kat2107:

hayley-studies:

culmaer:

limbile:

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 :

• être  → estre (es, est, sommes, ê[s]tes, sont ; ser-)

some French derivations become clearer :

• fenêtre   → défenestrer → L. fenestra
• fête   → festival
• hôpital → hospitaliser (E. hospital, ise)
• intérêt  → intéressant (E. interest, -ing)
• ancêtre  → ancestral (E. ancestor, -ral)
• arrêt    → arrestation
• épître  → épistolaire (E. epistle)

some English cognates become more obvious :

• hôtel  → hostel (E. ‘hotel’ borrowed from French)
• forêt  → forest (tipp to remember ^ goes on the ‹e›)
• bête  → beast
• côte  → coast
• honnête → honest
• pâte, pâté → pasta, paste
• quête   → quest
• enquête  → inquest
• tempête  → tempest
• vêtements → vestments (ie. clothes)
• baptême → baptism

sometimes, the acute replaces the circumfex for phonetic reasons :

• ḗcole   → escole → L. schola (E. school)
• ḗtranger   → estrangier (E. stranger)
• ḗtudier   → estudier (E. study)
• dḗgoûtant → desgoustant (E. disgusting)
• dḗbarquer → desembarquer (E. disembark)
• rḗpondre  → respondre (E. respond)
• rḗpublique → L. res publica

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

• château → castel (E. castle)
• pêcher → L. piscare

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

• guêpe → E. wasp ! (this is my n° 1 favourite cognate)
  

bonus etymologies :

• tête   → L. testa
• fantôme  → L. phantasma (E. ‘phantom’ borrowed from French)
• Pâques  → Gk. pásxa → Am. pésaḫ (E. Paschal)

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.

oh! this is amazing! this makes so much sense