^^^

I mentioned in a recent blog post how the circumflex in French is frequently used to indicate the historical presence of the letter s in a word where it was lost, and I just wanted to elaborate on that. Right around the time of the Norman Conquest, the s sound began to disappear before consonants in the middle of words, which caused the vowels before them to lengthen. People needed some way to notate this change, so the circumflex was introduced by the Académie Française in 1740. Here are some instances of this:

• Fête and festival are a great example because they're both English words, one borrowed from modern French and one from Old French
  
• Same with hotel (from French hôtel) and hostel (from Old French hostel)
• Pâté and paste
  
• Château and castle

You get the idea. I think comparing these is really cool!