation and orthography, although the historically evolved word may have let the /s/ drop in favor of a circumflex. Thus, many learned words, or words added to the French vocabulary since then often keep both the pronunciation and

450-715: The book relies heavily on the comparison of ancient languages to his contemporary French and explained the specifics of his language. At that time, all linguistic treatises used classical Latin and Greek as their models. Sylvius presents the circumflex in his list of typographic conventions, stating: a ı ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {a\imath }}} , e ı ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {e\imath }}} , o ı ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {o\imath }}} , o y ^ {\displaystyle {\hat {oy}}} ,

480-475: The consonant loss described above). Vowel length is no longer distinctive in most varieties of modern French, but some of the older length distinctions now correspond to differences in vowel quality, and the circumflex can be used to indicate these differences orthographically. The circumflex does not affect the pronunciation of the letters "i" or "u" (except in the combination "eû": jeûne [ʒøn] vs. jeune [ʒœn] ). The diacritic disappears in related words if

510-464: The diaeresis alone would have sufficed to distinguish between ambiguous vowel pairs. His circumflex was entirely unnecessary. As such the tréma became standardized in French orthography, and Sylvius' circumflex usage never caught on. But the grammarian had pointed out an important orthographical problem of the time. At that time, the combination eu indicated two different pronunciations: Sylvius' proposals were never adopted per se , but he opened

540-456: The door for discussion among French grammarians to improve and disambiguate French orthography. Étienne Dolet , in his Maniere de bien traduire d'une langue en aultre : d'aduantage de la punctuation de la langue Francoyse, plus des accents d'ycelle (1540), uses the circumflex (this time as a punctuation mark written between two letters) to show three metaplasms : Thus Dolet uses the circumflex to indicate lost or silent phonemes, one of

570-416: The former medieval diphthong "eu" when pronounced /y/ would often, in the 18th century, take a circumflex in order to distinguish homophones , such as deu → dû (from devoir vs. du = de + le ); creu → crû (from croître vs. cru from croire ) ; seur → sûr (the adjective vs. the preposition sur ), etc. In words derived from Ancient Greek , the circumflex over o often indicates

600-522: The grave accent. However, it does allow one to remove certain ambiguities. For example, in words that underwent the change of "eu" to "û", the circumflex avoids possible homography with other words containing "u": Francophone experts, aware of the difficulties and inconsistencies of the circumflex, proposed in 1990 a simplified orthography abolishing the circumflex over the letters u and i except in cases where its absence would create ambiguities and homographs. These recommendations, although published in

630-409: The historical presence graphically, but without much success. Notably, 17th century playwright Pierre Corneille , in printed editions of his plays, used the " long s " (ſ) to indicate silent "s" and the traditional form for the /s/ sound when pronounced ( tempeſte , haſte , teſte vs. peste , funeste , chaste ). The circumflex was officially introduced into the 1740 edition of the dictionary of

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660-523: The orthography. The most common phenomenon involving the circumflex relates to /s/ before a consonant. Around the time of the Battle of Hastings in 1066, such post-vocalic /s/ sounds had begun to disappear before hard consonants in many words, being replaced by a compensatory elongation of the preceding vowel, which was maintained into the 18th century. The silent /s/ remained orthographically for some time, and various attempts were made to distinguish

690-463: The other hand, many learned words ending in -ole , -ome , and -one (but not tracing back to a Greek omega) acquired a circumflex accent and the closed /o/ pronunciation by analogy with words like cône and diplôme : trône (θρόνος), pôle (πόλος), binôme (from Latin binomium ). The circumflex accent was also used to indicate French vowels deriving from Greek eta (η), but this practice has not always survived in modern orthography. For example,

720-473: The presence of the /s/ from Latin. For example: More examples of a disappearing 's' that has been marked with an accent circumflex can be seen in the words below: Here are some instances where French has lost an S but other Romance Languages have not: The circumflex also serves as a vestige of other lost letters, particularly letters in hiatus where two vowels have contracted into one phoneme, such as aage → âge ; baailler → bâiller , etc. Likewise,

750-482: The presence of the Greek letter omega (ω) when the word is pronounced with the sound /o/ : diplôme (δίπλωμα), cône (κῶνος). Where Greek omega does not correspond to /o/ in French, the circumflex is not used: comédie /kɔmedi/ (κωμῳδία). This rule is sporadic, because many such words are written without the circumflex; for instance, axiome and zone have unaccented vowels despite their etymology (Greek ἀξίωμα and ζώνη) and pronunciation ( /aksjom/ , /zon/ ). On

780-415: The pronunciation changes (particularly when the vowel in question is no longer in the stressed final syllable). For example: In other cases, the presence or absence of the circumflex in derived words is not correlated with pronunciation, for example with the vowel "u": There are nonetheless notable exceptions to the pronunciation rules given here. For instance, in non-final syllables, "ê" can be realized as

810-416: The purpose of differentiating homographs in French ( là ~ la, où ~ ou, çà ~ ça, à ~ a, etc. ), the circumflex, for historical reasons, has come to serve a similar role. In fact, almost all the cases where the circumflex is used to distinguish homographs can be explained by the reasons above: it would therefore be false to declare that it is in certain words a sign placed solely to distinguish homographs, as with

840-445: The spelling théorême (θεώρημα) was later replaced by théorème , while the Greek letter is still spelled bêta . Some circumflexes appear for no known reason. It is thought to give words an air of prestige, like a crown (thus suprême and voûte ). Linguistic interference sometimes accounts for the presence of a circumflex. This is the case in the first person plural of the preterite indicative (or passé simple ), which adds

870-539: The uses for which the diacritic is still used today. Although not all his suggested usages were adopted, his work has allowed insight into the historical phonetics of French. Dolet summarized his own contributions with these words: "Ce ſont les preceptions" [préceptes] , "que tu garderas quant aux accents de la langue Francoyse. Leſquels auſsi obſerueront tous diligents Imprimeurs : car telles choſes enrichiſſent fort l'impreſsion, & demõſtrent" [démontrent] , "que ne faiſons rien par ignorance. " Translation: "It

900-407: Was purely a graphical convention. He showed that these diphthongs, even at that time, had been reduced to monophthongs, and used the circumflex to "join" the two letters that had historically been diphthongs into one phoneme . When two adjacent vowels were to be pronounced independently, Sylvius proposed using the diaeresis , called the tréma in French. Sylvius gives the example t r

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