Feb 16th, 2016, 12:39 PM

The Death of the Accent Circumflex (^)

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Image Credit: Flickr/Ryan Tyler Smith
The Académie Française "circumflexes" their muscles while French speakers are outraged at the phasing-out of the little hat accent.

The Académie Française released a decision to structurally change an aspect of the French language by putting in place specific rules regulating the spelling of well over 2000 words. The Guardian reports that these changes were made with the intention to "simplify [the words] for schoolchildren" but online backlash of the decision accuses the state of "dumbing down the language." 

"The well-loved accent will be optional on the "i" and "u" but will generally remain atop the "a" and "o", as well as in several other uses," says NPR. En bref, other changes include the adding of hyphens (vingt et un becomes vingt-et-un), the taking away of hyphens (week-end becomes weekend), changing accents (événement becomes évènement), and taking away letters (oignon becomes ognon). 

The changes have actually been around for 26 years but have been generally ignored, even after the new spelling was published once in 2008, and again last November, according to The Guardian. The decision to make these changes picked up significant attention after a news report from TF1 aired last week. Following the breaking of the story, French speakers took to their keyboards and drowned Twitter in a backlash against the new rules. 

The hashtag #JeSuisCirconflexe has taken storm on Twitter with people outraged for the attack on the accent. The hashtag was modeled after #JeSuisCharlie which appeared after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. 

 

BBC writes, "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." The new orthography will enter school childrens' textbooks in 2016 and 2017, according to Le Figaro.

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