# EN: French names in an English text



## AniwaR

Hello,

This might be a stupid question, but should we keep French letters with accents (è ç é...) unchanged in an English text? For example:

I am going to meet _Fran*ç*ois. _
I am going to meet _Fran*c*ois.
_​
Which one is correct or are both equally acceptable?


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## aeb31

Hello, 

Yes you have to keep the names unchanged, keep the accents. As an example: in a French text if one English character's name is Peter, you won't translate it to Pierre, will you? So the names have to remain the same whatever the language!


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## AniwaR

Well, of course, you are right. I would never translate names, but just wondered about keeping the French orthography. 

Merci beaucoup pour votre réponse!


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## windsmith

Well the New York Times keeps the French orthography when referring to France's president, François Hollande.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/francois_hollande/index.html


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## Tochka

I would say both ways are acceptable, although retaining the accents would probably be better if it's no problem for you to do so.  
My feeling is that among English speakers, those able to use the international characters in their computers or word-processing systems easily may choose to retain the French accents, but many others will simply drop the accents and use only characters easily available on an English keyboard.
There's no general rule on this that I'm aware of.  
On the other hand, individual publications (such as the New York Times) no doubt specify their preferred approach in their style manuals.


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## Yendred

Tochka said:


> I would say both ways are acceptable, although retaining the accents would probably be better if it's no problem for you to do so.
> My feeling is that among English speakers, those able to use the international characters in their computers or word-processing systems easily may choose to retain the French accents, but many others will simply drop the accents and use only characters easily available on an English keyboard.
> There's no general rule on this that I'm aware of.
> On the other hand, individual publications (such as the New York Times) no doubt specify their preferred approach in their style manuals.



Tochka,

The problem is:
"*I am going to meet François*" and "*I am going to meet Francois*"
do not pronounce the same.
*François *(pronounced "Fransswah") is a French first name, but *Francois* (pronounced "Frankwah") is not.
Writing some words without the accents make them different words.

If one does not have the french accents on their keyboard, they might easily copy-paste the correct character from an Internet site or so.


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## waltern

Tochka said:


> On the other hand, individual publications (such as the New York Times) no doubt specify their preferred approach in their style manuals.



I agree, for example it looks like The Washington Post writes it as "Francois Hollande" (on their website, anyway - I would post a link to an article but apparently am too new here to be able to do so.)


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## Tochka

Yendred said:


> Tochka,
> The problem is:
> "*I am going to meet François*" and "*I am going to meet Francois*"
> do not pronounce the same.
> *François *(pronounced "Fransswah") is a French first name, but *Francois* (pronounced "Frankwah") is not.
> Writing some words without the accents make them different words.
> If one does not have the french accents on their keyboard, they might easily copy-paste the correct character from an Internet site or so.


What's missing from this logic is that English speakers do not have a "ç" in their alphabet.  Those who would not know Francois is pronounced "frahnswah" wouldn't know how to pronoun "ç" in any event.  You have to be familiar with French to know the difference between "c" and "ç".
Nul anglophone qui connaisse le français prononcerait "Francois" comme "Frankwah" et ceux qui n'ont pas d'expérience avec les mots français ne sauraient quoi faire avec le "ç" en tout cas.


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## Ashmada

Yendred said:


> Tochka,  The problem is: "*I am going to meet François*" and "*I am going to meet Francois*" do not pronounce the same. *François *(pronounced "Fransswah") is a French first name, but *Francois* (pronounced "Frankwah") is not. Writing some words without the accents make them different words.  If one does not have the french accents on their keyboard, they might easily copy-paste the correct character from an Internet site or so.


  Or use an (extended) ASCII table. ALT+135=ç, on any keyboard; but few know so.


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## AniwaR

Tochka said:


> What's missing from this logic is that English speakers do not have a "ç" in their alphabet.



This is mostly what caused me to ask the question, because keeping all French accents would be a bit similar to keeping names, which are in a language with other than Latin alphabet (Greek, Armenian, Arabian, Cyrillic...), unchanged. But on the other hand (I have the counter-arguments myself ), there are some other common words (not names) in English, although, not originally with English roots, I guess, which may contain letters with accents. For now I can recall only _naïve_, but certainly I've met some others before...

O, yes! And Wikipedia also keeps the accents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Françoise_Hardy), so maybe it's just a matter of preference.


