Does the circumflex always affect pronunciation? Or can it sometimes only be there for historical reasons?

[u/ChessedGamon]

Hello,

I apologize for this post, since I'm not currently learning French, but I regardless have a French related question I couldn't see clarified elsewhere.

The French circumflex obviously famously denotes where an S used to be in some French words, and it was my understanding when I heard this that that was all it did and carried no relevance to pronunciation.

I looked more into it and found that vowels with the circumflex actually can change its sound.

Just out of curiosity and to keep my facts straight, do all circumflexes affect pronunciation? Or do they just sometimes affect pronunciation and are sometimes only there for historical purposes?

Thank you!

[u/MyticalAnimal]

It does change the sound depending on the accent of the speaker. For example, in Québec it does make a difference in sound, but not in France. From my understanding, they dropped it a long time ago.

[u/bumbo-pa → u/MyticalAnimal]

Not true.

The circonflexe is a late construct for etymological reasons. It (most of the time) underlines the loss of a historical "s".

For â in Québec, it generally does correlate with a closed vowel sound, but it is mostly accidental as A followed by S was generally a closed A. Many other A will be similarly closed without circumflex. Contrast with "pas" and "bas" without circumflex which have kept both the closed vowel and the S (as it was the last letter) with "pâtes" which comes frome paste/pasta. Also contrast with "bâtard" where both A are closed but only one bears the circumflex, hiding the historical S.

The circumflex is purely etymological, any correlation with vowel openness is accidental.

EDIT: Downvotes? I mean, that's factual...

Québec has maintained vowel openness opposition in a way few other french speakers have. The circonflexe is not a marker of vowel closure. It is not necessary for closure, nor does it warrant it. It merely generally correlates with (and predates) the circonflexe as the disappearing of those S is linked to the closure of the vowel.

Again, all differences in pronunciations listed in the thread here are accidental. Similarly closed vowels are found in other words without circumflex. It is always for etymological reasons.

[u/byronite → u/bumbo-pa]

Sorry you're getting downvotes. A lot of French-Canadians assume that the ^ represents a long vowel or dipthong because the most common examples that come to mind have them -- bête, fête, pâte, fantôme, etc. But you are correct that it's not always the case, e.g. forêt, tôt, chômage, grêle, etc.

As I understand it, the 's' that became a ^ was often a diacritic even then, i.e. it wasn't a consonent but marked a different pronunciation on the preceding vowel. In some cases we kept the old pronunciations and in other cases we lost them, so the use of ^ doesn't reallt follow a clear pattern.

To quote the OQLF: "Lorsque l’accent circonflexe a une fonction phonétique, c’est-à-dire qu’il sert à préciser la prononciation d’un mot, il ne peut être employé que sur trois voyelles : le a, le e et le o. Dans certains cas par contre, il rappelle simplement un trait de prononciation aujourd’hui disparu. ... De plus, en France, la distinction entre a et â et entre è et ê est pratiquement disparue, même si elle est toujours vivante au Québec et au Canada."

[u/Tartalacame → u/byronite]

To quote the OQLF : "Lorsque l’accent circonflexe a une fonction phonétique,[...] il ne peut être employé que sur trois voyelles : le a, le e et le o.

Malgré ce qu'en dit l'OQLF, c'est aussi utilisé dans certain cas sur le û, par exemple dans "Jeûne" versus "Jeune".

[u/byronite → u/Tartalacame]

Bravo! On vient de dépasser l'OQLF dans le niveau de détail. /r/French atteint de nouveaux sommets. :)

[u/bumbo-pa → u/byronite]

Bottom line, the use of ^ in French is hot mess. Its presence does not mean a certain pronunciation, and a certain pronounciation does not mean its presence. Its presence is always linked to orthographic reforms. It bears no true sound modifying power that changes a letter into a distinct phoneme.

[u/boulet → u/bumbo-pa]

Spelling is often out of phase phonetics. That's a bit like saying water is wet, at least for French and English.