Circumflex in French

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Circumflex
U+0302 ̂ COMBINING CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT

The circumflex (ˆ) is one of the five diacritics used in French orthography. It may appear on the vowels a, e, i, o, and u, for example â in pâté.

The circumflex, called accent circonflexe, has three primary functions in French:

  • It affects the pronunciation of a, e, and o. Although it is used on i and u as well, it does not affect their pronunciation.
  • It often indicates the historical presence of a letter, commonly s, that has become silent and fallen away in orthography over the course of linguistic evolution.
  • It is used, less frequently, to distinguish between two homophones. For example, sur ('on/about') versus sûr '(sure/safe'), and du ('of the') versus ('due')

And in certain words, it is simply an orthographic convention.