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ArchivesClementine curiousity
I picked the name for Clementine for my name in French class, and my teacher insisted I must have an acute accent over the first e, so it reads "Clémentine." She says if not, the e would not be pronounced, or rather skipped over, like the second e. Is she crazy or is the one in BtN wrong?
Thanks,
Melinda
Thanks,
Melinda
1
Replies
In French, Clémentine (and Clémence, Clément...) has an accent over the first syllable, as a given name or as a noun (clémentine). In this case, BtN is wrong and your teacher is right (which makes sense since it is a teacher of French language).
The BtN entry should be "Clementine. Gender: Feminine. Usage: English. English form of CLÉMENTINE." and "Clémentine. Gender: Feminine. Usage: French. French feminine form of CLÉMENT.", with the correct pronunciation, with the first vowel [e] and not [ə].
In French (and the same is true for Spanish or Catalan) the use of the accents doesn't depend on the taste of the speaker, but on the rules and fixed spellings (because of etymology, tradition...) by the language academy (in this case, the Académie française); that is true for common words and for given names. In the case of given names that match nouns or adjectives, checking the correct spelling is very simple, as in Clémentine, because they appear in the dictionary. In the case of other given names the way is look up some reliable works (as the Larousse encyclopaedia and dictionaries, Dauzat's works...) or ask directly the Académie.
Regarding that on Internet the name/nous appears used both with and without accent, a lot of French speakers (and again, that is true for speakers in any language with strong spelling rules, as Spanish or Catalan) make mispellings because of a poor linguistic knowledge, other are lazy and even knowing how to spell a word write without accents or other diacritics and, finally, other very competent speakers, when dealing on Internet or in English contexts, simply drop the accents and diacritics because otherwise the text can appear with odd symbols or be incomprehensible in some browsers or the name/word finishes distorted or is not understood by the English speakers.
The BtN entry should be "Clementine. Gender: Feminine. Usage: English. English form of CLÉMENTINE." and "Clémentine. Gender: Feminine. Usage: French. French feminine form of CLÉMENT.", with the correct pronunciation, with the first vowel [e] and not [ə].
In French (and the same is true for Spanish or Catalan) the use of the accents doesn't depend on the taste of the speaker, but on the rules and fixed spellings (because of etymology, tradition...) by the language academy (in this case, the Académie française); that is true for common words and for given names. In the case of given names that match nouns or adjectives, checking the correct spelling is very simple, as in Clémentine, because they appear in the dictionary. In the case of other given names the way is look up some reliable works (as the Larousse encyclopaedia and dictionaries, Dauzat's works...) or ask directly the Académie.
Regarding that on Internet the name/nous appears used both with and without accent, a lot of French speakers (and again, that is true for speakers in any language with strong spelling rules, as Spanish or Catalan) make mispellings because of a poor linguistic knowledge, other are lazy and even knowing how to spell a word write without accents or other diacritics and, finally, other very competent speakers, when dealing on Internet or in English contexts, simply drop the accents and diacritics because otherwise the text can appear with odd symbols or be incomprehensible in some browsers or the name/word finishes distorted or is not understood by the English speakers.
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Thanks a ton!
I added Clémentine to the submitted names list... maybe they'll add it on later. Thanks for all the help!
http://www.behindthename.com/submit/search.php?terms=Clementine&name=yes&gender=both&operator=or
Melinda
I added Clémentine to the submitted names list... maybe they'll add it on later. Thanks for all the help!
http://www.behindthename.com/submit/search.php?terms=Clementine&name=yes&gender=both&operator=or
Melinda
1
If you do a Google search for "clementine prenom" to get mostly pages in French, you will see that both writing variants, with or without accent, seem to be in common use.
It looks to me that even the French themselves cannot agree.
If BtN lists only one form, I wouldn't consider this "wrong", rather that one name variant is missing, but of course that is true for thousands and thousands of other names and variants as well.
It looks to me that even the French themselves cannot agree.
If BtN lists only one form, I wouldn't consider this "wrong", rather that one name variant is missing, but of course that is true for thousands and thousands of other names and variants as well.
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I don't know anything about the obnoxious French Language, but my guess is your teacher may be operating off of the anglicized pronunciation of the name (as in "Oh my darling, Oh my darling..."). Thus the stress falls on the first syllable: CLEM-un-tyne. In other words, the acute accent seems to make sense only if the name is dactylic, rather than anapestic. But like I said, I know nothing about French except that I find it less appealing than Latin, Greek, Spanish, Italian, and Portugese. Still, accents are usually only added to designate the stress of a syllable which would not otherwise be stressed.
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