Talk:French phonology/Archive 1

Moved section
I've made a lots of notes on allophones and phonemes. A good review from European speakers would be appreciated. I haven't quite started on the Orthography section. Feel free to have a go at it.--Circeus 19:05, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

From Peer Review:

The information is great (especially the Vowel part), but the arrangement could be improved. &mdash; mark ✎ 18:06, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * It would be nice to be able to see at a glance which vowels are most common (or occur in all dialects) and which ones are more exceptional. Also, an arrangement like the IPA vowel table helps greatly to get an impression of the vowel system of a language. The current table should be kept, I think, but maybe another one (or two, separating oral and nasal V's) could be added, cf. Nafaanra_language (which is of course a much simpler vowel system).
 * Done. Lesgles ( talk ) 04:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Some visual distinction between oral and nasal vowels would clear things up as well.
 * Done. Lesgles ( talk ) 04:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I would join the approximant row with the other consonants, and move all footnotes to below the table.
 * done --Lenthe 1 July 2005 09:03 (UTC)
 * I'm missing information about the distribution of phonemes (except for some notes on allophony), particularly in the Consonants section. Do all phonemes occur freely in every position? What consonant clusters are allowed? Etc.
 * What role does nasalization play &mdash; what is its relation to nasal consonants?

Tidying up
I've done a bit of tidying up of the English and the punctuation, but I'm confused by the alternation between / / and [ ]. is this intended to reflect phonetic/phonemic, or is it just inconsistency that should be tidied up? rossb 07:23, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * The [] are supposed to mark phonetic material (like laxed vowels) and // phonemes (I think I use (r) as the archiphoneme here. It's been a while since I checked back on the article o.o) Circeus 03:33, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

Parisian French
As far as I know the Parisian r is not a trill, it's a fricative: ʁ ---moyogo 05:09, 2005 May 12 (UTC)


 * Both are used. The fricative is a common allophone, though I'm quite sure that the uvular trill is perceived as being the more correct pronunciation. I think this feature is common to most languages or dialects that use uvular trills. I know it's true for Scanian, a southern Swedish dialect group. In everyday speech it will frequently be realized as a fricative, but when asked to emphasize a word, the trill will be used.
 * Peter Isotalo 08:34, May 12, 2005 (UTC)


 * The "Parisian" (I'd rather say Nothern, in fact) r is clearly not a trill. Well, it was. You have many examples with "old" French singers (Edith Piaf, Georges Brassens) who trilled their r's. Nowadays, this r is indeed a fricative and, for the laziest, an approximant. When someone uses the trill, it may be perceived as quite weird or old-fashioned. And I don't really think this is a matter of emphasis. Transcendency (talk) 23:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm. I'd say what you have in mind is the alveolar trill. That is indeed a somewhat old realization. As for uvular trill, which is what I suppose Peter Isotalo was referring to, however, I would say that it's not all that different from the fricative/approximant, and it's quite acceptable.Keith Galveston (talk) 10:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

IPA and SAMPA
I propose we remove the SAMPA from this article, on the basis that IPA is the Wikipedia standard, SAMPA is merely a kludge for situations when the character set is limited to 7-bit ASCII, two pronunciation schemes is one too many, and now that we have the IPA template, the IPA characters should be viewable correctly in pretty well any browser. Any views? rossb 00:17, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * It's actually X-SAMPA (French SAMPA annoyingly doesn't offer a rendition for /3:/), but I agree with the point, mostly. Circeus 03:35, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)


 * I've removed the SAMPA from the table (there wasn't any in the rest of the article). rossb 20:01, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Reversed front and back a
I would appreciate some informative comment here instead of just a blunt reversal. I really think you are mistaken. &minus;Woodstone 18:18, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)


 * I think it is more relevant to keep them separate and note their merge in European dialects than just keep one and make as if 6 million Quebecers (among others) pronounce the same [a] in "patte" and "pâte". Circeus 18:29, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not saying both "a's" are the same. Just that in my view you reversed the IPA symbols. I just double checked with the spoken version of the chart. Also in France they are different:
 * the one in pâte is long and is a front vowel, with IPA symbol
 * the one in patte is short and a back vowel, with IPA symbol
 * &minus;Woodstone 20:28, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)


 * Even the old version of French Language agreed with me ("standard" french has merged "a" and "â"). Also, I certainly didn't mix up the /a/ and /ɑː/ vowels, at least as far as they are pronounced in Quebec French. I'd be extremely surprised if two historically confirmed sounds inverted themselves. Whereas I'm sure your "a" in pâte might very well be long, please cite sources (and btw, where are you from, it's a notable hint in guessing your pronounciation.) for patte being /pɑt/ (that's normally the same "a" as in "mâle", "râle" and "âge"). and BTW, you did delete (maybe accidentally) the row for one of them. Circeus 02:32, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

I just checked my version in the history list and I did NOT delete a line. I reversed the lines with patte and pâte (keeping the IPA symbols in the original sequence). If you see something different then the Wiki servers have a big problem. The original version states already that the vowel as in pâte is "almost always long". The dispute is not about long or short, but about back or front. I will try to find sources. (Incidentally, there is no need to indent indefinitely, alternation is good enough) &minus;Woodstone 10:25, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)


 * According to my Larousse (95, Grand Format), patte has /a/ and pâte has /ɑ/.

some sound files from native french speakers would be quite helpful WilliamJuhl

Why does [] appear in the consonants section? I've never heard it used in french. Is it from a certain dialect? If so, it should be marked as such.


 * I just checked my Collins English-French pocket dictionary and it too shows "patte" with /a/ and "pâte" with /ɑ/.
 * By the way, I came to this article looking for something that fully treats the relationship between French orthography and pronunciation. This article is good but it doesn't help me know what sounds to make when I'm reading a French book. Is there a better article for what I'm looking for? &mdash; Hippietrail 00:41, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * [[Media:FR_pattepâte.ogg]] Here you go, "patte" and "pâte", spoken by me (who is a native Quebec French speaker). As you can see, the vowel of "pâte" is back and other other is front.

Valkari 18:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Missing information
Some details still seem to be missing here. Especially for people who are trying to learn a bit of French. For instance, I've heard that the final "-ent" of 3rd person plural verbs is silent. But I've never heard how this affects pronunciation or liaison. Should the reader simply treat the word as if the "-ent" isn't there at all or are there some exceptions or subtleties.

Another thing I'm unsure about also deals with liaison. I usually hear that the final consonants of a word are not pronounced unless the following word begins with a vowel or silent h. But I never hear what happens when the word ends with a consonant cluster. Are all the consonants pronounced or just the final one. Also, I'm pretty sure I've heard that "et" is not the only exception to the liaison rules. Are there times when liaison depend on grammar or syntax rather than just which words occur together? And what about where a comma, period, or other punctuation comes between? &mdash; Hippietrail 09:28, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

lateral flap
i would like some evidence / more information on the lateral flap allophone of /r/. i've never heard the phoneme nor of the phoneme before.


 * The article doesn't have a lateral flap as an allophone of /r/. It does have the alveolar flap, though, which is the sound of Spanish pero. Circeus 11:47, May 2, 2005 (UTC)


 * it doesn't have the lateral flap because i deleted it because of lack of evidence. gaidheal 03:56, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Separating the orthography
I'm on a mission to cleanse all phonologies of the impureness that is orthography ;-). Would anyone mind if we moved this to French phonology and encouraged people to write a separate French orthography instead?

