Many French words have a word-final e. This is in contrast to other Romance languages which preserve a word-final a or o. The change to e is word-final vowel weakening. The front mid vowel shares the tongue height as the schwa and is also unrounded.
The process of word-final vowel weakening is very common in French. This can be illustrated by comparing words from Italian, Portuguese and Spanish with words from French. In the following list the French word is given first followed by the same word in Italian, Portuguese and Spanish:
colline collina colina colina (hill)
école scuola escola escuela (school)
église chiesa igreja iglesia (church)
heure ora hora hora (hour)
lune luna luna luna (moon)
montagne montagna montanha montaña (mountain)
orange arancia laranja naranja (orange)
semaine semana semana semana (week)
soupe zuppa sopa sopa (soup)
vie vita vida vida (life)
cône cono cono cono (cone)
corne corno corno cuerno (horn)
cube cubo cubo cubo (cube)
diccionaire dizionario dicionário diccionario (dictionary)
filtre filtro filtro filtro (filter)
livre libro livro libro (book)
monde mondo mundo mundo (world)
siècle secolo século siglo (century)
trône trono trono trono (throne)
tube tubo tubo tubo (tube)
Word-final vowel weakening is very common in French. As a result, French can be considered more innovative than Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. In addition to word-final vowel weakening, French has also undergone vowel deletion. This is because the orthographic e has no phonetic value- it is no longer pronounced.
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