Pronunciation of Old French

Old French was spoken between the eighth and fourteenth centuries. The pronunciation was quite different from that of today. Though scholars cannot say precisely how it was pronounced, the spelling was a better indication of pronunciation than it is today.

The r was almost certainly an alveolar trill, the sound that is heard in languages such as Italian and Spanish. The ll was not a palatal approximant but a palatal lateral, and the ch was a voiceless alveolar affricate, a common sound in many languages. Today the letters ch represent not a voiceless affricate but rather a voiceless alveopalatal fricative. The process which changed the affricate to a fricative is known as spirantization.

The pronunciation of Old French was closer to the spelling than the pronunciation of modern French. For example, the word beau (beautiful) is pronounced with only one syllable. However, in Old French, it was two syllables. It consisted of a voiced bilabial plosive and monophthong in the first syllable and a diphthong in the second syllable.

The pronunciation of French has changed signifcantly through the years. Though the pronuncation of French changed, the spelling did not reflect the changes in the pronunciation. The result is that French spelling is not very phonetic. In this respect, French and English are similar.