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The Circumflex (^) is one of the five Diacritic s 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:
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 (albeit that 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 ou 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 Translation : 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 Autonym s, 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 . As French no longer had any true diphthongs, the dieresis alone would have suffised 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:
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 ), uses the circumflex (this time as a punctuation mark written between two letters) to show three Metaplasm s:
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: ''Ce ſont les preceptions '' que tu garderas quant aux accents de la langue Francoyse. Leſquels auſsi obſerueront tous diligents Imprimeurs : car telles choſes enrichiſſent fort l'impreſsion, & demõſtrent ''[démontrent '', que ne faiſons rien par ignorance.'' ''(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'' {Link without Title} . MODIFICATION OF THE TIMBRE OF VOWELS Today, the circumflex affects the pronunciation of the letters ''a'', ''e'' and ''o'' when it tops them.
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:
In words derived from the Greek, the circumflex over ''o'' oftentimes indicates the presence of a the Greek letter ''omega'' (ω) when the word is pronounced with the sound /o/: ''diplôme'' (δίπλωμα), ''cône'' (κῶνος). This rule is sporadic, bexause there are many words of Greek origin wih the closed /o/ pronunciation that are written without the circumflex, such as ''axiome'' (ἀξίωμα), {Link without Title} . Likewise, if the former ''omega'' is no longer pronounced as /o/ in the French, the circumflex is not used: ''comédie'' /kɔmedi/ (κωμῳδία). Many French speakers do elongate vowels displaying the circumflex when they speak. In many regional and socioeconomic affective accents, changes in Timbre between the Allophone s 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 /ɛ/ and /e/, or /ɔ/ and /o/ in open syllables. Thus in these areas, it is not uncommon to hear ''dôme'' pronounced /dɔm/ instead of the standard /dom/ heard in the rest of Metropolitan France . Likewise, everywhere in France, certain persons don't make a difference between /ɑ/ and /a/, so it is not uncommon, for example, to hear /am/ instead of /ɑm/ 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 Neologism s, 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:
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.
IDIOPATHIC CASES Some circumflexes appear for no known reason. It is thought to give words air of prestige, like a crown (thus ''trône'', ''prône'' and ''suprême''). Lingustic Interference sometimes accounts for the presence of a circumflex. This is the case in the First Person Plural of the Preterite inidicative (or ''passé simple''), which adds a circumflex by association with the Second Person plural, thus:
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 As noted in the monophthongization of ''eu'' /y/, homographs were created which were distinguished with a circumflex. Other pairs (''mur''/''mûr'', "chasse"/''châsse'', etc.) receive the same treatment by extension. "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. [http://www.fltr.ucl.ac.be/FLTR/ROM/ess.html SEE ALSO BIBLIOGRAPHY
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