The
circumflex (^) is one of the five
diacritics used in the
French language. It may be used atop the vowels
a,
e,
i,
o, and
u.
In French, the circumflex has three primary functions:
★ It affects the pronunciation of ''a'', ''e'', and ''o''; although used on ''i'' and ''u'' as well, it does not affect their pronunciation.
★ It often indicates the historical presence of a letter (commonly ''s'') that has, over the course of linguistic evolution, become silent and fallen away in
orthography.
★ Less frequently, it is used to distinguish between two
homophones.
In certain words, the circumflex is idiopathic, and has no precise linguistic role.
First usages
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') 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. It would be the
18th century before the circumflex's usage would become standardized to the customary employment in modern French.
=== Sylvius (
1478 or
1489-
1555) ===
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. 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, 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:
:''aî'', ''eî'', ''oî'', ''oŷ'', ''aû'', ''eû'', ''oû'', diphthongorũ notæ, vt ''maî'', ''pleîn'', ''moî'', ''moŷ'', ''caûſe'', ''fleûr'', ''poûr'', id eſt ''maius'', ''plenus'', ''mihi'', ''mei'', ''cauſa'', ''flos'', ''pro''.
:''Translation :'' "''aî'', ''eî'', ''oî'', ''oŷ'', ''aû'', ''eû'', ''oû'', are representations of diphthongs, such as ''maî'', ''pleîn'', ''moî'', ''moŷ'', ''caûse'', ''fleûr'', ''poûr'', or, in Latin, ''maius'', ''plenus'', ''mihi'', ''mei'', ''causa'', ''flos'', ''pro''."
Note : it is not possible given the limitations of Wikipedia and HTML to render properly the graphical conventions used by Sylvius. He placed the circumflex and dieresis (French ''tréma'') not ''atop'' the vowel, but ''between'' the two letters of the diphthong in question. Contrary also to this text, there were no italics to isolate the autonyms, and punctuation has been modernized to reflect current conventions.
Sylvius was quite aware that the circumflex 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
dieresis, called the ''tréma'' in French. Sylvius gives the example ''traî'' (pronounced /trɛ/ for "je trais") as opposed to ''traï'' (pronounced /tra:i/ for "je trahis"). Even these groups, however, did not represent true diphthongs (such as the English "try," /traj/), but rather adjacent vowels pronounced separately without an interposing
consonant. As French no longer had any true diphthongs, the dieresis alone would have sufficed to distinguish between ambiguous vowel pairs. His circumflex was entirely unneeded. 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'' had two pronunciations:
★ /y/ as in ''sûr'' and ''mûr'', written ''ſeur'', ''meur'' (or as ''ſeûr'' and ''meûr'' in Sylvius' work), or
★ /œ/ as in ''cœur'' and ''sœur'', written by Sylvius not only with a circumflex, but a circumflex topped with a
macron (which cannot be produced here: the diacritics have been placed side-by-side for illustrative purposes), ''cêūr'' and ''ſêūr''.
Sylvius' proposals were never adopted ''per se'', but he opened the door for discussion among French grammarians to improve and disambiguate French orthography.
Étienne Dolet
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:
★ 1. 'Linguistic
syncope', or the disappearance of an interior syllable, shown by Dolet as: ''lai^rra'', ''pai^ra'', ''urai^ment'' (''vrai^ment''), ''don^ra'' for ''laiſſera'' (''laissera''), ''paiera'', ''uraiemẽt'' (''vraiment''), ''donnera''. It is worthy of note that before the
14th century, the so-called "mute ''e''" was always pronounced in French as a
schwa (), regardless of position. For example, ''paiera'' was pronounced instead of the modern . In the 1300s, however, this unaccented ''e'' began to silence altogether in
hiatus and fall away phonemically, although it remained in orthography. Some of the syncopes Dolet cites, however, had the mute ''e'' reintroduced later: his ''lai^rra'' /lɛra/ is now or , and ''don^ra'' is today or .
★ 2. 'Haplology' (the suppression of repeated or close phonemes): Dolet cites forms which no longer exist: ''au^ous'' (''av^ous''), ''n^auous'' (''n^avous'') for ''auez uous'' (''avez-vous'') and ''n'auez uous'' (''n'avez-vous'').
★ 3. 'Contraction' of an ''é'' followed by a mute ''e'' in the feminine plural, possible in poetry, which was rendered as a long close mid-vowel . It is important to remember that mute "e" at the end of a word was pronounced as a schwa until the
17th century. Thus ''pense^es'' , ''ſuborne^es'' (''suborne^es'') for ''pensées'' [pɑ̃seə], ''subornées''. Dolet specifies that the acute accent should be written in noting the contraction. This contraction of two like vowels into one long vowel is also seen in other words, such as ''a^age'' for ''aage'' (''âge'').
Thus Dolet renders the circumflex the sign of silent phonemes, which became one of 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 may have apprised his contribution best in his own words: Translation: ''“It 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.”''
Thomas Sébillet
Thomas Sébillet included Dolet's treatise in his publication of ''Art Poétique'' in
1556. He adopted the usage of the circumflex atop the vowels to show syncope: ''laîra'', ''paîra'', ''vraîement'' [sic].
Modification of the quality of vowels
Today, the circumflex affects the pronunciation of the letters ''a'', ''e'' and ''o'' when it tops them.
★ ''â'' → (velar or "posterior" ''a'') ;
★ ''ê'' → (open ''e''; equivalent of ''è'' or ''e'' followed by two consonants) ;
★ ''ô'' → (equivalent to ''o'' at the end of a syllable)
This is sometimes the only reason for the presence of a circumflex within a word. The diacritic disappears in related words if the pronunciation changes. Witness:
★ ''infâme'' , but ''infamie'' ,
★ ''grâce'' , but ''gracieux'' ,
★ ''fantôme'' , but ''fantomatique'' .
