The orthography of French was already more or less fixed, and from a phonological point of view outdated, when its lexicography developed in the late 17th century and the Académie française was mandated to establish an "official" prescriptive norm.

Still, there was already much debate at the time opposing the tenants of a traditional, etymological orthography, and those of a reformed, phonological transcription of the language.

César-Pierre Richelet chose the latter option when he published the first monolingual French dictionary in 1680, but the Académie chose to adhere firmly to the tradition, "that distinguishes men of letters from ignoramuses and simple women", in the first edition of its dictionary (1694).

It has since then accepted a few reforms and initiated, not always successfully, numerous others.

18th century

L'Académie s'eſt donc vûe contrainte à faire dans cette nouvelle Edition, à ſon orthographe, pluſieurs changemens qu'elle n'avoit point jugé à propos d'adopter, lorſqu'elle donna l'Edition précédente. — Académie, 1740

The third (1740) and fourth (1762) editions the Académie dictionary were very progressive ones, changing the spelling of about half the words altogether.

Accents, that had been in common use by printers for a long time, were finally adopted by the Académie, and many mute consonants were dropped.

estre → être (to be)

monachal → monacal (monastic)

Many changes suggested in the fourth editions were later abandoned along with thousands of neologisms added to it.

Very importantly too, subsequent 18th century editions of the dictionary added the letters J and V to the French alphabet in replacement of consonant I and U, fixing many cases of homography.

uil → vil (vile)

19th century

Many changes were introduced in the sixth edition of the Académie dictionary (1835), mainly under the influence of Voltaire. Most importantly, all OI digraphs that were pronounced [ε] were changed to AI, thus changing the whole imperfect conjugation of all verbs.

étois → étais (was)

The spelling of some plural words whose singular form ended in D and T was modified to reinsert this mute consonant, so to bring the plural in morphological alignment with the singular. Only gent, gens retained the old form, because it was perceived that the singular and the plural had different meanings. The Académie had already tried to introduce a similar reform in 1694, but had given up with their dictionary's second edition.

parens → parents (parents)

20th century

With important dictionaries published at the turn of 20th century, such as Émile Littré's, Pierre Larousse's and Arsène Darmesteter's, and later Paul Robert's , the Académie gradually lost much of its prestige.

Hence, new reforms suggested in 1901, 1935, and 1975 were almost totally ignored, except for the replacement of apostrophes with hyphens is some cases of (potential) elision in 1935.

grand'mère → grand-mère (grandmother)

Since the 1970s though, the urge for a modernisation of the French less and less phonological orthography kept growing. In 1989, French prime minister Michel Rocard appointed the Council of French Language to simplify orthography by regularising it.

The 1990 orthographic rectifications

The Council, with the help of some Académie members and observers from foreign Francophone states, published what it called the "orthography rectifications" on 6 December 1990.

Those "rectifications", instead of changing individual spellings, published general rules or lists of modified words. In total, around 2000 words have seen their spelling changed, and French morphology was also affected.

1990 Rules

Hyphens

Numerals are tied with hyphens:

sept cent mille trois cent vingt et un → sept-cent-mille-trois-cent-vingt-et-un (700,321)

Elements of many compound nouns are fused together if a) one element is a verb, b) the individual sense of the elements has changed, or c) onomatopoeias:

porte-monnaie → portemonnaie (wallet)

sage-femme → sagefemme (midwife)

couin couin → couincouin (quack)

Loan compound are also fused together:

hot-dog → hotdog (hot-dog)

Number

Compound nouns tied with hyphens (or fused) make their plural using normal rules, that is adding a final S or X, unless the modifier is an adjective (in which case both elements must agree), or the head is a determined noun, or a proper noun:

des pèse-lettre → des pèse-lettres (letter scales)

Loanwords also have a regular plural:

lieder → lieds (lieder)

Trema

The trema (diaeresis) indicating exceptionally that GU is not a digraph is to be placed on the U (ü) instead of on the following letter. Also, such tremas are added when they were not in place yet:

aiguë → aigüe (fem. acute)

arguer → argüer (to argue)

Accents

Verbs with their infinitive in ÉχER (where χ can be any consonant) change their É in È in future and conditional:

je céderai → je cèderai (I shall give up)

Additionally, verbs ending in E placed before an inverted subject "je" change their E in È instead of É:

cédé-je ? → cédè-je ? (am I giving up?)

Circumflex accents are removed on I and U, except in verb simple past and subjunctive inflections, if they are not used to distinguish between homographs:

mû → mu (driven)

but qu'il mût unchanged (he has driven)

Wherever accents are missing or wrong because of past error/omission or change of pronunciation, they are added or changed:

receler → recéler (to receive – stolen goods)

événement → évènement (event)

Accents are also added to loanwords where dictated by French pronunciation:

diesel → diésel (diesel)

Schwa changing into open E

In verbs with an infinitive in ELER or ETER, the opening of the schwa can currently be noted either by changing the E in È or by doubling the following L or T, depending on verbs. Only the first rule shall now be used except in appeler, jeter, and their derivatives.

j'étiquette → j'étiquète (I label)

This applies too when those verbs are derived into nouns using the suffix -ement:

amoncellement → amoncèlement (pile)

Past participle agreement

Notwithstanding normal rules of agreement, the past participle laissé followed by an infinitive never agrees with the object:

je les ai laissés partir → je les ai laissé partir (I let them go)

This is an alleged simplification of the rules governing the agreement as applied to a past participle followed by an infinitive. The participle fait already followed an identical rule.

Various

Many phenomena were considered as "anomalies" and thus "corrected". Some "families" of words from the same root showing inconsistent spellings were uniformised on the model of the most usual word in the "family".

imbécillité → imbécilité (idiocy)

Very daringly, this rule was also extended to suffixes in two cases, actually changing them into totally different morphemes altogether:

cuissot → cuisseau (haunch)

levraut → levreau (leveret)

Isolated words were adjusted to follow older reform where they had been omitted:

douceâtre → douçâtre (sickly sweet)

oignon → ognon (onion)

Lastly, some words have simply seen their spelling simplified, or fixed when it was uncertain:

pagaïe/pagaille/pagaye → pagaille (mess)

punch → ponch (punch – to drink)

Application

Those "rectifications" were supposed to be applied beginning in 1991 but, following a period of agitation and the publication of many books such as the Union of copy editors' attacking new rules one by one, André Goosse 's defending them, or Josette Rey-Debove 's accepting a few (that have been added, as alternative spellings, to Le Robert ), they appear to have become a dead letter.

As of 2004 though an international institutional effort to revive them arose. Notably, a French-Belgian-Swiss association has been set up to promote the reform.

Officially, the French, including public workers, are free for an undetermined length of time to use the new spellings or not. New spellings cannot be considered errors.

In Quebec the French Language Commission, that was reluctant at first to apply what it prefers naming the "modernisation", because of the opposition it received in France, announced that they were now applying its rules to new borrowings and neologisms.

External link

• http://www.orthographe-recommandee.info/ (in French)