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This article is part of the series on: French language | |||
French (français, pronounced [fʁɑ̃sɛ]) is today spoken by about 350 million people around the world as either a native or a second language,(French) "Les francophones dans le monde" (Francophones worldwide") — Provides details from a report, (Rapport 1997–1998 du Haut Conseil de la Francophonie, "Etat de la francophonie dans le monde", La Documentation française, 1999, pp.612) which provides the following numbers: 112,666,000 with French as a first, second, or "adopted" language; 60,612,000 "occasional Francophones" for whom usage and mastery of French are limited only by circumstances or by expressive capability; 100–110 million "francizers", who have learned French for several years and have maintained limited mastery, or who have simply been required to learn enough to perform their job. with significant populations in 54 countries.
French is a descendant of the Latin of the Roman Empire, as are languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Catalan and Romanian. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.
It is an official language in 31 countries, most of which form what is called in French La Francophonie, the community of French-speaking nations. It is an official language of all United Nations agencies and a large number of international organizations.
It is the most popular foreign language in the non-US anglosphere.
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Per the Constitution of France, French has been the official language since 1992(French) Loi constitutionnelle 1992 — C\'est à la loi constitutionnelle du 25 juin 1992, rédigée dans le cadre de l\'intégration européenne, que l\'on doit la première déclaration de principe sur le français, langue de la République. (although previous legal texts have made it official since 1539, see ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts). France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education outside of specific cases (though these dispositions are often ignored) and legal contracts; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words.
In addition to French, there are also a variety of regional languages. France has signed the European Charter for Regional Languages but has not ratified it since that would go against the 1958 Constitution.
French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland (along with German, Italian, and Romansh), and is spoken in the part of Switzerland called Romandie. French is the native language of about 20% of the Swiss population.
In Belgium, French is the official language of Wallonia (excluding the East Cantons, which are German-speaking) and one of the two official languages—along with Dutch—of the Brussels-Capital Region where it is spoken by the majority of the population, though often not as their primary language. Van Parijs, Philippe, Professor of economic and social ethics at the UCLouvain, Visiting Professor at Harvard University and the KULeuven. "Belgium\'s new linguistic challenge" (pdf 0.7 MB). KVS Express (supplement to newspaper De Morgen) March–April 2007: Article from original source (pdf 4.9 MB) pages 34–36 republished by the Belgian Federal Government Service (ministry) of Economy — Directorate-general Statistics Belgium. Retrieved on 2007-05-05. — The linguistic situation in Belgium (and in particular various estimations of the population speaking French and Dutch in Brussels) is discussed in detail. French and German are not official languages nor recognised minority languages in the Flemish Region, although along borders with the Walloon and Brussels-Capital regions, there are a dozen of municipalities with language facilities for French-speakers; a mirroring situation exists for the Walloon Region with respect to the Dutch and German languages. In total, native French-speakers make up about 40% of the country\'s population, the remaining 60% speak Dutch, the latter of which 59% claim to speak French as a second language.(French) (June 2006) "La dynamique des langues en Belgique" (pdf). Regards économiques, Publication préparée par les économistes de l\'Université Catholique de Louvain (Numéro 42) Retrieved on 7 May, 2007. “Les enquêtes montrent que la Flandre est bien plus multilingue, ce qui est sans doute un fait bien connu, mais la différence est considérable : alors que 59 % et 53 % des Flamands connaissent le français ou l\'anglais respectivement, seulement 19 % et 17 % des Wallons connaissent le néerlandais ou l\'anglais. … 95 pour cent des Bruxellois déclarent parler le français, alors que ce pourcentage tombe à 59 pour cent pour le néerlandais. Quant à l’anglais, il est connu par une proportion importante de la population à Bruxelles (41 pour cent)” French is thus known by an estimated 75% of all Belgians, either as a mother tongue, as second, or as third language.40%+60%*59%=75.4%
Although Monégasque is the national language of the Principality of Monaco, French is the only official language, and French nationals make up some 47% of the population.
Catalan is the only official language of Andorra, French is however commonly used due to the proximity to France. French nationals make up 7% of the population.
French is also an official language, along with Italian, in the province of Aosta Valley, Italy. In addition, a number of Franco-Provençal dialects are spoken in the province, although they do not have official recognition.
