Editing Reforms of French orthography (section)

==19th century==

Many changes were introduced in the sixth edition of the Académie dictionary (1835), mainly under the influence of [[Voltaire]]. Most importantly, all ''oi'' [[Digraph (orthography)|digraph]]s that represented {{IPA|/ɛ/}} were changed to ''ai,'' thus changing the whole [[imperfect]] [[Grammatical conjugation|conjugation]] of all [[verb]]s.  The [[loanword|borrowing]] of ''[[wikt:connoisseur|connoisseur]]'' into English predates this change; the modern French spelling is ''{{Wikt-lang|fr|connaisseur}}''.

:''{{Wikt-lang|fr|étois}}'' → ''{{Wikt-lang|fr|étais}}'' (was)

The spelling of some plural words whose singular form ended in ''D'' and ''T'' was modified to reinsert this mute consonant, so as to bring the plural in morphological alignment with the singular. Only ''{{lang|fr|gent}}, {{lang|fr|gens}}'' retained the old form, because it was perceived that the singular and the plural had different meanings. The Académie had already tried to introduce a similar reform in 1694, but had given up with their dictionary's second edition.

:''{{Wikt-lang|fr|parens}}'' → ''{{Wikt-lang|fr|parents}}'' (parents)

In 1868, Ambroise Firmin-Didot suggested in his book ''{{lang|fr|Observations sur l'orthographe, ou ortografie, française}}'' (Observations on French Spelling) that French phonetics could be better regularized by adding a cedilla beneath the letter "t" in some words. For example, in the suffix ''{{lang|fr|-tion}}'' this letter is usually not pronounced as (or close to) {{IPA|/t/}} in French, but as {{IPA|/sjɔ̃/}}. It has to be distinctly learned that in words such as ''{{lang|fr|diplomatie}}'' (but not ''{{lang|fr|diplomatique}}'') it is pronounced {{IPA|/s/}}. A similar effect occurs with other prefixes or within words. Firmin-Didot surmised that a new character ţ could be added to French orthography.