Script guide › Latin
French vs Italian
French and Italian sit in the same corner of the writing-system map — Grafle's Latin group — and players mix them up constantly. Here's the fastest way to tell them apart.
The tell
French: accents é/è/ê, the ç, and apostrophes (l', c'est). Italian: doubled consonants and vowel endings.
Side by side
French
Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux.
Liberté, égalité, fraternité — la devise française.
Ça va? C'est la vie, mon ami!
French's own tells
- Watch for the accents é/è/ê, the cedilla ç (ça, français), and apostrophes: l', d', c'est.
- Words like les, des, et, dans give it away fast.
On signs in:
- France
- Canada
- Belgium
- Switzerland
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Madagascar
- Cameroon
- Ivory Coast
- Niger
- Burkina Faso
- Mali
- Senegal
- Chad
- Guinea
- Rwanda
- Burundi
- Benin
- Haiti
- Togo
- Central African Republic
- Republic of the Congo
- Gabon
- Djibouti
- Comoros
- Luxembourg
- Vanuatu
- Seychelles
- Mauritius
- French Guiana
- New Caledonia
Italian
Tutti gli esseri umani nascono liberi ed eguali in dignità.
Ciao, come stai oggi?
Tra il dire e il fare c'è di mezzo il mare.
Italian's own tells
- Nearly every word ends in a vowel; double consonants (zz, tt, ss) everywhere.
- Accents only fall on final vowels: città, è, però.
On signs in:
- Italy
- Switzerland
- San Marino