French is an official language of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, along with German and Luxembourgish. Although Luxembourgish (which is closely related to German) is the native language, French is widely used in the areas of government, business and education.
Although Jersey and Guernsey, the two bailiwicks collectively referred to as the Channel Islands, are separate entities, both use French to some degree, mostly in an administrative capacity. Jersey Legal French is the standardized variety used in Jersey.
Bilingual (English/French) stop sign on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. An example of bilingualism at the federal government level in Canada.
About 7 million Canadians are native French-speakers, of whom 6 million live in Quebec,[4] and French is one of Canada\'s two official languages (the other being English). Various provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms deal with Canadians\' right to access services in both languages, including the right to a publicly funded education in the minority language of each province, where numbers warrant in a given locality. By law, the federal government must operate and provide services in both English and French, proceedings of the Parliament of Canada must be translated into both these languages, and most products sold in Canada must have labeling in both languages.
Overall, about 13% of Canadians have knowledge of French only, while 18% have knowledge of both English and French. In contrast, over 80% of the population of Quebec speaks French natively, and 95% can speak it. It has been the sole official language of Quebec since 1974. The legal status of French was further strengthened with the 1977 adoption of the Charter of the French Language (popularly known as Bill 101), which guarantees that every person has a right to have the civil administration, the health and social services, corporations, and enterprises in Quebec communicate with him in French. While the Charter mandates that certain provincial government services, such as those relating to health and education, be offered to the English minority in its language, where numbers warrant, its primary purpose is to cement the role of French as the primary language used in the public sphere.
Knowledge of French in the European Union and candidate countriesSource: [1], data for EU25, published before 2007 enlargement.
The provision of the Charter that has arguably had the most significant impact mandates French-language education unless a child\'s parents or siblings have received the majority of their own primary education in English within Canada, with minor exceptions. This measure has reversed a historical trend whereby a large number of immigrant children would attend English schools. In so doing, the Charter has greatly contributed to the "visage français" (French face) of Montreal in spite of its growing immigrant population. Other provisions of the Charter have been ruled unconstitutional over the years, including those mandating French-only commercial signs, court proceedings, and debates in the legislature. Though none of these provisions are still in effect today, some continued to be on the books for a time even after courts had ruled them unconstitutional as a result of the government\'s decision to invoke the so-called notwithstanding clause of the Canadian constitution to override constitutional requirements. In 1993, the Charter was rewritten to allow signage in other languages so long as French was markedly "predominant." Another section of the Charter guarantees every person the right to work in French, meaning the right to have all communications with one\'s superiors and coworkers in French, as well as the right not to be required to know another language as a condition of hiring, unless this is warranted by the nature of one\'s duties, such as by reason of extensive interaction with people located outside the province or similar reasons. This section has not been as effective as had originally been hoped, and has faded somewhat from public consciousness. As of 2006, approximately 65% of the workforce on the island of Montreal predominantly used French in the workplace.
The only other province that recognizes French as an official language is New Brunswick, which is officially bilingual, like the nation as a whole. Outside of Quebec, the highest number of Francophones in Canada, 485,000, excluding those who claim multiple mother tongues, reside in Ontario, whereas New Brunswick, home to the vast majority of Acadians, has the highest percentage of Francophones after Quebec, 33%, or 237,000. In Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Manitoba, French does not have full official status, although the provincial governments do provide some French-language services in all communities where significant numbers of Francophones live. Canada\'s three northern territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut) all recognize French as an official language as well.
All provinces make some effort to accommodate the needs of their Francophone citizens, although the level and quality of French-language service vary significantly from province to province. The Ontario French Language Services Act, adopted in 1986, guarantees French language services in that province in regions where the Francophone population exceeds 10% of the total population, as well as communities with Francophone populations exceeding 5,000, and certain other designated areas; this has the most effect in the north and east of the province, as well as in other larger centres such as Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Mississauga, London, Kitchener, St. Catharines, Greater Sudbury and Windsor. However, the French Language Services Act does not confer the status of "official bilingualism" on these cities, as that designation carries with it implications which go beyond the provision of services in both languages. The City of Ottawa\'s language policy (by-law 2001-170) allows employees to work in their official language of choice and be supervised in the language of choice.
