ilä

ilé is a linguistic variant associated primarily with French geographical terminology. In standard French, the word for “island” is île, with a circumflex accent. The form ilé, lacking the accent, appears in certain regional dialects and historical texts, and may be used as a simplified orthographic rendering in informal contexts. The term is most often found in the names of places, bodies of water, and administrative divisions within French‑speaking regions, where the original accent is omitted for typographical convenience or due to legacy printing practices.

The origin of ilé traces back to Latin insula, the root of many Romance language terms for land surrounded by water. In medieval French, the circumflex disappeared in some records, particularly in southern dialects influenced by Occitan and Provençal. Consequently, place names such as Ilé-française or Ilé-vestigiale were recorded in the 12th and 13th centuries. In modern usage, the term has largely faded, replaced by the accented île, but it occasionally persists in toponyms, local histories, and in the names of institutions or events whose heritage predates the standardization of the French orthography.

Given its close relationship to the standard French word, ilé is sometimes conflated with informal spellings of "île" used in non‑formal writing, online communication, or on signage in regions where the circumflex is regularly omitted. While it is not considered standard French vocabulary, ilé remains a point of interest for linguists studying the evolution of French spelling, as well as for historians examining medieval cartographic and documentary sources.