Peter Isotalo 12:56, May 8, 2005 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't mind too much, though I feel they are often hard to separate. Circeus 15:17, May 8, 2005 (UTC)


 * French phonology has nothing to do with French orthography, even though French orthography has lots to do with it. For example, a totally illiterate native French speaker uses French phonology all the time but no orthography. Languages are first spoken, then written. I use this example abusively of course, just to make a point. Go ahead and split it into two articles; you have my vote. ---moyogo 04:54, 2005 May 12 (UTC)


 * I'm going to do this now, as no one seems to have any major objections. Lesgles ( talk ) 01:44, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Photocopie/Photo
I find strange the pronunciation of the words "photocopie" and "photo", I have never heard these (in France) but rather like and. So unless these are pronunciations used somewhere outside of France, this is an error.


 * Actualy it's a bit more complex than that, but I think my notation is wrong. The second  truely is /o/, not, But I don't think the third is ever /o/. Circeus 14:52, August 2, 2005 (UTC)


 * Hmm... I never pronunce "photocopie" other than . Or "copie" other than for that matter. The third o as  sounds more like a southern accent to me ? → SeeSchloß 16:58, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

SeeSchloß, thanks for these remarks. It had me confused as well, but I'm not a native French speaker. Your name does not seem French, but if you are, what do you think of the "patte"/"pâte" discussion e few items up from here. It keeps confusing me. I have been taught to pronounce patte as and pâte as. What is your opinion?


 * I don't know where to answer in the other discussion, so I'll just post here. I'm a French speaker from the west of France (and as far as I know we don't have a specific accent here), I've always learnt that pâte is (like bâtiment, mât...) and patte is  (like chat, bras...). My dictionary even takes them as examples for the  and  sounds. The "correct" usage is "â" =  and "a" = . Most often people just use  for everything though. → SeeSchloß 22:09, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, as far as I know, official usage in European french is toward merging both a's, but I could be mistaken. It's extremely diffcult to write this article, since I am myself living in Quebec. Circeus 23:00, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

It's and  in "standard" French. You should check Trésor de la Langue Française when unsure about a "standard" pronunciation, there is no better reference available on the web so far. Maybe we should have detailed section or article about the French language variations. ---moyogo 05:21, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * Warning, the TLFi exhibits traditional French and it is quite late (even if it includes now more modern terms, that the French Académie has still not reviewed or defined, it still shows the "tradition" rather than the current usage).
 * For current French, Larousse and Robert dictionaries are better and fresher sources (at least for French in France, independantly of regional accents of France that are correctly covered).
 * The distinction between open and closed o is now less visible in current French, except in final syllables (the only thing you can be sure is that if the o is written 'au' or 'eau', it is open; and if o is written before a geminated consonnant, it is open). That's why /kopi/ is frequent (using closed o) and [kopi] acceptable, even if the tradition indicates a deprecating open o.
 * This is also influencing the evolution of the orthography: when the gemination disappears in the common language, a single consonnant is written, and the o becomes closed (see colle which uses gemination and a mute final e, so it produces a long o which is necessarily open, but coller where there's no mute e, the demination is not heard, the o is short and tends to be closed).
 * In photocopie, most French speakers can't tell which o is open or closed, as it's difficult to pronounce the alternating open and closed o: they are completely allophonic here; because there's no consonnant gemination and no schwa, and they are followed by a closed 'i', they will be all pronounced closed (a open o occurs only when the /i/ comes from an half-consonnant y).
 * Now try to determine how to pronounce macaroni? Certainly you'll here only a closed o even if someone pronounced it open, because the 'n' after it is not geminated and there's another vowel so the o is short.
 * Look at the example of the first name Paul (normally closed) and the feminine Paule (normally open): both pronunciations are possible dependning on the context after it (Paul VI will have a closed o, because of the i in the next syllable, but Jean-Paul II will have an open o before the strongly closed eu after it. There's no easy logic here.
 * So the rule evolves more into the perception of whever the o is final (necessarily closed, with exceptions like météorologue where the two first o are closed, but the last one is open due to the mute e after it) or not (preferably open). verdy_p (talk) 01:47, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

o and ɔ
It is untrue that o and ɔ are in allophonic distribution, at least in standard French and in Parisian French. Minimal pairs are easily found with o/ɔ in arbitrary position This opposition disappears in many (Southern) dialects. The opposition is mostly found in a syllable followed by an "e muet" (neutral e that may or must be dropped).
 * côté [cote] ("side") ~ coté ("rated")
 * beauf  [bof] (~ "red-neck") ~ bof [bɔf] (~ "hmmm")
 * maul [mol] (rugby: "maul") ~ mol/molle [mɔl] ("soft")
 * saule [sol] ("willow") ~ sol [sɔl] ("ground")
 * saute [sot] ("jumps") ~ sotte [sɔt] ("inane").
 * Paule [pol] (woman's name) ~ Paul [pɔl] (corresponding men's name)
 * ôte [ot] ~ hotte [ot] ("hood")
 * heaume [om] ("helmet") ~ homme [ɔm] ("man")
 * cône [con] ("cone") ~ conne [cɔn] ("twat ")
 * paumerait [pom(ə)rɛ] ("would lose") ~ pommeraie [pɔm(ə)ʀɛ]
 * rôde [rod] ("hang around") ~ Rhodes [rɔd]
 * nôtre [notχ] ("ours") ~ notre [nɔtχ]("our")
 * I disagree with your use of the strong R (that you note [χ]) in your last example. Phonologically, the variants of R are not written as they are allophonic everywhere in French, and normalized as [ʁ]. You may write it with the /phonetic/ notation but not with the [phonologic] notation where these two words are then nôtre [notʁ] ("ours") ~ notre [nɔtʁ]("our") in the simplified notation, or more precisely [no.tʁ(ə)] ~ [nɔ.tʁ(ə)].
 * The pronunciations of Paul (masculine) and Paule are uncertain, this depends on regions (when they are used in isolation or sentence-final position), and context of use such as compound first names (Paul-Henry uses a closed o...) or full names (Paul Valéry uses a closed o because of the double consonnant after it, and he's not a woman). Some regions pronounce these first names always open as none of them are using a o in word-final position. verdy_p (talk) 02:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Senseless formulation needs fixing
French phonology and orthography says  or  which doesn't make sense:


 * and in French are mostly allophones of  and  before a vowel. The only case where  contrasts with  is when there is a morphemic boundary, causing some forms of verbs ending in -oua ( or ) such as ...