Canada has the status of member state in the Francophonie, while the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick are recognized as participating governments. Ontario is currently seeking to become a full member on its own.
French is an official language of Haiti, although it is mostly spoken by the upper class, while Haitian Creole (a French-based creole language) is more widely spoken as a mother tongue.
French is also the official language in France\'s overseas territories of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthelemy, St. Martin, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, French Polynesia and New Caledonia.
French language spread in the United States. Counties marked in yellow are those where 6–12% of the population speak French at home; brown, 12–18%; red, over 18%. French-based creole languages are not included.
Although it has no official recognition on a federal level, French is the third National Virtual Translation Center — Languages Spoken in the U.S.U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Summary File 3 — Language Spoken at Home: 2000 most-spoken language in the United States, after English and Spanish, and the second most-spoken in the states of Louisiana, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. Louisiana is home to a unique dialect, Cajun French.
Supermarket sign in French in Dakar, Senegal.
Countries sometimes considered as Francophone Africa
A majority of the world\'s French-speaking population lives in Africa. According to the 2007 report by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, an estimated 115 million African people spread across 31 francophone African countries can speak French either as a first or second language.(French) La Francophonie dans le monde 2006–2007 published by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Nathan, Paris, 2007
French is mostly a second language in Africa, but in some areas it has become a first language, such as in the region of Abidjan, Côte d\'Ivoire(French) Le français à Abidjan : Pour une approche syntaxique du non-standard by Katja Ploog, CNRS Editions, Paris, 2002 and in Libreville, Gabon.(French) "De plus, le français est également devenu la langue maternelle de plus de 30 % des Librevillois et il est de plus en plus perçu comme une langue gabonaise." It is impossible to speak of a single form of African French, but rather of diverse forms of African French which have developed due to the contact with many indigenous African languages.(French) "En Afrique, il est impossible de parler d\'une forme unique du français mais..."
In the territories of the Indian Ocean, the French language is often spoken alongside French-derived creole languages, the major exception being Madagascar. There, a Malayo-Polynesian language (Malagasy) is spoken alongside French. The French language has also met competition with English since English has been the official language in Mauritius and the Seychelles for a long time and has recently become an official language of Madagascar.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand due to the expansion of education and it is also there the language has evolved most in recent years.(French) http://www.cecif.com/?page=la_francophonie "Le français, langue en évolution Dans beaucoup de pays Francophones, surtout sur le continent africain, une proportion importante de la population ne parle pas couramment le français (même s\'il est souvent la langue officielle du pays). Ce qui signifie qu\'au fur et à mesure que les nouvelles générations vont à l\'école, le nombre de Francophones augmente: on estime qu\'en 2015, ceux-ci seront deux fois plus nombreux qu\'aujourd\'hui."(French) c) Le sabir franco-africain: "C\'est la variété du français la plus fluctuante. Le sabir franco-africain est instable et hétérogène sous toutes ses formes. Il existe des énoncés où les mots sont français mais leur ordre reste celui de la langue africaine. En somme, autant les langues africaines sont envahies par les structures et les mots français, autant la langue française se métamorphose en Afrique, donnant naissance à plusieurs variétés." Some vernacular forms of French in Africa can be difficult to understand for French speakers from other countries(French) République centrafricaine: Il existe une autre variété de français, beaucoup plus répandu et plus permissive: le français local. C\'est un français très influencé par les langues centrafricaines, surtout par le sango. Cette variété est parlée par les classes non instruites, qui n\'ont pu terminer leur scolarité. Ils utilisent ce qu\'ils connaissent du français avec des emprunts massifs aux langues locales. Cette variété peut causer des problèmes de compréhension avec les Francophones des autres pays, car les interférences linguistiques, d\'ordre lexical et sémantique, sont très importantes. (One example of a variety of African French that is difficult to understand for European French speakers). but written forms of the language are very closely related to those of the rest of the French-speaking world.
French is an official language of many African countries, most of them former French or Belgian colonies:
In addition, French is an administrative language and commonly used though not on an official basis in Mauritius and in the Maghreb states:
Various reforms have been implemented in recent decades in Algeria to improve the status of Arabic relative to French, especially in education.
