คืนค่าการตั้งค่าทั้งหมด
คุณแน่ใจว่าต้องการคืนค่าการตั้งค่าทั้งหมด ?
ลำดับตอนที่ #23 : Changes in French spelling sparks controversy
End of the circumflex? Changes in French spelling cause uproar
The Academie Francaise proposed changes in 1990, including the
deletion of the circumflex accent (ˆ) and hyphens in some words, but they were
optional.
Now publishers say they will include the new spellings in
schoolbooks.
France's education minister has said the changes will not culminate in the end of
the circumflex, and that old and new spellings will both remain correct.
Despite this, the news sparked furious reaction on social media,
with users arguing the changes constituted dumbing
down.
Some tweets even used the hashtag #JeSuisCirconflexe (I am
circumflex).
What is a circumflex?
The peaked
accent (^) looks like a hat, or so children are told when they
are learning French. It goes over vowels - in some cases it changes the word's
pronunciation, in others it serves to distinguish homonyms (words that are
spelled and pronounced like another word but are different in meaning).
The changes will see it being used on a, o and e, but dropped from i and u (with some
exceptions).
The outrage
reportedly started after a report by the TF1 website (in
French) said the reforms
would take effect in the upcoming academic year.
It
quoted a note from the education ministry last year saying that the new
spellings should be adopted
and reported that publishers have decided to add the changes in textbooks from
September.
Students
will then have a choice to use either the old spellings or the new ones and
teachers will have to accept both ways as correct.
'Comment dire?' Some of the new spellings
Old spelling |
New spelling |
Oignon |
Ognon
(onion) |
Nénuphar |
Nénufar
(water lily) |
S'entraîner |
S'entrainer
(to practise) |
Maîtresse |
Maitresse
(mistress, teacher) |
Coût |
Cout
(cost) |
Mille-pattes |
Millepattes
(centipedes) |
Porte-monnaie |
Portemonnaie
(purse, wallet) |
Sources:
Thelocal.fr, TF1 |
The proposed
changes followed a review of the French language to simplify learning, but they
were not binding and had faced strong opposition in the country,Le Monde reported (in French).
They
include the deletion in some words of the hyphens and the circumflex. The
accent disappears from above the letter i and u in certain words and not from
the letter o.
The
new spelling would reportedly impact around 2,400 words.
'#JeSuisCirconflexe'
Users
on social media were furious over the changes, and the hashtags
#ReformeOrthographe (orthographic
reform) and #JeSuisCirconflexe (I am circumflex) were one of Twitter's trending
topics in France on Thursday.
Many
users shared pictures showing their dissatisfaction with the changes, and most
of the anger was directed at the alleged end of the circumflex.
VOCABULARY
Controversy (n.)
a lot of disagreement or
argument about
something, usually because it affects or is important to
many people:
culminate (v.)
If an event or series of events culminates in something, it ends with it, having developed until
it reaches this point:
constituted (v.)
to
be or be considered as something
to
form or make
something:
dumbing –
down
the act of making something simpler and easier for people to understand, especially in order to make it more popular:
peaked (adj.)
A
peaked hat has a peak at the front:
Outrage (n.)
a
feeling of anger and shock:
(v.)
(especially of an unfair action or statement) to causesomeone
to feel very angry,
shocked, or upset:
reforms (v.)
to make an improvement, especially by changing a person's behaviour or the structure of
something:
(n.)
an improvement, especially in a
person's behaviour or in
the structure of
something:
propose (v.)
to offer or suggest a possible plan or action for other people to consider:
impact (n.)
the
force or action of one object hitting another
a powerful effect that
something, especially something
new, has on a situation or person:
(v.)
to have an influence on
something:
orthographic
(n.)
the accepted way of
spelling and
writing words
alleged (adj.)
said or thought by some
people to be the
stated bad or illegal thing, although you
have no proof:
ความคิดเห็น