--Imz 00:23, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


 * If you argue that they are allophones of /y/ and /u/ in the syllable onset or coda, then you've covered all exceptions. Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 00:09, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Not really:
 * huile or suivre use a consonnantal letter u which contrast with the standard vocalic letter u.
 * boule uses a vocalic digraph ou which contrasts with the vowel u  in bulle.
 * roulis uses a vocalic digraph ou which contrasts with the consonnantal ou  in oui.
 * enfui or lui use a consonnantal letter u which contrasts with the consonnantal ou  in enfoui or louis.
 * ruade uses a vocalic u, which contrasts with the vocalic ou in rouage and the consonnnantal o of the digraph oi  in roi or the consonnantal ou  in louant.
 * There's no allophones between all these which are clearly distinct everywhere (the regional accent plays little role):
 * consonnant written as u in the first vowel of a syllable (or ü in old orthography after g), possibly with a mute h before, but always before another vowel (this is creating a diphtong by gliding between the consonantal u and the vowel or vocalic digraph after it). It can become vocalic  only in slowly articulated speech, keeping the glide so that it really becomes, but not in normal speech.
 * consonnant written either as ou (or w in rare words borrowed from English like watt) before a vowel é in oué  or i in oui  or e preceding a geminated consonnant such as rouelle, or written o in the digraph oi  or before the digraph in in oin  or before ë in some proper names like Boël . It can become vocalic  only in slowly articulated speech, keeping the glide so that it really becomes , but not in normal speech.
 * consonnant written v (or w in words borrowed from German)
 * vowel always written u (this is its the most important use of the letter) or rarely û (in some words from pre-1990 orthographic reform).
 * vowel always written ou (this is its the most important use of the digraph) or rarely oû (in some words from pre-1990 orthographic reform).
 * (I have ignored here the mute consonnants that may follow the given orthographies.)
 * verdy_p (talk) 02:35, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you're arguing. In fact, I don't remember what I was arguing.  I was probably alluding to the fact that, for instance,  and  have to be in complementary distribution because  can never be in the syllable nucleus and  can never be in the syllable onset or syllable coda (there is some exception to this generalization but not for French).  This is why I removed "allophone" from that statement.
 * This isn't to say that the two can never be allophones of one phoneme, but it does mean that the complementary distribution/minimal pairs test is not adequate to determine this. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  02:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * can be in the syllable nucleus: loi, and if slowly articulated it remains but not : the glide is kept. It is not even allophonic to anything else, and certainly not to ou  here. The French graphy oi is never read like oua in all cases.
 * On the opposite, oin in loin may be allophonic to ouin  in babouin in normal speech but not in slowly articulated speech:  or  would be incorrect for slow loin,  or  be OK for slow babouin, but not  or  or
 * This demonstrates that speaking about allophony is out of topic when speeking about phonology. Allophony is related to phonetic, i.e. the possible phonetic realizations of the *same* phonology. If two sets of phonetic realizations are distinct (even if they intersect), then there's a distinction in phonology. So can't be unified phonologically with ; and  and  are also distinct phonologically. What French recognizes across speakers is the phonology, not the phonetic: a single phonologic symbol must match all its phonetic allophones. verdy_p (talk) 03:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see how loi demonstrates anything but a consonant cluster.  is the onset,  is the nucleus, and this example has no coda.
 * I'm not sure how allophony is not related to phonology as phonetics is related to phonology, though I agree with your other points. The unifying character is the same independent of environment when we're representing phonemes but when we get into phonetic details then different allophones can be indicated. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  03:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Vowel chart?
Hello... I've "just started" studying the language... And I kind of miss a vowel chart for it. IPA defines a quite informative chart that can be used, i.e., for Portuguese like this. Could someone provide it for french please? :) - Ekevu (talk) 01:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Done (a few weeks ago). I don't know if it would be better to have a graphic, but the text one was easier to make on the spot, and it will be more flexible if we need to make changes. Lesgles ( talk ) 04:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be alveolar?
I've noticed that the consonant table states that /s/ and /z/ in French are dental fricatives. Shouldn't they be under alveolar fricatives? Snodawg 19:14, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Indeed. And perhaps we should revise the categorization of French /t/, /d/, and /n/ as dental consonants. The article on dental seems to suggest that these are actually denti-alveolar or alveolar, with a change in the part of the tongue that contacts the roof of the mouth. Lesgles ( talk ) 21:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
 * No, I've read proper manuals and handbooks on French which explicitly say that t, d are dental. The s, z are of course alveolar.Cygnus_hansa 16:07, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that many phonetic texts claim that t & d are dental. The point made in the article Dental consonant is that the commonly used terminology is wrong. The tip or apex of the tongue does touch the teeth, but the rearmost point of articulation is what is most important in determining the place of articulation. The "dental" label confuses many people into producing t's and d's with the whole front of the tongue touching the teeth, which is plainly wrong.
 * French, Italian, and Spanish t, d, n, and l are often called dental for the sake of simplicity. However, in French these sounds are actually alveolar, or perhaps denti-alveolar; the difference between these sounds in French and English is not so much where the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth as which part of the tongue makes the contact. In English it is the tip of the tongue (such sounds are termed apical), whereas in French it is the blade, or area just behind the tip of the tongue (such sounds are called laminal).

Is this true?

 * The velar nasal is not a native phoneme of French, but occurs in loan words such as parking or camping. Many speakers (mostly old people and those who are not accustomed to this foreign sound) replace it with a prenazalized [ŋg] sequence. In Quebec French, /ɲ/ is used instead, so these loanwords rhyme with ligne and signe.

I find it hard to believe that Quebecois speakers say "un parkigne". From the few I've spoken with, I don't recall ever hearing this, and they certainly used lots of loanwords... where did this come from? Stevage 14:48, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Haven't witnessed it in Montreal, might be true in some parts of Quebec. ---moyogo 06:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)


 * It is done with lexicalized English loadwords such as screen - pronounced "scrigne", sink - pronounced "signe" and string (g-string) pronounced "strigne" by some. I have heard it for parking, though I remember it used for un parking (meaning, a parking SPOT, not LOT) and not dans le parking. However, the French vowel /i/ should be looked at as an environmental factor, since it is the phonological framework of French.CJ Withers 08:12, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Just to say that, in Quebec, "on se parque dans le stationnement", though in France they "stationnnent dans le parking"...--Boffob 19:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Example for syllables followed by schwa makes no sense
a syllable followed by a schwa is normally considered closed: évènement .

This sentence is nonsensical because the phonetic pronunciation doesn't contain a schwa, only the spelling. Spelling is irrelevant to syllabification of the phonetic sequence. The syllable is closed because it has to be closed: nm is not an onset in French, thus n belongs to the previous syllable.

If someone can give an example where the syllable could be open, but isn't because the vowel is, then please do so. Otherwise I believe this needs to be deleted. --Armchairlinguist 23:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Form of IPA vowel space representation
Recently the traditional diagram of the vowel space:

was replaced by a table:

This table form is much less readable. Most other language and IPA articles follow the original presentation from the IPA handbook. For clarity, consistency and memorability it is better to stick to the original source form.

&minus;Woodstone 17:46, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Can you point out the articles that use that top chart? Every other phonology article in the language phonologies category either uses a table similar to the one I made or has an image of the vowel chart showing the precise location of the vowels in that language (granted, I just changed the one for Ukrainian but that can be considered an exception).  Each language is different and the chart that I have removed implies that the vowel realizations of French are exactly at the cardinal points when they are not.
 * Another fault of the chart that I removed is that it did not have the nasalized vowels and it would be difficult to include them. If someone can provide a source-backed image of a vowel chart in French that includes all the vowels that would be perfectly acceptable.
 * Now if there's something truly wrong with the table that I've made, I'm sure there are ways to remedy that with an alteration of the table rather than its removal or a revert. What are the problems with its readability?  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 20:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I did not do an extensive search, but see for example IPA, English phonology, Dutch phonology, Swedish phonology. It is just so much easier to take in the diagram in one look, than absorbing the table by scanning it. Also, as you indicate, the diagram allows to place the vowels more accurately than the standard points. It is possible to include nasalised vowels with the standard diacritic sign, next to the non-nasalised ones. &minus;Woodstone 23:03, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Like I said, an image of the vowel chart is fine, even better than the table that I've put. Notice that, for example with chart of California English vowels in the English phonology page,  is a central vowel.  Even better for my point,  is more open than  and doesn't conform to any cardinal point.  I really doubt that French  is exactly at cardinal point two and French  is certainly not a phonetically mid vowel.
 * I still don't agree with your argument that the table is less readable. Both the chart and the table can be "scanned" by one who has a cursory knowledge of the IPA. Something that might make the table more meaningful is to remove the redundant rounding/unrounding distinction in the back vowels like this:

The table is flexible and certainly subject to change by editors wishing to improve the article. Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 00:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I personally think that the diagram form is more aesthetically pleasing (but maybe that's just because it's the version I made :) ). I think we all agree, though, that an image would be ideal, so that's what we should work on. Lesgles ( talk ) 01:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've added an image. The article I got it from points out that the nasal qualities are different (esp for the back vowels) from the oral qualities but didn't provide an image for that.  So there's still room for improvement.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  09:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Palatal nasal
Is it pronounced with a [j] offglide? So, cognac = [koɲak] or = [koɲjak]? The article says that some dialects have [konjak] but that's not what I'm asking about. -Iopq 00:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think it does. No more than is necessary anyway.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Room for expansion
This article has lots of room for expansion! Liaison and elision, for example, should be at least summarized briefly (since they have articles of their own). —Angr 11:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Alveolo-palatal?
Table states alveolo-palatal, but symbols are for postalveolar (palato-alveolar) fricatives.SuperElephant 12:33, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Phonemic inventory
This article now focuses on standard Parisian French, which is defensible, since that variety is more or less the standard in the media, etc., for at least 85% of francophones. But it also seems to be intended to be the "basic" article on French phonology, which means it must also serve as a point of comparison for the other national varieties, especially Canadian French. The alternative would be to have one article called French Phonology, and then Parisian French phonology, Quebec French phonology, etc., which would really be ridiculous given the high degree of similarity. Therefore some concession must be made to the fact that this is the basic article on French phonology, and it cannot be identical in scope to an article concerned solely with Parisian French phonology, even though Parisian French makes a convenient reference point for other varieties.