While the predominant European language in Egypt is English, French is considered to be a more sophisticated language by some elements of the Egyptian upper and upper-middle classes[citation needed]; for this reason, a typical educated Egyptian will learn French in addition to English at some point in his or her education. The perception of sophistication may be related to the use of French as the royal court language of Egypt during the 19th century. Egypt participates in La Francophonie.
French is also the official language of Mayotte and Réunion, two overseas territories of France located in the Indian Ocean, as well as an administrative and educational language in Mauritius, along with English.
In Asia, French was the official language in Lebanon along with the Arabic Language until 1941, the country\'s declaration of independence from France. Still, French is widely used by the Lebanese and is taught in schools as a primary language along with Arabic. French is also spoken by many immigrants of French or Maghrebin origin and their descendants in Israel.
French is an administrative language in Laos and Cambodia.French Declines in Indochina, as English Booms, International Herald Tribune, October 16 1993: "In both Cambodia and Laos, French remains the official second language of government." French was historically spoken by the elite in the leased territory Guangzhouwan in southern China. In colonial Vietnam, the elites spoke French and many who worked for the French spoke a French creole known as "Tây Bồi" (now extinct).
French has official status in the Indian Union Territory of Pondicherry, along with the regional language Tamil.
French is also an official language of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, along with France\'s territories of French Polynesia, Wallis & Futuna and New Caledonia.
Before the Roman invasion of what is modern-day France by Julius Caesar (58–52 BC), France was inhabited largely by a Celtic people that the Romans referred to as Gauls, although there were also other linguistic/ethnic groups in France at this time, such as the Iberians in southern France and Spain, the Ligures on the Mediterranean coast, Greek colonies like Marseille, and the Vascons on the Spanish/French border.
However the population was predominantly Celtic, with about 10 million Gauls. Although the French like to refer to their descent from Gallic ancestors (nos ancêtres les Gaulois), perhaps fewer than 200 words with a Celtic etymology remain in French today, largely places (ber, lande, grève (sandy bank); plant names (berle (water parsnip), chêne (oak), if (yew), baume (balsa(m)); and words dealing with rural life and the earth (notably: mouton, tonne, crème, charrue, charriot, barde, bouc, boue, brosse, caillou, cervoise, druide, magouille, orteil, souche). It should be noted that other Gallic words were imported into French through Latin, in particular words for Gallic objects and customs which were new to the Romans and for which there was no equivalent in Latin (e.g. braies, ambassade, matras). Latin quickly became a lingua franca across the entire Gallic region for both mercantile, official and educational reasons, yet it should be remembered that this was Vulgar Latin, the colloquial dialect spoken by the Roman army and its agents and not the literary dialect of Cicero.|
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Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See Help:IPA for a pronunciation key.
Although there are many French regional accents, only one version of the language is normally chosen as a model for foreign learners, which has no commonly used special name, but has been termed français neutre (neutral French).[citation needed]
French pronunciation follows strict rules based on spelling, but French spelling is often based more on history than phonology. The rules for pronunciation vary between dialects, but the standard rules are:
French grammar shares several notable features with most other Romance languages, including:
French word order is Subject Verb Object, except when the object is a pronoun, in which case the word order is Subject Object Verb. Some rare archaisms allow for different word orders.
The majority of French words derive from Vulgar Latin or were constructed from Latin or Greek roots. There are often pairs of words, one form being popular (noun) and the other one savant (adjective), both originating from Latin. Example:
The last example, Saint-Étienne/Stéphanois, illustrates common practice for gentilics throughout France.
In some examples there is a common word from "vulgar" Latin and a more savant word from classical Latin or even Greek.
The French words which have developed from Latin are usually less recognisable than Italian words of Latin origin because as French developed into a separate language from Vulgar Latin, the unstressed final syllable of many words was dropped or elided into the following word.