There are nonetheless notable exceptions : ''bêtise'' is pronounced with a closed , despite the presence of the circumflex and its formation from ''bête'' , One might expect ''
★ bétise''.
Many French speakers also
lengthen vowels displaying the circumflex when they speak.
In words derived from the Greek, the circumflex over ''o'' often indicates the presence of the Greek letter ''omega'' (ω) when the word is pronounced with the sound :
''diplôme'' (δίπλωμα), ''cône'' (κῶνος). This rule is sporadic, because there are many words of Greek origin with the closed pronunciation that are written without the circumflex, such as ''axiome'' (ἀξίωμα), . Likewise, if the former ''omega'' is no longer pronounced as in the French, the circumflex is not used: ''comédie'' (κωμῳδία).
In many regional and socioeconomic affective accents, changes in
vowel quality between the
allophones of the phonemes represented by ''â'', ''ê'' and ''ô'' are not respected, particularly in
Provence and other regions of Southern France, where speakers do not generally distinguish between and , or and in open syllables. Thus in these areas, it is not uncommon to hear ''dôme'' pronounced instead of the standard heard in the rest of
Metropolitan France. Likewise, everywhere in France, certain persons don't make a difference between and , so it is not uncommon, for example, to hear instead of for the word ''âme''.
Indication of a historical phoneme
In many cases, the circumflex indicates the historical presence of a phoneme which over the course of linguistic evolution has become silent, and then dropped in orthography altogether.
Disappearance of the "s"
This is by far the most common phenomenon involving the circumflex. Most incidences come from interposing /s/ before another consonant. Around the time of the
Battle of Hastings in
1066, such post-vocalic /s/ sounds had begun to mute before hard consonants in many words, bringing with it a compensatory elongation of the preceding vowel, which had largely disappeared by the
18th century.
Orthography marked the presence of the muted /s/ for some time, and various attempts were made to distinguish the historical presence graphically, but without much success. Notably, 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 the
Académie Française. In subsequently 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 the presence of the /s/ from Latin. For example:
★ ''feste'' (first appearing in
1080) → ''fête'' but :
★
★ ''festin'' : borrowed in the 16th century from the Italian ''festino'',
★
★ ''festivité'' : borrowed from the Latin ''festivitas'' in the 19th century, and
★
★ ''festival'' : borrowed from the English ''festival'' in the 19th century
have all retained their /s/, both written and pronounced. Likewise the related pairs ''tête''/''test'', ''fenêtre''/''défenestrer'', ''bête''/''bestiaire", etc.
Disappearance of other letters
The circumflex also serves as a vestige of other muted letters, particularly letters in
hiatus where two vowels have contracted into one phoneme, such as ''aage'' → ''âge'' ; ''baailler'' → ''bâiller'', etc.
Likewise, the former medieval diphthong "eu" when pronounced /y/ would often, in the 18th century, take a circumflex to distinguish them from
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.
★ ''cruement'' → ''crûment'' ;
★ ''meur'' → ''mûr''.
Idiopathic cases
Some circumflexes appear for no known reason. It is thought to give words an air of prestige, like a crown (thus ''trône'', ''prône'', ''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 a circumflex by association with the
second person plural, thus:
★ Latin ''cantastis'' →
OF ''chantastes'' → ''chantâtes'' (after the muting of the interposing /s/)
★ Latin ''cantavimus'' → OF ''chantames'' → ''chantâmes'' (by interference with ''chantâtes'').
All incidences 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'').
Distinguishing homographs
Although normally the
grave accent serves the purpose of differentiating homographs in French (''là ~ la, où ~ ou, çà ~ ça, à ~ a, etc.''), the circumflex, for historic reasons, has come to serve a similar role. In fact, almost all the cases where the circumflex is used to distiguish 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 the grave accent. However, it does allow one to remove certain ambiguities, as noted in the monophthongization of ''ëu'' /y/, homographs were created which were distinguished with a circumflex.
The following are examples:
★ ''sur'' ~ ''sûr(e)(s)'' (from ''seür'' → ''sëur''): the homography with the adjective ''sur(e)'', "sour", justifies maintaining the accent in the feminine and plural states, which stays in derived words such as ''sûreté'';
★ ''du'' ~ ''dû'' (from ''deü''): as the homography disappears in the
inflected forms of the
participe passé, we have ''dû'' but ''dus'' / ''due(s)'';
★ ''mur'' ~ ''mûr(e)(s)'' (from ''meür''): the maintaining of the accent in all the forms as well as derived words (''mûrir'', ''mûrissement'') must be taken into account.
"New" orthography
Francophone experts, aware of the difficulty the circumflex represents and the inconsistency of its usage, proposed in
1990 a simplified orthography published in the ''Journal officiel de la République française'' and put forth that the circumflex over the letters ''u'' and ''i'' should be abolished except in cases where it would create ambiguities and homographs. These recommendations, widely criticized at the time of their introduction, have had no widespread adoption, but are encouraged by the Académie française.
[1][2]
References
1. Site d'information sur la nouvelle orthographe française
2. www.fltr.ucl.ac.be
See also
★
Diacritic
★
Latin alphabet
★
Reforms of French orthography
Bibliography
★
Bernard Cerquiglini, ''L'Accent du souvenir'', 165 pages, Éditions de Minuit,
1995, ISBN 2-7073-1536-2
★ ''This article draws heavily on the article in the French-language Wikipedia, which was accessed in the version of
February 18 2006.
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