Therefore it should include the full phonemic inventory. That means including the long e in maître, which is distinguished in pronunciation from mettre, universally in Canada and sometimes elsewhere.

This distinction is maintained by a minority of speakers of otherwise perfectly ordinary French in France, and is reflected for example in The New Cassell's French Dictionary (1962). The meaning of "minority" is not completely negligible and is quantified in Dictionnaire de la prononciation française dans son usage réel, par André Martinet et Henriette Walter (1973), which was concerned solely with Parisian French. According to, 7 of the 17 informants of Martinet-Walter had a long e in maître. It was already a much lower proportion for the vast majority of the 200-odd words which historically had long e, and it is true that the merger is quite advanced in Europe now.

Though vowel length is no longer phonemic for most Parisians, I would like to emphasize that non-phonemic variation in vowel length remains an important feature of the French spoken by all francophones and should not be eliminated from the article. (Vowel length is also all that distinguishes C'est difficile à prendre from C'est difficile à apprendre, but that's another matter.) Vowel length is not usually indicated in general dictionaries of French because it operates automatically (except possibly for e).

An online reference for standard European French phonology is one chapter of The Pronunciation of Canadian French (1984) by Douglas Walker, which was published as a book and is available online here:. This is sure to contain the information questioned in the "vowel length" section of the article. Also, the treatment of European French in that book considers long and short e to be distinct, and can provide a basis for this article to cover essentially European French while nonetheless looking at that version of the phonemic system that is most reflective of "French" in general. The merger in Europe can then be mentioned. 136.152.196.169 (talk) 06:38, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm also of the opinion that having a "Parisian French phonology" that contrasts "Quebec French phonology" AND "French phonology" would be a bit much. Something similar was proposed for English recently and shot down.  One thing we could do is have this article be about Parisian French but with constant reference to other European dialects (as 136. says, a "reference point for other varieties").  Not so many references to Quebec French since it has its own page.
 * I like Walker (1984). We should also use it for Quebec French phonology too.
 * I'm glad to be discussing my recent edits. You might have noticed that I've been inconsistant in my representation of the rhotic consonant.  What is considered most standard?  The trill or the fricative?  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  08:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I assume you mean the uvular trill. The fricative tends to be more characteristic of European French, though you'll hear a great uvular trill if you listen to Jacques Brel singing. 136.152.196.5 (talk) 09:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, but if you're (for example) in a top class restaurant in Paris, which is better? — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  09:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm unaware of any sociolinguistic distinction between them in Europe. I know I tend to use the fricative except after p, t, k, b, d, g, where I use the trill more, but I'm not a native speaker. A book I have says that use of the fricative is increasing in Quebec under European influence. (The uvular trill of Quebec City has already mostly displaced the apical trill of Montreal.) 136.152.196.5 (talk) 09:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Open-mid vs. close-mid
Generally speaking, open-mid vowels are found in open syllables while close-mid vowels are found in closed ones.

This is certainly backwards. The tendency is the opposite.

Here are some comments I don't have sources for, but which might at least prevent some mistakes.


 * é never occurs in closed syllables in native words. Those speakers who merge é and è consistently use é in open ones and è in closed ones (at least within words). It is true that the opposition is mostly in word-final position, but careful speakers pay attention to non-final open syllables. For example, blesser is usually pronounced blé-sé because of assimilation with the final vowel, but careful speakers will still say blè-sé, while you would say sé-dé for céder. I can't think of a good minimal pair. Maison vs. méson is a bit technical. Across word boundaries it's easier: most people have lé for les (lè is very old-fashioned), so les sons vs. laissons would be distinguished by many, perhaps most, speakers. lè-son is even likelier than blè-sé because there's less pressure to assimilate the vowel.
 * Here's something, though: é can occur in closed syllables at word boundaries, as in Je l'ai revu with the mute e omitted in revu.


 * For o vs. ô, o never occurs in final, open syllables, except in some non-standard sounding European French which has a pot vs peau distinction. Within words, how about coté "rated" vs. côté "side"? As noted, there are some constraints depending on the consonants in closed syllables.

136.152.196.88 (talk) 10:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * For eu vs. eû: eu never occurs in final open syllables. In closed syllables, again there are constraints depending on the final consonant. In open syllables within words, careful speakers will make sure and pronounce different vowel sounds in the two syllables of heureux. Here's a minimal pair: jeunet vs. jeûnait.


 * I agree with all of those statements. An addition to your first bullet point would be the greater pressure to assimilate before a syllable containing [e], [i], or [y]. See, for example, :
 * Lorsqu'un e ouvert en syllabe ouverte, accentué dans un mot donné, devient inaccentué dans un mot dérivé, il se ferme s'il est noté par è dans le mot où il est accentué, ([tenèbr] mais [tenebrø], pour ténèbres et ténébreux), mais il reste ouvert s'il est noté par ê ou un digramme ([fète], [fètar] pour fête, fêtard). Jusque-là, il n'y a pas de différence entre la prononciation commune et la prononciation soutenue. Mais, dans ce dernier cas, lorsque la voyelle accentuée du mot dérivé est fermée ([e], [i] ou [y]), l'e ouvert inaccentué tend à se fermer sous son influence ([fete] pour fêter, [betiz] pour bêtise). Ce phénomène est nommé harmonisation vocalique6. Quoiqu'inconstante même chez les Parisiens cultivés, comme le révèle le Dictionnaire de la prononciation du français dans son usage réel, l'harmonisation vocalique n'en apparaît pas moins de manière systématique dans les transcriptions phonétiques données par le Petit Robert. Or, comme le souligne Carton, elle est à bannir de la prononciation soutenue, et donc du chant. Lesgles ( talk ) 17:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Ha! good catch, 136. I goofed. According to the source I used, Fougeron & Smith (1993):

"The mid-high and mid-low vowels have limited overlap in theier distributions, but cannot be regarded as allophones. The contrast between [e] and [ɛ] is found in open syllables in final position... Elsewhere, [e] occurs in open syllables and  in closed sylllables...  For the other pairs of mid vowels, the contrast between mid-high and mid-low is limited for the most part to closed monosyllables.  In other environments, the mid-low vowels  and  occur in closed syllables and the mid-high vowels  and [o] are found in syllables ending in [z], and [o] is not found even in monosyllables ending in [ʁ], [ɲ], and [g]."
 * I think I just mixed them up because "close-mid" and "closed syllable" have close in them. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  20:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Elsewhere, [e] occurs in open syllables and in closed sylllables... The quote from Lesgles contradicts that as an absolute statement, and supports what I was saying about blesser. In fact, the quote even says that in cases such as fêtard, comparable to my example of laissons, this is true in la prononciation commune as well. So the statement has to be recast as a mere tendency, which is what I had done at one point. 136.152.196.31 (talk) 03:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I noticed that, but it's already cast as a tendency ("generally speaking"). — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  05:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Word-final non-phrase-final long vowels
I've provided a reference for the J'adore Pierre statement, another book by Walker, French Sound Structure. (You can preview it on Google Books). Sorry, I know I'm not doing the citation the right way - I hope that can be fixed. I originally included the statement without a reference because I felt it would be uncontroversial.

