Is there a high-level explanation of how that clusterfuck happened? I mean, all the roman languages around France are fairly reasonable in their spelling.
And they have actually removed some of them. The ê in forêt indicates it used to be spelled forest but that was so long ago that they’re willing to admit it’s not necessary. Unlike the k in knife, what would we do without that!
There is an old explanation for this. I asked my French teacher a while ago.
The old French language was written like you pronounce it.
During the renaissance, they got into classicism and made the language resemble Latin.
Hence tan became temps from the Latin tempus.
Is there a high-level explanation of how that clusterfuck happened? I mean, all the roman languages around France are fairly reasonable in their spelling.
People used to pronounce all the letters and then over time they got lazy and stopped pronouncing everything
And they have actually removed some of them. The ê in forêt indicates it used to be spelled forest but that was so long ago that they’re willing to admit it’s not necessary. Unlike the k in knife, what would we do without that!
Maybe it’s been around longer than the others? Italian is pretty consistent with pronunciation, but modern Italian is a relatively recent language
that’s just france being extra fancy again
The pronunciation of words evolved but the spelling of most words didn’t.
Like the Great Vowel Shift in English
There is an old explanation for this. I asked my French teacher a while ago.
The old French language was written like you pronounce it. During the renaissance, they got into classicism and made the language resemble Latin. Hence tan became temps from the Latin tempus.