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Re: NATLANG: French spelling questions

From:Remi Villatel <maxilys@...>
Date:Sunday, February 29, 2004, 4:40
Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:

> Are there any French words other than _aiguë_ where > an _ë_ is used to indicate that a preceding _u_ > is pronounced [y]?
Yes, there is one: "ambiguë". We should use "-güe" instead which would be more logical.
> Are there any French words that contain _gg_ > pronounced [gZ]. BTW are there any words > with [gZ] at all?
I don't think so. No [gZ] but [gz] in French. And if I encounter an italian word with "gg", I would instinctively pronounce it [dZ]. arpeggio [aRpEdZjo]
> I read that the only words where _à_ is used > are _à là çà_,
That's true and "çà" is even very seldomly used. It's a bit old fashioned. ("çà" = "hither".) While "ça" without accent ("that" or "this") is very common.
> and _ù_ is used *only* in the > word _où_. Is this correct?
I've never thought about it... but that true. A very strange feature of French IMHO. There is a reason: To differenciate "ou" (or) from "où" (where). But that's still strange.
> (Thought: French keyboards oughta have a key > for the whole _où_ sequence! :)
No, we already have "à" and "ù" directly accessible also they are so rare in French. That's well known that the keyboards follow a strange logic of their own. You should have spoken about the 101 ways to write [o] in French. ;-) See ya, ===================== Remi Villatel maxilys@normandnet.fr =====================

Replies

Remi Villatel <maxilys@...>
Tristan McLeay <kesuari@...>
Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>