There's a thing I'd love to include because it's fun, but again, I have no reference. For those who have no difference in vowel quality, but only length, between long and short è, the words rêve and lève will be pronounced the same way in phrase-final position. In lève, it's an underlying short è, but lengthened by v, while in rêve it's long to begin with. But the distinction will come out in non-phrase-final position: Il rêve debout will be different from Il lève la main. It would be great to have a reference for this. I don't think this distinction ever arises with the other lengthening consonants r, z, j.

I don't think the on vs. an bit belongs in the introduction. I'm a bit confused as to why it's there. I'm not aware of any significant merger between the two. If there is one, it's marginal compared to the three major ones mentioned there, which are all present in the majority of young Parisians. (long/short è being most frequent, â/a next, and then un/in''). 136.152.196.31 (talk) 03:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I've developed a high standard for inclusion. Sometimes something is uncontroversial because many people have a common misperception.  For instance, with French, a common misperception is that the last syllable of a word is stressed.  So it's best, even when something is non-controversial, to cite it.
 * Maybe I should reword the bit about on vs an. It's not that they're merging, only that they're not as different phonetically as their characters would have us believe.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  05:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

dentals?
dental consonant says that French /t/, /d/ are actually laminal alveolar (or laminal denti-alveolar) consonants, instead of dentals stated here. Since both pages lack citations, it might be a good idea if we actually find one and get it on here. This issue's been lingering there for so long.石川 (talk) 09:49, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. That sounds like an interesting fact. It also sounds technical enough to give you the feeling the person who wrote it wasn't making it up. Joeldl (talk) 21:51, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * laminal denti-alveolar sounds more appropriate. --moyogo (talk) 22:32, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Walker (2001) puts them as apical but notes on page 18 that it "does not pretend to be an introduction to phonetics, to general phonology, or to contrastive French-English analysis." — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 23:44, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This page also describes it as an "apico-dental" sound. However, note that it describes /s/ as a apico-dental sound, which would lead most people to doubt its credibility. I don't think French has a /θ/. 石川 (talk) 11:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Apico-dental fricative doesn't mean /θ/. You can have a dental sibilant fricative.  I wouldn't be surprised if apical dental /s/ were true for French.  I do notice though that it says of French /r/ "la langue se met contre les dents supérieures" calling it apico-dental as well.— Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  18:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Stress
Stress falls on the final syllable of a phrase unless that syllable has schwa as its vowel, in which case the penultimate vowel is stressed.
 * I can't really reconcile this with sentences like Prends-le. Joeldl (talk) 14:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Why not? the vowel of -le is schwa so Prends, the penultimate syllable, is stressed.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  20:13, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Except that "le" has the primary stress. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 20:22, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh. Well I don't know then.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]   —Preceding comment was added at 21:15, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * People usually say that the vowel of (post-verbal) le is not schwa, but something other than  underlyingly. CapnPrep (talk) 22:35, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Who says that? Is it the same people who say that French schwa is ? — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  22:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, any person with oral competence in the language will agree that the last vowel is stressed, so I hope that can be taken for granted on the talk page. The most common realization of schwa in Europe is as or, though conservative speakers will retain a central, unrounded vowel. But even for the more advanced speakers,  is usually considered a separate phoneme because of its distinct behaviour in terms of: a) its possible omission in certain environments; and b) a different set of alternations with other vowels. These statements should be able to be sourced in French Sound Structure, (which I don't have available to me). So as Bill Clinton once said, it depends on what the meaning of is is. Joeldl (talk) 00:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree (about the phonological definition of schwa), but the behavior of -le is still a problem (for which many solutions could be proposed; my "usually" above was not really justified). CapnPrep (talk) 00:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I recall removing information calling a front rounded vowel (either or ) "French schwa."  As far as I know, this is inaccurate.  If we're to trust the vowel chart image, French schwa is a central rounded vowel that contrasts with front rounded vowels both phonetically and phonologically.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  00:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with treating schwa that way as our basic approach and discussing phonetic variants - even majority ones - separately, with sources of course. Be that as it may, I think the statement I quoted above needs to be modified because it is false in that level of generality, assuming we have a schwa phoneme, which is a position all of us seem to agree with. Joeldl (talk) 01:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * For the moment the article doesn't say whether the vowel chart is phonemic or phonetic. But since the whole article is about French pronunciation, I guess it's meant to be a phonetic chart. It is controversial to claim that there is a distinct surface vowel in French. To go back to the stress issue, I think it would be enough to mention -le imperatives in a footnote, since they are the only (potential) counter-example to the rule. CapnPrep (talk) 01:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's controversial that it exists among conservative speakers - I could be wrong. Here's a quote from the Trésor informatisé de la langue française, at the entry for the letter e:
 * Les interr. sur le timbre du e muet valent pour le nom de la lettre. L'existence d'une var. palatale arrondie, à côté de la voyelle neutre, centrale, est certaine. Du Marsais ds Gramm. 1789, FÉR. Crit. t. 2 1787, entre autres, évoquent un timbre eu. Le timbre exact ne peut être le timbre [œ] diversement évoqué qu'à la condition d'adopter en ce qui concerne la finale absolue et, par conséquent, le nom de la lettre, des dispositions particulières.
 * I'm not sure exactly what they mean by the last sentence. In any case, the existence of both variants is made clear here. Maybe that [œ] doesn't occur in open, stressed syllables. That's a phonemic argument.
 * I favour a more conservative approach because this page on Parisian French also has to serve as a point of comparison for Canadian French, Swiss French, etc., (rather than starting all of French phonology over again on those pages), so it's quite convenient to make conservative Parisian French the basic variety, and to treat speakers with rounded schwas under phonetic variants, even if they're in the majority now. All that has to happen is for their numbers to be made clear.Joeldl (talk) 02:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * As far as I understand, the vowel chart is phonemic in that it only has symbols for phonemes (except for the nasal vowels). Schane (1968) is able to derive [ə] from other vowels but he also argues against there being front rounded vowels in underlying representation.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  02:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with the general approach you're suggesting, and whenever somebody finds sources for it, they can talk about the phonetic realizations. Do you have a source that would allow you to reformulate the rule about stress so that it's accurate? Joeldl (talk) 02:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * My French comprehension is pretty low, but this might be one that explores the phenomenon of "accent d'insistance."  Vassière (2002) may also shed some light on the matter.  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  03:27, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've skimmed the first one, and it talks a little bit about the varying intrpretations listeners may have of an initial accent, but most of it seems to be about the acoustics of stress with a view towards voice recognition and synthesis. Too low-level to be of interest until this page is a gigabyte long, probably. Joeldl (talk) 03:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it's enough to amend the rule only by saying that the penultimate must be in the same word as the ultimate to take stress. In the example of le the only vowel in the word is schwa. In that case stress is not tranferred. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 08:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That would certainly contradict Schane (1968) who says that schwa is never stressed. If we amend the rule we should stamp the amendment with a citation request until we find the proper sources.  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  09:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Schwa can be stressed in some monosyllables. Anderson (1982) gives the examples LE plus grand chef, QUE c'est joli, sur CE (in addition to prends-LE). There's also parce QUE and quoiQUE (when not introducing a clause). I guess in all of these cases you can claim that the monosyllable creates its own stress domain (without necessarily being separated from the rest of the phrase by a proper word boundary). So I guess the question is how to define "phrase" in the stress rule. CapnPrep (talk) 18:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Good find. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  18:32, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Minimal ?
In the 'Phonetic notes' of the section "Consonants" it is said : "minimal pairs like abeille [abej] ('bee') vs abbaye [abei] ('monastery')." I think this is only a minimal pair for the eye. First it seems to me the vowel in 'abeille' is an ɛ and not an e; secondly by not marking the stress it is not noticeble that the first has 2 syllables and the second has 3 syllables. So it should be [a'bɛj] ('bee') vs abbaye [abe'i] ('monastery'). This of course would no longer be a minimal pair. 213.118.76.148 (talk) 07:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


