I’ve recently come across a French name ending with an e grave: Jettè
How is it pronounced, and why is it there?
I don’t recall ever seeing a French name (or word) ending with è ?
I wonder if the last “e” is to be pronounced the same way as the first. If there was no accent, the second e wouldn’t be pronounced at all. So could this be a specific and unique name in which the second e is supposed to be pronounced?
Like Grand Jettè?
Jet-tay or jaw-tay
If it is a French name, then è = /ɛ/ (I guess). Cf. é = /e/, as in grand jeté
What does that mean
Most likely, zhet-uh.
No accent would be “zhet.”
Acute accent (é) would be “zhet-ay.”
The accent grave would be the “e” would be pronounced, but not as “ay.”
It is an unusual construction, though.
It’s a ballet term.
There was a Night Court episode where Harry Stone got a (fake) autograph of Mel Tormè (sic).
I have been to the ballet, but am not familiar with that spelling (or the one in your link with an acute accent)
-ès seems more common
A quick glance through the dictionary shows -è basically used in foreign (e.g., Greek) words like koinè, psychè, archè
As far as I know, è gets pronounced as “eh” or /ɛ/. É gets pronounced as /e/, which is not quite “ay” but usually gets heard as “ay” by English speakers.
One guess is that it’s a borrowed name from another language and the è is there to show it should be pronounced. I can’t find any examples of it being a French name.
Have we ruled out the possibility of a misspelling? There are Canadians named “Jetté”.
I think that’s the case. The individual in question was a judge in Quebec in the 1880s - I think this wiki article is he:
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council got it wrong.
Yeah, a typo would seem most likely.
Correct, é is /e/ but English often hypercorrects it to /eɪ/.
The grave e is not terribly common in French and mostly would make it more explicit that it’s /ε/ instead of /ə/ as might otherwise be used. Could be a rare name, could be a misspelling, could be khreyatyve spelling.
I’m pretty sure it’s just a typo. I can’t think of any French words ending in è.
Acute accents at the end are extremely frequent, and there is indeed a word spelled jeté (“thrown”).
The closest I could find (and I’m not a French speaker) – and this may not technically coundtbecause it depends on whether you consider the hyphen a word break or not – is in the inverted question form like pensè-je or parlè-je. Apparently, those traditionally have an acute accent, but in 1990, the French language council decided it more accurately should be a grave. So that’s kindasortamaybe an example.
Wow, I’ve never heard of that decision. It goes to show how strictly adhered to these edicts are…
Actually, even the traditional form is rarely used, as it sounds (and looks) soooo precious and stilted.