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[The same content is available in French in the article NOUVELLE ORTHOGRAPHE (RECOMMANDATION LINGUISTIQUE DU BUREAU DE LA TRADUCTION).]
The purpose of this recommendation is to inform the federal public service of the Translation Bureau’s position on the new French spelling.
The Translation Bureau considers both the new and the traditional French spelling to be correct.
The new French spelling is an initiative of the Conseil supérieur de la langue française (France) to simplify the French language and correct some anomalies. It involves a set of rules (in French only) and a list of about 2 000 words (5 000, if you include rare and technical words).
New spelling | Change |
---|---|
aigüe, ambigüe | diaeresis shifted from the ë to the ü |
gout, boite, connaitre, apparaitre, trainer, bruler | circumflex accent deleted on the î and û |
exéma, nénufar, ognon, relai | letters replaced or one letter deleted |
bonhommie, charriot, combattivité, boursoufflé | consonant added or deleted to ensure uniformity with bonhomme, charrue, battre and soufflé |
deux-mille-trois-cent-cinquante-deux | hyphen added between all words that make up a number |
contrappel, entretemps | hyphen deleted in compounds beginning with contre- and entre- |
un cure-ongle, des cure-ongles; un après-midi, des après-midis | in the second element of a compound noun: letter s deleted in the singular or letter s added in the plural (as opposed to the current spelling: un cure-ongles, des après-midi) |
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Writing tools – Writing Tips
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