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Why are the letters “s”, “t”, “p”, “d” (a mnemonic is to remember consonants in "stupid") silent when final — without a “e” at the end? I'm really confused. Any reasonable explanation is appreciated.

Stéphane Gimenez
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ʇolɐǝz ǝɥʇ qoq
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  • Your question isn't clear. Do you mean final consonants? Can you give examples ? "Stupid" is not a French word (it is always stupide) so there's no way we would pronounce it. Final consonants are not always silent, whether word stands on its own (e.g. in some of the meanings of plus) or when liaised with the following word. – None Jun 02 '14 at 05:51
  • I suggest you read those and come back if you have questions: http://ielanguages.com/frenchphonetics.html) ; http://www.languageguide.org/french/grammar/pronunciation/final_consonants.html ; http://frenchetc.org/2008/04/10/pronounciation-final-consonants/. – None Jun 02 '14 at 06:00
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    @Laure, you are missing the "STuPiD" mnemonic. – jlliagre Jun 02 '14 at 07:55
  • Related posts: http://french.stackexchange.com/questions/8937/quelles-sont-les-lettres-quon-ne-prononce-pas-a-la-fin-dun-mot, http://french.stackexchange.com/questions/86/ecart-entre-lorthographe-et-la-prononciation-du-francais, http://french.stackexchange.com/questions/1914/quand-doit-on-prononcer-ou-ne-pas-prononcer-la-derniere-lettre-dun-mot – Stéphane Gimenez Jun 02 '14 at 08:00
  • @jlliagre Fr.se isn't aimed specifically at English learners. The question is slightly clearer since Stéphane Gimenez reworded it but still sounds as if it was a rule not to sound final s, t, p, and d. I do not think there could be a better answer to the question than this one. And to me the way the question is asked seems as irrelevant as asking on ELL why there so many unsounded letters in English. – None Jun 02 '14 at 09:06
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    I'm always uncomfortable with "why" questions. The answer is "the language evolved so". You probably could come with some linguistic or phonological rules, but those would probably more describe than explain the evolution of the language. And I always wonder if it is the intended subject of the question. – Un francophone Jun 02 '14 at 11:56

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Your question is clearly expressed but there is no point looking for a reasonable explanation. Unlike say Spanish and German for example, but like English, there is no strict rule to phonetically convert written French to spoken French and only experience will help you learning the usual exceptions to whatever rule you might be teached, including the "STuPiD" one.

jlliagre
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    While there are difficult words, written french to pronounced french is pretty straightforward, especially compared to English (look in a dictionary aimed to native speakers and see how few words have phonetic marks, compare with an English dictionary aimed to English native speakers). The other direction is more problematic. – Un francophone Jun 02 '14 at 12:00
  • Did you mean to post this as a comment? – Édouard Jun 02 '14 at 15:40
  • @Unfrancophone English might be indeed even more irregular than French. That doesn't change my point which is you cannot know for sure how to pronounce (some) French words just by seeing how they are written. There is no such uncertainty with Spanish and German. – jlliagre Jun 02 '14 at 21:49
  • @jlliagre it's not "might" : English is mostly irregular, while French is mostly regular. The fact that s, t, p, d are silent when no vowels follow is a standard rule in French. – Shautieh Oct 21 '14 at 12:41
  • @Shautieh "Standard rules" often have exceptions in French... – jlliagre Oct 06 '17 at 09:19
  • @jlliagre not so often..? Compared to English, French is really regular. – Shautieh Oct 06 '17 at 11:18
  • @Shautieh What standard rule do you follow to pronounce these French words: sud, nord, lest, fat, art, août, est, bot, dot, cet, met, rot, tôt, bout, but, chut? – jlliagre Oct 06 '17 at 11:49
  • Did I say there were no exceptions? And as in most of those examples, the exception arises in order to avoid homophones. Do you want to compare with English ending ~ough? Same terminal group of letters, 11 different pronounciations. Bicycle and tricycle? The great vowel shift is also a thing, and the archaic spellings remained, fucking up any pronunciation rule, for ever. blood and food? The French Académie, on the other hand, has been polishing the language, and that makes a difference too. Also, English likes to loan words with their original spelling and pronunciation: more exceptions! – Shautieh Oct 10 '17 at 02:15
  • @Shautieh Did I wrote English was less irregular than French? My intention was to acknowledge it is by using indeed. If that was unclear, that's my mistake. In any case, my point is not a comparative study of French and English pronunciation but just that there is no definitive "Standard" rule set stating how to pronounce French. There are just plenty of rules with plenty of exceptions unlike German, Spanish, or Italian to a lesser extent. Look for example to the recent discussions about French liaisons in FSE. – jlliagre Oct 10 '17 at 07:51
  • @Shautieh By the way, French is no different than English with loan words: original spelling kept and "specific" pronunciation (original would be quite exaggerated like it is with English). – jlliagre Oct 10 '17 at 07:51
  • @jlliagre I think we agree then. When French people loan words directly from English, we pronounce them in such a French way that no English speaker would understand. On the bright side, by butchering the original pronunciation in such a way, we make it more regular as well! ;) I have talked with several Asians (so no common language roots) who learned both English and French, and they all think French is much more regular. Nothing can beat Spanish though, as they have this beautiful rule that bans pronounciation exceptions. – Shautieh Oct 20 '17 at 13:43
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The historical answer to this question is: the "e" at the end of a word used to be pronounced (and it still is in certain phonological contexts, ranging from rarely to often, depending on the dialect, with rarely being more common). French speakers stopped pronouncing word-final "s, t, p, d" at some point, but in a word like "côte" the t was not at the time the final sound of the word. Later, the "e" became silent (in all standard dialects).

At this point, the sound change eliminating word-final consonants had already been completed, so that one still hears the "t" of "côte." Note that French poetry and formal music requires one to pronounce final "e" in most positions, because the composition rules come from a time that this was more common, at least in elevated speech. (I find that in French pop, the singer pronounces the /e/ if and only if it helps the singer fit the right number of syllables into the rhyme!).

By the way, a similar change happened in English -- a long time ago the vowels in "rate" and "rat" were the same, and the difference between the two words was that the "e" in "rate" was pronounced as a separate syllable. Then, we got a phonological rule lengthening the "a" in the presence of the "e" in the next syllable. Then, we lost the "e", then we had a "great English vowel shift," and now the spelling is very far from the pronunciation!

hunter
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