French Odds and Ends

    We had some interesting questions come up during class this week....so a big thanks to Tirzeh for sharing this bit of French trivia discussed below:

"Sunday" Origins

The name comes from the Latin dies solis, meaning "sun's day": the name of a pagan Roman holiday. It is also called Dominica (Latin), the Day of God. The Romance languages, languages derived from the ancient Latin language (such as French, Spanish, and Italian), retain the root.

French: dimanche; Italian: domenica; Spanish: domingo

English/French Capitalization Rules

http://french.about.com/library/writing/bl-capitalization.htm

French Month Abbreviations

janv - (Janvier) > (January) 

févr - (Février)> (Febuary) 

mars - (Mars) > (March) 

Avril - (Avril) > (April) 

mai - (Mai) > (May) 

juin - (Juin) >(June) 

juil - (Juillet) > (July) 

août - (Août) > (August) 

sept - (Septembre) > (September) 

oct - (Octobre) > (October) 

nov - (Novembre) >(November) 

déc - (Décembre) > (December)

Circumflex

The circumflex usually indicates that an S used to follow that vowel, e.g., forêt (forest).