Les rectifications orthographiques de 1990

Unité GR-40 · campagne 24 · deux orthographes coexistent, et aucune n'est une faute.

Since 1990, French has had an officially recommended set of spelling simplifications, the rectifications orthographiques. They are not a revolution and not compulsory — but they are official, taught in schools, and they explain why you now see ognon next to oignon without either being wrong. This unit maps the four changes you will actually meet.

Two of these need a caveat. The circumflex becomes optional on i and u only where it distinguishes nothing; it stays put where it does real work — dû (versus du), mûr, sûr, and the verb endings of the passé simple and subjunctive (qu'il fût). So cout is now fine, but du participe still needs its hat when meaning demands it.

The number rule is the tidy one: every element of a written-out number is now joined by hyphens, top to bottom — deux-cent-trente-et-un, no more islands of separate words. The welding and plural changes both pull in the same direction: regularise the irregular, so a compound noun takes its plural on the final element like any ordinary word.

The single most useful thing to remember is the status: both spellings are equally correct. A corrector cannot mark nénufar or paraitre as an error, and cannot mark the traditional forms either. The reform is a recommendation, so you choose — the only rule is to stay consistent within one text.

The practice covers the circumflex rule, the number hyphens, the welding-and- plural principle, and the both-are-valid status.

Going further

Minimal pairs. One change between the two sentences, and what it does:

The reform's changes to verbs — the ones a learner meets most:

• -eler / -eter verbs take è like acheter: il ruissèle, j'amoncèle, il étiquète — except appeler, jeter and their compounds, which keep ll / tt (see les verbes qui changent pour se prononcer).
• è in the futur and conditionnel of the céder type: je cèderai, je préfèrerais; and évènement.
• laissé + infinitive is invariable, like fait: elle s'est laissé convaincre.
• dû keeps its circumflex only in the masculine singular: dû, but dus, due, dues.

Also: the tréma moves to the pronounced vowel (aigüe, ambigüité), and borrowed words take a regular plural (des matchs, des scénarios).

In Russian the letter ё is optional in print (всё / все) except where confusion threatens — the same logic as the 1990 circumflex: optional, except on dû, mûr, sûr and the forms it tells apart.

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