Hats off: Many French words losing circumflex accent

If you happen to bewriting in French about tasting oysters and onions on a weekend in August, things are about to change. Starting in September, schools in France will teach new spellings of some words in a bid to simplifythe written language.

Under the spelling reforms, the circumflex over i and u (or and ) in many words will be removed. This affects words such as "goter" (to taste), "hutre" (oyster), and "aot" (August).

As well, the word "oignon" (onion) will lose its pesky and silent "i" to become "ognon." And the French word "week-end," borrowed from English, is among several that are dropping the hyphen.

The Acadmie franaise, the council on French language that decides such things, approved the changes to about 2,400 words in 1990, but it took 26 years for them to make their way to the school system.

However, despite thisadvancenotice, many francophonesaren't pleased with the news that many words will be losing their beloved little hats. The hashtag#ReformeOrthographe was a worldwide Twittertrend on Thursdaymorning.

Some people added extra, unneededcircumflexesto compensate for the loss. (Here, the bear mascot of Xbox in France turns to a friend for comfort.)

Some mocked the changes by adopting even more drastic "simplifications" to written French. (At the same time, this tweet satirizes theAcadmie for forcing the spelling changes, as if at gunpoint.)

To some, it was as if the world were ending

This tweet and its hashtag #JeSuisCirconflexecallback to the #JeSuisCharlieTwitter trend that followed the Paris shootings last year at Charlie Hebdo.

It was among many tweets to use the phrase "nivellement par le bas," which loosely translates to "dumbing down."

The deputy mayor of Nice, Christain Estrosi, used the hashtag and called the changes "absurd."

Florian Philippot, vice-president of the Front National political party, also used #JeSuisCirconflexe in his tweet about the reforms, calling the French language "our soul" andgoing out of his way to use words that include the circumflex(all of which will be kept under the changes.)

In another tweet, Philippot called the reforms a "massacre" of the language.

It's not every and that will disappear, though. They will still appear in certain obscure verb conjugations, the kind of wordsthat will give French immersion students flashbacks(lepass simple,l'imparfait du subjonctif, leplus-que-parfait du subjonctif).

The circumflexwill also be kept oni and u in cases where removing it would cause confusion. For example, "sur" means "upon," while "sr" means "certain." "Un jeune" means "a young person," but "unjene" is "a fast."

This tweet mocks the reforms by noting the possible confusion of "mr," meaning "ripe," and "mur," meaning "wall."

The Canadian equivalent of the Acadmie, l'Office qubcois de la langue franaise, already recognizes the spelling reforms, but notes thatneither the newspellings nor the traditionalonesshould be considered wrong.