>No, the abbreviation of "gouvernement" cannot be "gov" in French because it doesn't have the same pronunciation. It can only be "gouv" as those two vowels cann

>No, the abbreviation of "gouvernement" cannot be "gov" in French because it doesn't have the same pronunciation. It can only be "gouv" as those two vowels cannot be separated for abbreviations in French. It could be "gou" although it sounds a bit weird. There’s no general rule that an abbreviation has to keep all letters; that’s what makes it an abbreviation. Nor do such contractions need to keep the same pronunciation as the corresponding parts: even the .com TLD is pronounced differently from the (unstressed) first syllable of “commercial” which it is a contraction of, “even though” it would sound weird to pronounce it like that syllable (as “come”). French isn’t any different about allowing abbreviations to change the pronunciation: the “el” in courriel is pronounced differently from the él in courrier électronique that it corresponds to. And the French language authority endorsed that. Where are you getting this rule that implies gouvernement can’t contract to gov, merely because it would look like it should sound different? It seems like that constraint is entirely made up, and not even adhered to in French, so I don’t see how it’s somehow confusing from a French perspective. The only explanation is that it’s deliberately trying to be different. >France also uses .asso.fr instead of .org, for example. Which is also despite French having the word organisation already.