Phonology of Old French

Old French was spoken in northern France from the eighth century to the fourteenth century. It differed from contemporary French in many ways. This also extends to phonology.

The writing system of Old French was far more phonetic than it is today. Most written consonants were pronounced and word-final e was pronounced as a schwa. Today the word cuillère (spoon) is pronounced with a palatal glide, but it used to be pronounced with a palatal lateral.

The uvular fricative in words such as rouge (red) used to be an alveolar trill. The trill is used in other Romance languages such as Spanish and Italian.  Words such as poing (fist) used to be pronounced with a velar nasal. Now it ends with a nasalized vowel.

In old French the nasal vowels were not separate phonemes. They were only allophones of the oral vowels before nasal consonants. The nasal consonant was fully pronounced. For example, the word bon (good) had three segments in Old French. Today it has only two.

The phonology of Old French differed from that of contemporary French in many ways. The writing system of Old French was more phonetic with fewer silent letters than today. Unlike today, the nasal vowels were not phonemes and the alveolar trill and palatal lateral were part of the phoneme inventory.