If you could instantly be granted fluency in 5 languages—not taking away your existing language proficiency in any way, solely a gain—what 5 would you choose?

If you could instantly be granted fluency in 5 languages—not taking away your existing language proficiency in any way, solely a gain—what 5 would you choose?

Little fact about French because I just learned that

The accent circonflexe (^) exists in French words to replace the “s” that no longer exists but used to be there in older French.

For example: fenêtre used to be fenestre

It is still possible to see the “s” at times in family words like “défenestrer”.

knowing this, « être » becomes much more regular :

some French derivations become clearer :

some English cognates become more obvious :

sometimes, the acute replaces the circumfex for phonetic reasons :

Also, where « c → ch » (eg. cantare→ chanter) :

and « w → gu » (eg. war→ guerre ; warden→ guardian) :

bonus etymologies :

Also just be aware that the circumflex has some other uses too, like distinguishing « sur — sûr » or « dû » and the vowel quality in « âge »

Where was this post when I was doing A-Level French! This is actually a really interesting language change called “syncope” (the loss of a medial segment within a word) and what makes it even more interesting to me is that not only was the -s- dropped post vocalically and largely before voiceless stops, but that the circumflex was (unnecessarily but coolly) adopted as an orthographic marker of the lost -s-. Even more interesting is that syncope usually occurs in vowels. I love this.

ouiaboo

Don’t listen to this seriously it’s nothing important it’s for Skire XD

FRENCH FOR ME UNFSHDG