20th Century
With important dictionaries published at the turn of 20th century, such as Émile Littré's, Pierre Larousse's and Arsène Darmesteter's, and later Paul Robert's, the Académie gradually lost much of its prestige.
Hence, new reforms suggested in 1901, 1935, and 1975 were almost totally ignored, except for the replacement of apostrophes with hyphens in some cases of (potential) elision in 1935.
- grand'mère → grand-mère (grandmother)
Since the 1970s, though, calls for the modernisation of French orthography have grown stronger. In 1989, French prime minister Michel Rocard appointed the Superior Council of the French language to simplify the orthography by regularising it.
Read more about this topic: Reforms Of French Orthography
Famous quotes containing the word century:
“What had really caused the women’s movement was the additional years of human life. At the turn of the century women’s life expectancy was forty-six; now it was nearly eighty. Our groping sense that we couldn’t live all those years in terms of motherhood alone was “the problem that had no name.” Realizing that it was not some freakish personal fault but our common problem as women had enabled us to take the first steps to change our lives.”
—Betty Friedan (20th century)