With Arcom, the French Language and Francophonie Week resonates on the airwaves

Viewers and listeners are always a little annoyed when they hear the name of their town or village mispronounced by journalists.

A majority of the letters received on this subject concern the city of Brussels, pronounced [bruksel] instead of [brussel], just as Auxerre and Metz are pronounced [ausserre] and [mess], as the dictionaries indicate.

Chamoniards also point out that their town is pronounced [chamoni], not [chamonix]. The Albenassiens want to hear the name of their town pronounced [aubena], not [aubenass]. The same applies to the Privadois, with Privas to be pronounced [priva]. On the other hand, some forty kilometers from these two main towns, the small town of Lussas, which hosts the Etats Généraux du Film Documentaire every August, is very often summoned [lussa], whereas its inhabitants let the final s be heard and say [lussass].

While Agen and Le Pouliguen have nasalized endings and are pronounced [in], Pont-Aven rhymes with dolmen.

While the Traité de prononciation française indicates that the l is silent in the names Aulnaye, Aulnoye-Aymeries, the Petit Larousse illustré (1999) gives two variants [aunay] [aunoy] or [aulnay] [aulnoy].

The same development can be seen in the pronunciation of the town and territory of Belfort. There used to be two pronunciations, one regional without the l, the other with an l. The latter prevailed, but today the pronunciation [befort] is found not only among older people, but also among youngsters whose families have been from Belfort for several generations.

It should also be remembered that before it was pronounced [ménilmontant], the Paris district was summoned [ménimontant].

Are you [montpeulier], [montpélier] or [montpéyé]?
A viewer from the Paris region wrote to the French Superior Audiovisual Council to complain about the pronunciation of the town of Montpellier in the audiovisual media, with the exception of one journalist who, according to him, pronounces it correctly as [montpélier] and not [montpeulier].

In Montpellier, the local press echoes the passionate controversy over the correct pronunciation of the toponym.

The Barons and Baronnes de Caravette, honorary titles given to Montpellier residents whose parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were born and have lived in Montpellier for three generations, are divided: some claim [montpeulier], others defend [montpélier].

The "authorized" opinion of certain researchers was sought, and a survey was carried out, within the framework of the CNRS, on a sample of 542 people, representative of the Montpellier population. This work led to the publication of a book entitled Les noms de Montpellier.

For Jacques Bres, the book's coordinator, the variation [montpeulier] [montpélier] can be explained in two non-exclusive ways. Montpellier is pronounced [montpéyé] in Occitan.

The Occitan é in the atonic medial syllable regularly becomes [eu] in French. The pronunciation [montpeulier] corresponds to standard French, while [montpélier] is a regional French trace of the name's Occitan origin.

There is also a spelling rule that the letter e is written in French without an accent if it is followed by a double consonant, but is pronounced [é], as in cellier.

This shows that there is no single correct pronunciation, but that both variants are equally correct and equally legitimate.

If today 90% of people pronounce [montpeulier] and 10% [montpéllier], no linguist can predict the future. Whether [montpélier] will stabilize and begin to regain ground, or whether it will diminish or even disappear...

It should be noted, however, that both pronunciations are now attested in Larousse dictionaries, whereas only [montpeulier] appeared in earlier editions.

When speaking, it's the future tense and the present conditional that are most frequently overused: "vous metteriez" for "vous mettriez", "vous résolverez" instead of "vous résoudrez".

The verb acquire and, less frequently used, the verb conquer pose problems not only in the future and conditional tenses ("vous acquérirez" for "vous acquerrez") but also in the past tense ("ils ont conquéri" instead of "ils ont conquis").

The verbs croire and voir create even more hesitation and give rise to new forms of conjugation. These two verbs have different written forms in the third person singular and plural, present indicative and present subjunctive: "il croit, ils croient, pour qu'il croisie, pour qu'ils croient", "il voit, ils voient, pour qu'il voie, pour qu'ils voient". And yet they're all pronounced the same, [voi] and [croi].

To distinguish the singular from the plural, we increasingly hear guests, and sometimes even hosts, use forms that don't exist in our conjugation: "ils croivent, ils [voillent] orthographiée ils voyent, whether in the indicative or subjunctive.

In the written word, on the other hand, whether in inlays or subtitles, the present subjunctive of these two verbs is mostly ignored and replaced by the present indicative ("pour qu'il croit" instead of "pour qu'il croie", "pour qu'il voit" instead of "pour qu'il croie"). pour qu'il voit" instead of "pour qu'il voie").

The subjunctive of the verb avoir "qu'il ait" frequently becomes "qu'il aie", through confusion with "que j'aie" or with the imperative aie. The forms "ayons, ayez" and "soyons, soyez", on the other hand, are misspelled (ayions, ayiez), (soyions, soyiez) with an unnecessary and incorrect y.

The verb to conclude has disappeared in favor of the verb to conclude, judging by the frequency, on TV and in the press, of the forms "il conclue, il conclera" instead of "il conclut, il conclura" learned at school.

In the second person, the present imperative of verbs in the first group continues to be spelled with an s: "chantes" instead of "chante", despite the rule: "The second person singular of the present imperative of verbs in -er (except aller, "va") ends in e, except in front of the pronouns en and y not followed by an infinitive.

Compare "Sing, dance, travel" with "Eat some. Think about it. Vas-y" (hyphenated s) or "Va y porter ordre. Ose en dire du bien" (en and y followed by an infinitive) and even "Va-t'en. Retourne-t'en.", with apostrophe, the t not being an analogous consonant as in "Aime-t-il?" but the pronoun te, the e of which is elided, the apostrophe dispensing with the second hyphen.

The subtitles often display whimsical conjugations. Errors regularly found concern the present tense, whether subjunctive: "que nous ayons", "que vous soyez" spelled with an unnecessary "i" ("que nous ayions", "que vous soyiez"), or imperative: "chante", often with an incorrect final "s" ("chantes"); and even the present indicative: "il envoie" written "il envoit" or "il conclut" spelled "il conclue". Similarly, the future tense of conclude raises a number of difficulties: it is found in the form "il concluera" for "il conclura".

The anticipatory agreement of the word "espèce" with a masculine complement in the expression "un espèce de savant fou" is frequent in the audiovisual media, but remains rare in the written press.

Maurice Grevisse points out that the adjectival character of the phrase "species of" is such that species itself frequently takes on the gender of the noun complement: un espèce de prophète. He also notes that espèce was already sometimes treated as masculine in the 18th century: "un espèce de cabinet" (Saint-Simon), "un espèce de grand homme" (Voltaire), "un espèce de musicien" (Diderot).

Despite these lists of our language's history, dictionaries and grammars are quite clear. As the ninth edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie reminds us, the word espèce is always feminine, whatever the gender of its complement.