 * You are right about the vowel; I changed the example to ail vs. haï. It's still one syllable vs. two syllables, but that's kind of the point: (assuming that syllabification can be defined as an algorithm on phoneme sequences) and  have to be distinct phonemes. CapnPrep (talk) 15:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Vowel length table
The table contains information that is dead wrong. The i in habite, for example, is never long, whether habite is phrase-final or not. The same goes for défaite. The pronunciation corresponds to des fêtes for those speakers who have a long e/short e distinction, but never défaite, for anybody, whether they make that distinction or not. The table is a serious misstatement of the principles governing vowel length in French. Joeldl (talk) 07:03, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you think you can fix it? — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 17:57, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I've rewritten the table. I think discussing schwa at the same time as vowel length muddies things, so I've deleted the discussion of phrase-final/non-phrase-final. The table now applies only to phrase-final syllables. (The lengthening of vowels in unstressed syllables is a complex phenomenon. The clearest thing that can be said is that it is never obligatory, and, except perhaps for long e, one never has full-length unstressed vowels. The table was previously erroneous in that it made it seem lenthening could never happen.) I've also added a dispute tag to the statement about [ə] never being stressed, as this is plainly contradicted by Fais-le!. Joeldl (talk) 02:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Affrication, anyone?
I notice that in many dialects of French, including the ones I happen to have been exposed to, the dental stops are pronounced with noticeable affrication before close front vowels. The IPA used in this article does not reflect this. Is this phenomenon local to European French? In either case, I think the article should reflect this. Does anyone have a source citing this phenomenon?Szfski (talk) 04:14, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure that what you're talking about isn't a feature of Standard French, which is this article's main subject. I've heard about it occuring in Quebecois French.  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  04:27, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Aeusoes1, these days "Standard European French" is probably a more suitable phrase than "Standard French" when making comparisons with Canadian French. Affrication belongs to both standard and colloquial Canadian French. Joeldl (talk) 09:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry. When I said Affrication, what I really meant was palatalization. I'm positive that it occurs in much of Belgian French (which I speak) in addition to Parisian. For example, in Parisian as well as Belgian, the "d" of "dieu" is far more palatized (almost affricated) than the d of "doux." Szfski (talk) 09:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, palatalization... well, in The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, there's a mention of Acadian French where velar consonants are optionally palatalized to palatalized velars or postalveolar affricates but that's neither dental consonants nor European French. I might point out that phonetic palatalization around front vowels is not uncommon across languages.  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  16:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I imagine it's more pronounced in Acadian French and Quebecois (but then, I speak neither.) The palatalization I'm talking about is so slight it could probably not mark phonemic contrast. But the allophones are definitely there. With respect to Belgian French, try http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0954394500121027. Would this source warrant inclusion in the article? I'll get back to you on Parisian. Szfski (talk) 19:40, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it would be more in passing, though we have an article on Belgian French that could do with some beefing up. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  05:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, I do notice a tiny (yet perceivable) "ts" sound like a puff of air (palatalization? affrication? aspiration?) with /t/ /d/ before /i/, /y/, and /u/ (those aren't front, btw, but close)in a lot of the spoken French that I've heard, most of them quite standard to me. I don't sound native if I don't emulate it. It's probably only phonetic though, I'd say. Anyone aware of this phenomenon? Cause I'm not sure if it's the same as discussed above. Keith Galveston (talk) 15:53, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

There is one legal Standard French pronunciation
As the French language is legally regulated by the French government, and the Dictionary of the Academie Francaise includes IPA transcriptions, there is one "Standard French Phonology" to be presented here as the basis of discussion.

Variations by region, class, historical period, and level of formality -- clearly indicated, and not the useless "some speakers say" as presently -- can and should then be presented in brief, as non-standard variants, with referrals to full articles on major types. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.202.199.205 (talk) 18:17, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Linguists generally treat prescriptive versions like the Académie's pronunciations as one variant among others. Anyway, though the grammar and spelling of French in official contexts (university examinations etc.) are regulated, I am aware of no regulation of pronunciation. And as André Martinet showed a long time ago, there is considerable variation in French pronunciation even among educated speakers of French. I agree though that "some speakers say" with no reliable sources is pretty useless. --macrakis (talk) 01:02, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The French language goes beyond France's borders, so the Académie cannot truely regulate the language. OQLF and other language bodies in other francophone countries would agree on this. It's better to go with the general trend in various dictionaries and books to set a phonology convention here on the Wiki. Pieuvre. 24.202.31.204 (talk) 07:17, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

"I am aware of no regulation of pronunciation" absolutely true ''"And as André Martinet showed a long time ago, there is considerable variation in French pronunciation even among educated speakers of French. " his demonstration has a problem, before doing a linguistic survey, you have to do a socio-linguistic study to examine if the people you will interview are traditionnal speakers of the language you want to study. With such a methodology, I am not surprised that he found a "considerable variation"'' I fear that Martinet and his students decided that the french language was "obviously" the native language of french citizen living in metropolitan France, which is far from true. Traditionnal french speaking population are found in France, Belgium, Swizerland and Canada, but in each of these countries, including France, you have a lot of people who have or had a different language. The difference between France and these other countries is that in the other countries, those people DONT speak french (or with an accent). In France they do speak French with (often) no accent but they dont possess the traditionnal phonology, on wich "standard french" was devised. As an example, the famous Amelie POULAIN is played by Audrey TATOU, born in Clermont Ferrand. In the movie she is a typical parisian girl. Unfortunately, her diction is not parisian french, it is simplified french ! Being educated or not does not change your phonologic system. If a dictionnary like Le Petit ROBERT attempts to make its reader believe this fiction, OK ! But does it appear to you to be linguistic epistemology ? If you want to kwnow the truth about french pronunciation, visit : www.bonblabla.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.234.218.194 (talk) 21:54, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Things to sort out here
I've just been seeing a real expert website, about pronunciation symbols using a different advanced IPA, called canIPA, by Luciano Canepari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luciano_Canepari) .. You can find on its website the real pronunciation of French using his own improved IPA, (http://venus.unive.it/canipa/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=pdf .. to find the French one go to "A Handbook of Pronunciation", then "Pronunciation of French", and for the table of consonants and respective IPA equivalent to understand the referring sounds go to "A full treatment of vowels and vocoids" and "A full treatment of consonants and contoids"..). Anyways, out of this, there's interesting things that are not on this article, neither in the official IPA for French.. and in French, before any Front vowel in Standard French are realised as  and, French R has many taxophones, difficult to illustrate (you can see them on that website),  and  before front vowels become  and ,  is in reality ,  and  are more like  and ,  is rounded.. in French is a front vowel, and different from Spanish and Italian, it's much fronter, and  are back and rounded, and different then,  before a pause is followed by , for example hear a French person saying "mardi". Vowels change before French R > becomes,  becomes ,  becomes ,  becomes  (whom many think is the English I, but in the reality it's slightly different, and you can find it as the German short I sound). , already concerned, doesn't exist (except in regional pronunciations), and it's an unstressed, is backer, and many more changes .. as for Nasal consonants is  nasalised,  is closer to an  nasalised than a ... and this is just a part of the mess unrepresented by IPA, and in part Wikipedia which hasn't helped.. come on people, sort it out, there's a lot of things to sort out in this article, and in almost every language's article, just follow canIPA symbols and their IPA equivalent, it's not that much, but there's important changes, and I think, if a French person will come here, will agree with me saying that these sounds are the right ones.. I believe in you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.182.77.236 (talk) 00:27, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * "Many think" that is the "English I"? Yes, many do - including the English phonology article. Probably because it is... --LjL (talk) 00:46, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

