# Sacre bleu! Le circonflex va disparaitre!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sacre-bleu-le-circonflex-va-disparaitre/745219
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [February 5, 2016, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sacre-bleu-le-circonflex-va-disparaitre/745219 "2016-02-05T11:13:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2016, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sacre-bleu-le-circonflex-va-disparaitre/745219/21 "2016-02-06T08:23:44Z")
> [@JCeallaighMap](#):
>
> Je suit dacors. đ
âŠ
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2016, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sacre-bleu-le-circonflex-va-disparaitre/745219/22 "2016-02-06T08:40:00Z")
Irish is better than Scottish, isnât it? More recent reform or something. E.g. for all i know pog mo thoin is spelled poghbhdh moth thoindhbh in Scottish đ
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### Author:  [@Chicken\_Fingers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicken_Fingers)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2016, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sacre-bleu-le-circonflex-va-disparaitre/745219/23 "2016-02-06T08:56:41Z")
Yay, more words I can appear to spell right in French. I always forget the circumflex.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sacre-bleu-le-circonflex-va-disparaitre/745219/24 "2016-02-06T16:14:30Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> Irish is better than Scottish, isnât it? More recent reform or something. E.g. for all i know pog mo thoin is spelled poghbhdh moth thoindhbh in Scottish đ
I donât know anything about Scottish. Since Iâm partly of Irish heritage, I bought a book on Irish (and my brother, being more ambitious than I am, actually learned to speak it a little.) Like English, it has a lot of âfossilizedâ spellings that have remained the same as they were originally even though pronunciation has changed. If Scottish is worse than Irish, it must be truly horrible. đ
(And yeah, I understand what âpug mo thoinâ means. It was usually pronounced âpugamahoneâ in the Bronx. :D)
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### Author:  [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2016, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sacre-bleu-le-circonflex-va-disparaitre/745219/25 "2016-02-15T19:27:35Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> Yes, thatâs true. But itâs not nearly as reliable as it is in Spanish. Saying that itâs only âslightly less coupled than it is in Spanishâ is wrong.
>
> There are two aspects to how orthographicly reliably a language is:
>
> 1. How reliably you can spell it from hearing it.
>
> 2. How reliably you can pronounce it from seeing it spelled.
>
> English is poor on both counts. French is very poor on 1, better on 2. Spanish is very good on both.
>
> Although not a major language, Irish is probably worse than English in retaining obsolete spellings.
Hmm, thatâs interesting. You believe French is worse (very poor) on 1. than English (merely âpoorâ)? That, I think, would mean that you think that French has more homophones than English, or at least more possible ways to represent a single sound. My studies of French are meager and long ago, but that still seems absurd to me. Iâm fascinated by the question though, so I hope others will weigh in.
On 2., yes French has some silent letters, and sometimes letters that are pronounced in one context, but not another. Iâm thinking of âentâ in conjugated verbs, and the âsâ at the end of word spoken before another word that starts with a vowel. Those are more or less consistent though, right? If you know the spelling and a tiny bit of context, than you still know how to pronounce the word. The one counterexample Iâve ever been told of is âfilsâ, where the pronunciation varies by meaning. (IIRC wire vs. sons.) That puts French in an entirely different solar system from English with regards to your aspect 2. Maybe Irish Gaelic is in the same solar system. Can I see some examples?
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### Author:  [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2016, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sacre-bleu-le-circonflex-va-disparaitre/745219/26 "2016-02-15T21:32:37Z")
QĂ»ĂȘl dĂŽmmĂągĂȘ!
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2016, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sacre-bleu-le-circonflex-va-disparaitre/745219/27 "2016-02-15T21:40:18Z")
> [@Greg\_Charles](#):
>
> If you know the spelling and a tiny bit of context, than you still know how to pronounce the word. The one counterexample Iâve ever been told of is âfilsâ, where the pronunciation varies by meaning. (IIRC wire vs. sons.)
Also âtousâ (TOO â âeveryâ) and âtousâ (TOOSE â âallâ). But I agree with your general comment.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2016, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sacre-bleu-le-circonflex-va-disparaitre/745219/28 "2016-02-16T00:54:54Z")
> [@Quartz](#):
>
> In a lot of cases, the French circumflex indicates an elided S (coĂ»t, maĂźtresse), and it seems silly to dump it for I and U but keep it for E (fenĂȘtre).
I remembered from French diction class that circumflex on E changes its pronunciation. It can take an E that would normally be a schwa or silent and make it make the sound as in the English word âjet.â
It also changes for A and O, and I see that those also arenât losing their circumflex. It doesnât change for I and U, though, so it makes much sense to drop them.
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_the_circumflex_in_French#Vowel_length_and_quality) gives the following pairs of words that are pronounced differently:
pĂąte vs. patte, tĂąche vs. tache
prĂȘt vs. prĂ©
hĂŽte vs. hotte, cĂŽte vs. cote
I can try to explain the differences in the vowels using English orthography, though itâs a bit difficult due to dialects. _PĂąte_ is closer to pot while _patte_ is closer to pat. (not exactly the same, but closer.) _Pret_ is closer to âprepâ without the final P, while _prĂ©_ is closer to âpray,â but without the final âyâ sound. And _cĂŽte_ is closer to âcoatâ while _cote_ is closer to âcaughtâ (in dialects that pronounce âcotâ and âcaughtâ differently.)
(Wikipedia also says that eu is different: _jeĂ»ne_ [ÊĂžn] vs. _jeune_ [ÊĆn]. Unfortunately, I canât really describe the difference between those in terms of English orthography. All I can say is that your jaw is open more for _jeune_.)
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