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## Tochka

AniwaR said:


> For now I can recall only _naïve_, but certainly I've met some others before...


In the past it has certainly been common for well-educated English speakers to use appropriate accents on French and other foreign words in their writing--at least when handwriting or having the writing typeset.  Remember: a couple of generations ago, to be "well-educated" in the English-speaking world usually implied a person had studied Latin and French, if not German as well. Thus among the well-educated, and in most academic writings, you would find "rôle" written with the circumflex, "naïve" with the umlaut (sorry, I don't know the English or French words for that mark), and, yes, "François" and "Françoise" with the cedilla.  But for the average person, "rôle" would be written "role" and "naïve" would be written "naive" and the friends of Francois or Francoise would just know the "c" was pronounced like an "s."  (English has many spelling exceptions, after all!)  
In fact, using foreign accents in one's writing in some contexts, at least in some contexts in the US, might appear "pretentious" -- as if you were showing off your academic expertise and knowledge of the foreign language.  

With the advent of the computer and as both international literacy and keyboard-function literacy grow, however, I expect it to be more and more common for English speakers to spell foreign words (in the Latin alphabet) with their appropriate accents.


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## Yendred

Tochka said:


> With the advent of the computer and as both international literacy and keyboard-function literacy grow, however, I expect it to be more and more common English speakers to spell foreign words (in the Latin alphabet) with their appropriate accents.



True. With the development of international communications (as we are doing now ), it's like if a new international alphabet was born containing all possible characters of common languages: the French ç, the Spanish ñ, the German ß, etc.
With the combinations ALT+xxx or copy-paste from other documents, anyone can make the effort to spell names correctly like François Hollande, Luis Buñuel, Johann Strauß, etc.


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## AniwaR

Tochka said:


> In fact, using foreign accents in one's writing in some contexts, at least in some contexts in the US, might appear "pretentious" -- as if you were showing off your academic expertise and knowledge of the foreign language.



Oh, I've heard something like that, although the topic was about pronunciation, and I apologize for going slightly off-topic, but, in my opinion, that's a bit silly.  That pretentiousness, I guess, may be felt by those, who are not familiar with the subject. One does not have to be proficient in French to have elementary notions of pronunciation of basic characters or individual words... When I see or hear something unfamiliar, my first reaction is to learn some more, not to call the person, who demonstrates the knowledge, pretentious. So, I'll make sure I write the accents when I'm in the U.S.


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## Tochka

If you write French accents, at least it will not get in the way of people reading the words.  If you used something like the German ß, however, your readers may be as puzzled as if you had written in Cyrillic.  

In all cases, I think, the important thing is to communicate clearly.  If using the original pronunciation or original spelling does not interfere with your listeners understanding the sounds you are saying or with your readers reading the letters you are writing, then it is fine to use the pronunciation or spelling of the original language.  But if the original makes it harder for your audience to understand you, as using the ß might do, then it is best to follow the spelling options offered by the alphabet of the language you are writing in (and, when speaking, using the closest approximation to the actual pronunciation available within the sound system of the language you are speaking in).  



Yendred said:


> With the combinations ALT+xxx or copy-paste from other documents, anyone can make the effort to spell names correctly like François Hollande, Luis Buñuel, Johann Strauß, etc.


While I agree it is becoming easier to use the symbols of other languages, I would like to caution against calling an original language's spelling the "correct" spelling, as if this were absolute.  

Each language has its own spelling rules and what is the "correct" spelling of a name in the native language will not define what is the "correct" spelling of that name in another language.  "Johann Strauss" is a perfectly correct English spelling of the Waltz King's name, just as Francois is also a correct spelling of François in English.  

The ease of writing the symbols is not the only factor.   The ability of the intended audience to pronounce and understand the symbols used must also be considered.


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## L'Inconnu

Tochka said:


> My feeling is that among English speakers, those able to use the international characters in their computers or word-processing systems easily may choose to retain the French accents, but many others will simply drop the accents and use only characters easily available on an English keyboard.



You're right. It is quite easy to do with word processors these days, even if you don't have an international keyboard. Just spell the word _Francois_ as you write the text. When your finished, simply use the *Find and Replace* function to change all instances of _Francois_ to _François_. This last step will take only a minute to do.


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