Accent circonflexe
The circumflex, aka "little hat," is the only French accent that may be found on any of the five vowels. In any given word, the circumflex may serve one or more purposes:
- Indicate a spelling change from Latin
- Change the pronunciation of a, e, o
- Distinguish between words that would otherwise be homographs
Spelling change
In most words, the circumflex is a linguistic reference to Latin, indicating that the accented vowel used to be followed by one or more now-disappeared letters, often s or a doubled letter. (Incidentally, the English equivalent often still has an s.)
Par exemple…
| French | Latin | Translation | ||
| une forêt | forestis | forest | ||
| un hôpital | hospitalis | hospital | ||
| pâle | pallidus | pale |
Pronunciation
The circumflex changes the pronunciation of the vowels a, e, and o – click the letters for more detailed info or learn about IPA symbols.
| â | pronounced [ɑ] | rather than [a] |
| ê | pronounced [ɛ] | rather than [e] or [ə] |
| ô | pronounced [o] | rather than [ɔ] |
The circumflex has no effect on the pronunciation of i or u.
Distinguish homographs
The circumflex distinguishes between a number of words that would otherwise be identical.
| une acre | acre | âcre | acrid | |
| un colon | settler | un côlon | colon (body) | |
| une cote | quotation, rating | une côte | coastline, hill, rib | |
| du | some (partitive article) | dû | past participle of devoir | |
| haler | to haul, tow | hâler | to tan | |
| jeune | young | le jeûne | fast (diet, religion) | |
| mat | matte, checkmate | le mât | mast, pole | |
| un mur | wall | mûr | ripe (masculine) | |
| sur | on (preposition) | sûr | sure | |
| une tache | stain | une tâche | task |
Accent on grammar
1) The circumflex is found in the nous and vous passé simple conjugations of all verbs.
Par exemple…
| donner | choisir | |||
| nous | donnâmes | choisîmes | ||
| vous | donnâtes | choisîtes |
2) In the imperfect subjunctive, the circumflex is found in the il conjugation of all verbs. For –ir and –re verbs, this allows one to distinguish the imperfect subjunctive from the passé simple.
Par exemple…
| avoir | prendre | |||||
| Passé simple | il | eut | prit | |||
| Imperfect subjunctive | il | eût | prît |
3) Verbs like connaître lose the circumflex in all conjugations where the i is not followed by t. So the only conjugations that keep î are these:
| Present tense | only il connaît | |
| Future | all conjugations: je connaîtrai, tu connaîtras, etc | |
| Conditional | all conjugations: je connaîtrais, tu connaîtrais, etc |
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