It's very close to, but if you look at that article you'll find that is not, though it's found in the diphthong, but out of it, English short I is not like that, you can find it for example in German .. here's the reality.. is front, while English short I is front central (sorry no symbol for it), it's slightly different, but the difference exists, and if you look carefully on the website from Luciano Canepari, you'll find the pronunciations much clearer than IPA does —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.182.77.236 (talk) 00:55, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not familiar with this transcription system or with the term "taxophone" (which seems to be synonymous with allophone). I don't want to be too dismissive here, but some of this stuff seems like very common phonetic particularities not worth noting.  It's very common crosslinguistically for, e.g.  to be palatalized before front vowels.  Similarly,  very often are pronounced slightly advanced in the context of front vowels.   The document says of  that it is somewhere between  and .  Seeing as how it often acts as a consonant, it's not a surprise that it would have a bit more constriction (and duration) than a nonsyllabic  (as is the case with Spanish) but I wouldn't stop transcribing it as .  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  01:29, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * While the canIPA is impressiv in its complexity, many of these phonetic details should be back'd by phonetic reserch. Canepari seems to be using the pronunciation sections as basically examples on how to disambiguate various phones in his system, offering no actual evidence. And if we were to use his values, we run into the problem that his system is non-standard and not entirely compatible with IPA. For example, the IPA Near-close near-front unrounded vowel is by default front-central, so describing a French lowered as  (phonetic brackets BTW) would be simply incorrect, if we wish to distinguish between front and near-front.
 * Other features however (like palatalization and perhaps the lowering of ), as said, are common detail that might actually start to have a place in an article of this size. Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 08:02, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, /ɪ/ is pratically the realisation of /i/ only before French R, because as that R is uvular, changes the vowels are before it (more or less like English R), it's a natural thing, so it's a not another way to say I, French I is /i/ like in Italian, Spanish etc..,/ɪ/ as not an allophone is mainly found in Quebec French ... Just try it yourself, a normal /i/ and /i/ before R, and such.. As for Luciano Canepari's canIPA, he does a lot of analysis with all the possible tools existing on Earth in this field, I can ensure you, all of his transcriptions are controlled very carefully.. the big monster on here is IPA which never is aware of these important stuff.. Sadly most of these, and the ones he says are changes that people doesn't quickly realise, also, people assumes that everything has not to be signaled because are minor sounds and differences, but it's not.. Many of the things I've read in canIPA are things I've never known  Francis  12:29, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Example "zain"
This word is very rare, I doubt that many french know it. Another example will be welcome. I propose "zone" /zon/ (or maybe "zizi" /zi.zi/ :-) ). Also, an exemple for the /w/ is missing, isn't it ? "oui" /wi/ for example. Outs (talk) 20:57, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

1st person inversion
Removed from the Mid vowels section: Similar evolutions for the final mid-closed e to an open e have been reflected in a few modifed orthographies where the stress of syllables was partially slid. For example the inverted forms of the first singular person (in present tense) such as:
 * puissé-je &rarr;, and
 * dussé-je &rarr; ,

(these traditional orthographies are derived from the initial realizations as and  to avoid (in the verb) the repetition of the same [œ] realization of the final schwa in the subject pronoun which gets the stress in such inversions) can now also be written (since the orthographic reform of 1990) as:
 * puissè-je &rarr;, and
 * dussè-je &rarr;

that reflect their most frequent prononciations in usual speech, since the second schwa is mute in this case (since very long). This change of value of the vowel can be explained as the consequence of the stress present on the final syllabe closed by the remaining consonnant, that not only lengthens it regularly, but also mutes regularly all occurences the close-mid e followed by a consonnant of the same syllable into an open-mid e. This contains dubious (not to say incomprehensible), unsourced information, and is only marginally relevant to modern French phonology. CapnPrep (talk) 14:47, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Stress part deux
I've removed this phrase from the article "Syllabic stress is also very light in French normal speech (much less than in English or other Romance languages), and frequently not distinctive phonologically; however, it is most often replaced phonetically by variation of tone, which also marks the punctuation. In normal affirmative or negative sentences, the first and the last word of the sentence use a lower tone that the rest of the sentence and is generally not stressed. In interrogative sentences, the stressed syllable of the first word gets a higher tone and the last word looses its stress and distinctive tone lower tone. In exclamative sentence like orders, or in strong affirmations, the stress is more marked on the verb and on important words, which get a higher tone. A higher tone is also applied to the stressed syllable of a word terminating each subordonnated phrase of the same sentence or at end of expressions, and to the adverbs marking the negation. In songs where tonality cannot be used the same way, the syllabic stress becomes more apparent." (Excuse the spelling mistakes as the contributer is ESL) It seems to contradict the statement we already have that "Stress falls on the final syllable of a phrase unless that syllable has schwa as its vowel, in which case the penultimate vowel is stressed" which we haven't refined from the nuance we got from Anderson (1982). Is this element of tone backed up anywhere?  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  00:31, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The misunderstanding is on how you interpret syllables.
 * In French, syllables are all counted phonologically, even if they are merged phonetically. So every syllable containing a schwa is counted. This is how to interpret "penultimate"; the stress goes back to the syllable before the ultimate syllable with the schwa.
 * Example: the French word syllabe has three phonologic syllables (that are backed by three orthographic syllables syl-la-be that are used to determine the position of possible syllabic breaks with soft hyphen in written texts, but also to determine where to place a possible note in a song where schwa may also be realized) but only two phonetic syllables /si.laːb/ in normal speech.
 * The phonologic notation may use the first notation, ignoring the fact that the syllables may be merged and lengthed, or a notation noting merged syllables with long vowels, and no syllable break (but it will be impossible with this impler notation to determine from this simpler notation where there are distinctions between the few words where the length may have distinctive meaning; for finding rimes in poestry, the simpler notation may be easier to use, but it can be produced algorithmically from the full phonologic notation with syllable breaks and the position of optional schwas).
 * Various dictionaries are using one or the other, depending on the audience. Famous dictionnaries for beginners students of French or for children in schools, will prefer detailing the syllables (even Petit Larousse or Petit Robert are doing it), but encyclopedias often omit it (dictionaries of rimes frequently use a simplified phonology where the schwa and mid-closed e, or the open and closed a, are not made distinctive in the classification and ordering). verdy_p (talk) 01:18, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see how me misunderstanding French syllables (which I'm not, I am aware of the phenomenon you're talking about) is related. What's this about stress being replaced by tone?  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  02:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced and un-copyedited contribution removed pending verification: === Phonetic realizations of the stress ===

In standard French, the stress (when it is effectively marked) is most often realized by a variation of tone:
 * Either a higher tone in the middle of a sentence (at end of a clause), or in the emphatic stress (see below), or at end of interrogative sentences (and in most short imperative sentences built with just the verb, whose stress will be marked by the high tone, and possibly one or two enclitic pronouns or monosyllabic adverbs).
 * Otherwise a lower tone for the final word of all other non-interrogative sentences.

