FlagOnce Posted October 7, 2015 Report Share Posted October 7, 2015 Accents in English is mainly related to the way you speak. But in French, the word "accent" means more than that, given there's the "accent aigu" é (e-acute) and "accent grave" è (letter with grave accent). But there's as well something else: the circumflex, like "ô"."ô" in French has a special meaning that will help any English speaker. Take the example of forest. In French, it's forêt. Why like this in French? Because in French, the "^" (circumflex) is often indicating that there was the letter S after the circumflexed letter, but it was removed thereafter. That's why forêt is forest in English. The reverse isn't true: the "^" does not mean that in English you will have to add the S letter.It's a general rule, I'm not sure it applies every where (être for example, I'm not sure about its origins). But I wanted to share that with you. In the hope it helps you. linguaholic 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linguaholic Posted October 7, 2015 Report Share Posted October 7, 2015 Interesting story, FlagOnce. I have studied French for years but I never really asked myself about the origin of the mysterious Circumflex. It makes a lot more sense now! Thank you for sharing.! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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