7

I was exploring France in Google Maps and I looked at some city names:

  • La Roche-sur-Yon
  • Fontenay-le-Comte
  • Saint-Maixent-l'École

And so many others.

Why do French cities names have these dashes? Why are they necessary?

In English also we use dashes but only when without them the sentence is misread; for example:

A cheap-car factory vs A cheap car factory.

But we don't have dashes, for example, in Saint Petersburg.

Improve this question
10
  • 5
    On pourrait retourner la question : Pourquoi n'y a-t-il pas de tiret en anglais ? fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
    – Toto
    Nov 20 at 10:42
  • It's a convention. A typographic choice so that all city names are consistent.
    – Teleporting Goat
    Nov 20 at 11:08
  • I suggest they're no more 'necessary' in French than, for instance, English would demand Weston-super-Mare rather than the same without the dashes. However, even without the power of tradition, France has an Acadamie Francais which tries to enforce umpty rules, hopefully over all of Francophilia, while no Anglophile country has anything similar. Doesn't that suggest, this is due more to culture than to language?
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Nov 20 at 21:05
  • 7
    "In English also we use dashes but only when without them the sentence is misread". This premise is false - Shakespeare was famously from Stratford-upon-Avon. Many other examples exist.
    – Carl-Fredrik Nyberg Brodda
    Nov 21 at 7:46
  • 1
    Does no-one here believe that French is a unique language, written according to its own rules?
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Nov 21 at 21:56

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
16

Saint-Étienne is a city, Saint Étienne was a man. Saint Petersbourg would be an hypothetical saint, Saint-Petersbourg is a city. Les États-Unis is the name of the US while les états unis would be the name of a group of states united for some reason, which ones depending on the context.

Most toponymic names are hyphenated in French, precisely to make clear they are a single unit and not a phrase. When there is an initial definite article (le, la, les), it is separated from the remaining part of the name by a space, not an hyphen.

A probable reason for it is that despite being part of the name, is is nevertheless still an article subject to contraction with the prepositions de or à.

That's the reason why Le Mans gives Les 24 heures du Mans and not Les 24 heures de Le-Mans. Similarly, we say Je vais aux Sables-d'Olonne, not Je vais à Les Sables-d'Olonne.

Reference:

1· Typographie Le nom de lieu n’est écrit qu’avec des lettres, des traits d’union, des apostrophes ou des espaces, et ne comprend aucun caractère spécial : esperluette (&), barre oblique (/), guillemets (« » “ ”), etc.

1·1· Traits d’union Le trait d’union unit deux ou plusieurs mots pour n’en former qu’un seul. Aussi, à la seule exception de l’éventuel article défini initial, l’ensemble des mots composant un nom de lieu officiel doivent être joints par des traits d’union, qui ne sont jamais précédés ni suivis d’espaces (Clermont-Ferrand [63], D’Huison-Longueville [91], Saint-Julien-Mont-Denis [73], Saint-Béat-Lez [31]). Les éléments d’un nom composé peuvent parfois être agglutinés sans trait d’union ou contractés (Beauvallon [26] en 1890 et [69] en 2018, Valencisse [41] en 2016, etc.), même si ces évolutions constituent habituellement des transformations historiques de graphies étymologiques.

Source: Choisir un nom de lieu, Guide pratique à l’usage des élus, 2019.

Note however that these rules are related to official / administrative documents. Actual everyday usage can be much more relaxed, e.g.:

enter image description here

enter image description here

Improve this answer
9
  • Isn't capitalizing the first letters enough to make it clear in the United States case?
    – Snack Exchange
    Nov 20 at 12:48
  • 2
    In the U.S., we have a United States Board on Geographic Names which standardizes them. This is why Pittsburgh is the only city in the U.S. which doesn't spell its suffix burg and why Martha's Vineyard is one of only a handful of geographic localities that have an apostrophe--they had enough political power to resist the Board's decisions. When I first read this question, I assumed that something simiiar had happened in France. After all, you do have l'Académie française.
    – Peter Shor
    Nov 20 at 13:08
  • @SnackExchange Right although that would still be ambiguous if for some reason, the whole sentence is written in capitals.
    – jlliagre
    Nov 20 at 13:10
  • 1
    Note how the french text makes a singular exception for a possible definite article: No hyphens in e.g. the harbour city of Le Havre, or the ski & climbing resort of Les Houches.
    – user3445853
    Nov 20 at 20:53
  • 1
    @user3445853 I think the first definite article doesn't attach to its noun. Look at the first example in my question: La Roche-sur-Yon. See? La isn't hyphenated with Roche. I think your examples also show this.
    – Snack Exchange
    Nov 20 at 23:57

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.