Additionally, the vowel length will be frequently increased, or the vowel may have its value slightly diphtongated in some regional speeches (notably in the Laurentian speech used in Eastern Canada and bordering parts of North-Eastern USA). It will also be frequently followed by a pause (which is generally marked by the punctuation in written texts). CapnPrep (talk) 05:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Indication of stress and vowel length
French is a language where there are neither stresses nor long vowels. (Verify in any French dictionary.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakuzanodon (talk • contribs) 13:30, 22 October 2009 (UTC)


 * No, Yakuzanodon, the Wikipedia article as it now stands is quite accurate. Stress is not indicated in French dictionaries because, as the article explains, "Word stress is not distinctive in French." But that does not mean it does not exist. Vowel length is indicated in "any French dictionary" by the [ː] symbol after a long vowel. This is not something reflected in the orthography or taught in beginning French classes. If you speak French with a good accent, you may not even be aware you are lengthening your vowels correctly. Many just pick this up by ear. It is not an essential feature of the language as it is in English. --seberle (talk) 16:32, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I am French so maybe I know better than you. In an English dictionary, the stress is precised with ' and the lengthening of the vowel with :. In all the French dictionaries (Larousse, Robert or Hachette, especially this one because it always writes the pronouciation), you will never see these characters. The evidence is, when French people learn English for instance or any other foreign language, they do not manage to raise their voice for a stress, nor to understand the difference between a long vowel and a short one, as they don't have anything similar in their mother tongue. You can only hear long vowels and stresses when French people sing (for the melodic sound) or when you ask them to pronounce a word very distinctively so you can hear properly ; then you have to pronounce the vowels short. Otherwise, if you mispronounce a syllable of a word, a French man would correct you by stressing the syllable you misspronounced. Example : you say au revoir like [aʁəvwaʁ], a French would correct you by saying ['ɔʁ(ə)vwaʁ] or ['ɔ:ʁ(ə)vwaʁ], afterwards you must pronounce [ɔʁ(ə)vwaʁ] - some French people would say [oʁ(ə)vwaʁ], which is quite correct as well - without stressing nor lenghtening the sound [ɔ] because it would sound terrible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakuzanodon (talk • contribs)


 * Seberle, Yakuzanodon... you guys are basically saying the same thing. Stress is not contrastive in French because French is a syllable-timed language, whereas English is a stress-timed language.  This is a big part of the reason why French and English speakers have difficulty mastering the prosody of each other's respective languages.  French does have some non-contrastive features that are stress-like, in terms of vowel length and pitch, but without a precise definition of what non-contrastive stress is, it's fairly pointless to argue about it. What linguists do agree on is that there are no minimal pairs in French which are distinguished only by stress; that is, there is nothing in French like  (recall, noun) vs.  (recall, verb). Moxfyre (ǝɹʎℲxoɯ | contrib) 16:19, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Moxfyre. You said it better than I did. (Je suis français aussi, Yakuzanodon, mais le français n'était pas ma première langue. Je suis d'accord avec ce que vous avez écrit. Pardon si je n'ai pas bien expliqué.) --seberle (talk) 16:37, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Je vous en prie :-) I think this discussion just highlights the importance of distinguishing phonologically significant, contrastive features, from those which are purely phonetic, in this article. Moxfyre (ǝɹʎℲxoɯ | contrib) 16:02, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * You are right, Yakuzanodon. Most French dictionaries do not indicate vowel length. Thank you for the correction. --seberle (talk) 19:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Some do, though, such as Le Trésor de la Langue Française. "revoir". I think many do not simply because vowel length follows set rules. As explained in the article, there are also regional differences. Ask any Canadian or Belgian to say "mettre" and "maître" and you will hear clear differences in vowel length. Lesgles (talk) 06:06, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, and my Harrap's French-English also indicates vowel length. I mistakenly thought they all did. I hadn't noticed Canadians making the maître/mettre distinction. I'll listen for it next time I'm in Montreal. Thanks. --seberle (talk) 12:55, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

It would be nice however if someone could confirm the information added in this "minor" edit by Verdy_p concerning the effect of lengthening consonants in unstressed syllables. The TLFi, for example, does not indicate a long vowel in the initial syllables of sœurette, bravoure, etc. Can anyone check if this claim is actually made in the cited reference (Walker 1984 p. 26), or was this information slipped in without updating sources? CapnPrep (talk) 14:22, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I have to check in Le Trésor de la Langue française ; I am really curious about it. I was not talking about the French they speak in Belgium or in Canada ; I do not know those versions of my language well enough to discuss about it. In the French we speak in France, what you take for stresses and long vowels is nothing more than an impression due to your own language. Indeed, it is hard to identify some sounds, especially when they do not exist in mother tongue. For instance, British people, when they study French, discover the sound [ɛ], but they believe they hear [e:], which is utterly different. The same thing happens with [o] which they sometimes take for [ɔ:]. Yet, the difference is quite obvious, even for an English-speaker with some training. What you take for a stress is just tiny, almost inaudible pitch in the voice, always on the last syllable when there are at least two syllables in the word ; it is only to separate the words in a long sentence. But it is imperceptible if you pay attention to it. There is nothing such as huge stresses like in the English word to aPOlogize [ə'pɒlədʒaɪz] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakuzanodon (talk • contribs) 16:23, 3 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I basically agree with you Yakuzanodon: stress and vowel length are not the phonemically important phenomena they are in English and are difficult to hear in French without linguistic training. It is quite easy to overlook them completely. But though I have no expertise in this area, I am certain these phenomena are not anglophone "impressions". I have only studied about them under French linguists. See for a small example of both of these phenomena in the French Wikipedia. --seberle (talk) 18:19, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I checked the link you gave me, thanks. I do not agree with their example. They say rose is pronounced [ʁo:z]. I made a test with my pronounciation and other people's : it is definitely short, that is to say [ʁoz]. If you want to see it clearly, compare the French word used in the German language revanche [ʁəvɑ̃ʃ] (revenge) and its German pronounciation [ʁə'vɑ̃:ʃə]. It shall leap at you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakuzanodon (talk • contribs) 16:15, 4 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, Yakuzanodon, you will have to take up your argument with linguists. I would never have heard these vowel lengths and stresses on my own and I definitely do not have the expertise required to make a case for this. Perhaps you can find something in the professional literature which disputes the majority understanding and supports your case? --seberle (talk) 16:22, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Seberle, just check in Hachette dictionary. Before the definitions, there is a précis about pronounciation that indicates all the sounds and only the sounds of French language. Tell me where you see the vowel lengthening symbol. Nonetheless, you will see the character ’, but it does not mean stress ; they put it in the pronounciation of the words begining with a h (never pronounced in French, is it ?) to inform that the liaison must not be done with the final consonant of the word before. Example : haricot (bean) [’aʁiko] ; thus un haricot [ɛ̃ ’aʁiko] and not [ɛ̃n’aʁiko] ; this is not a stress on the vowel [a]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakuzanodon (talk • contribs) 21:45, 4 November 2009 (UTC)


 * You are right, Yakuzanodon. The aspirated h is not at all the same thing as stress, even if their symbols look somewhat alike. I'm sorry that you think the authors of this article are inventing a fictitious phenomenon. But please do not direct your comments to me. I have no expertise in this area. I only made two tiny contributions to this article. You need to discuss your theories with a linguist or at least with someone with a good understanding of phonetics. Or possibly with one of the main authors of this article, or the authors of the corresonding articles in French Wikipedia who discuss the same phenomenon. --seberle (talk) 02:40, 5 November 2009 (UTC) Translated--seberle (talk) 16:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Please refrain from leaving comments in untranslated French. Not all users speak French and needn't have to do so at the English Wikipedia.  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  06:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I am pleased that you write to me in French, Seberle. As you say, I have to discuss about my theory with linguists, especially French men, because, if English phonologists specialized in French language are as good as French specialized in English, it is useless to talk with them. I do not understand why the authors of this article did not think about reading the French version of this article rather than making up theories because of which French pronounciation of anglophones is so terrible. I urge all the people who study French to read the article on and to realize that, in the other languages, there are prosody types which are different from English, bon sang de bonsoir ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakuzanodon (talk • contribs) 14:41, 6 November 2009 (UTC)