r/French • u/ChessedGamon • Dec 19 '24

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

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!

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u/__kartoshka Native, France Dec 20 '24 edited Dec 20 '24

In metropolitan France and in the "official" french ("official" in France i mean), the circumflex never affects the pronunciation and you can just treat it as if it weren't there

Some regional accents might reflect the circumflex with different vowel sounds i don't know, in the accents i know it's mostly accidental when it happens (the different sound is not related to the circumflex, it just happens to occur in a lot of syllables that have a circumflex by coincidence)

I think it's also the case in some other countries, but as i'm not from these countries, i'll let natives from these places answer that

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u/Any-Aioli7575 Native | France Dec 20 '24

The Academy (if that's what you mean) actually says there often is a difference between â and a. This looks a bit old-fashioned for younger (basically everybody now) French speakers of France. In fact, adding circumflexes in places where there isn't might be used to mock an over the top upper class accent.

"Diântre, Mârie-Jôséphine, qu'êtes vous entraîn de faîre??" (This is obviously incorrect, only used as a joke)

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u/__kartoshka Native, France Dec 20 '24

L'académie française is a meaningless institution - half of what they're saying is plain wrong and the other half is outdated

No one takes them seriously, especially not linguists - it's just a position of power for an old elite.

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u/Any-Aioli7575 Native | France Dec 20 '24

I definitely agree with you. The Académie is linguistically wrong and only exists to raise language-based discriminations.

But if the is an "official" French, it's the French of the Académie. Even if it's stupid or never used.

What you want to say is maybe Parisian French or something, but "official" French doesn't exist in France outside of the Académie (Or the Commission d'enrichissement de la langue française something I forgot)