It is estimated that 12% (4,200) of common French words found in a typical dictionary such as the Petit Larousse or Micro-Robert Plus (35,000 words) are of foreign origin. About 25% (1,054) of these foreign words come from English and are fairly recent borrowings. The others are some 707 words from Italian, 550 from ancient Germanic languages, 481 from ancient Gallo-Romance languages, 215 from Arabic, 164 from German, 160 from Celtic languages, 159 from Spanish, 153 from Dutch, 112 from Persian and Sanskrit, 101 from Native American languages, 89 from other Asian languages, 56 from Afro-Asiatic languages, 55 from Slavic languages and Baltic languages, 10 for Basque and 144 — about three percent — from other languages.Walter & Walter 1998
The French counting system is partially vigesimal: twenty (vingt) is used as a base number in the names of numbers from 80–99. The French word for eighty, for example, is quatre-vingts, which literally means "four twenties", and soixante-quinze (literally "sixty-fifteen") means 75. This reform arose after the French Revolution to unify the different counting system (mostly vigesimal near the coast, due to Celtic [via Basque] and Viking influence). This system is comparable to the archaic English use of score, as in "fourscore and seven" (87), or "threescore and ten" (70).
Belgian French and Swiss French are different in this respect. In Belgium and Switzerland 70 and 90 are septante and nonante. In Switzerland, depending on the local dialect, 80 can be quatre-vingts (Geneva, Neuchâtel, Jura) or huitante (Vaud, Valais, Fribourg). Octante had been used in Switzerland in the past, but is now considered archaic.(French) Septante, octante, huitante, nonante. langue-fr.net.. See also the English Wikipedia article on Welsh language, especially the section "Counting system" and its note on the influence of Celtic in the French counting system. In Belgium, however, quatre-vingts is universally used.
French is written using the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, plus five diacritics (the circumflex accent, acute accent, grave accent, diaeresis, and cedilla) and the two ligatures (œ) and (æ).
French spelling, like English spelling, tends to preserve obsolete pronunciation rules. This is mainly due to extreme phonetic changes since the Old French period, without a corresponding change in spelling. Moreover, some conscious changes were made to restore Latin orthography:
As a result, it is difficult to predict the spelling on the basis of the sound alone. Final consonants are generally silent, except when the following word begins with a vowel. For example, all of these words end in a vowel sound: pied, aller, les, finit, beaux. The same words followed by a vowel, however, may sound the consonants, as they do in these examples: beaux-arts, les amis, pied-à-terre.
On the other hand, a given spelling will almost always lead to a predictable sound, and the Académie française works hard to enforce and update this correspondence. In particular, a given vowel combination or diacritic predictably leads to one phoneme.
The diacritics have phonetic, semantic, and etymological significance.
There are two ligatures, which have various origins.
French writing, as with any language, is affected by the spoken language. In Old French, the plural for animal was animals. Common speakers pronounced a u before a word ending in l as the plural. This resulted in animauls. As the French language evolved this vanished and the form animaux (aux pronounced /o/) was admitted. The same is true for cheval pluralized as chevaux and many others. Also castel pl. castels became château pl. châteaux.
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| English | French | IPA pronunciation (Canadian accent) | IPA pronunciation (French accent) |
|---|---|---|---|
| French | français | /fʀɑ̃sɛ/ | /fʁɑ̃sɛ/ |
| English | anglais | /ɑ̃glɛ/ | /ɑ̃glɛ/ |
| Yes | Oui Except when responding to a negatively posed question, in which case Si is used preferentially over Oui | /wi/ | /wi/ |
| No | Non | /nɔ̃/ | /nɔ̃/ |
| Hello! | Bonjour ! (formal) Salut ! (informal) | /bɔ̃ʒuːʀ/ | /bɔ̃ʒuːʁ/ |
| Good evening! | Bonsoir ! | /bɔ̃swɑ:ʁ/ | /bɔ̃swa:ʁ/ |
| Good night! | Bonne nuit ! | /bɔnnɥi/ | /bɔnnɥi/ |
| Goodbye! | Au revoir ! | /ɔʁvwɑːʁ/ | /oʁøvwaːʁ/ |
| Have a nice day! | Bonne journée ! | /bɔnʒuʀne/ | /bɔnʒuʁne/ |
| Please | S\'il vous plaît (formal) S\'il te plaît (informal) | /sɪlvuplɛ/ | /silvuplɛ/ |
| Thank you | Merci | /mɛʀsi/ | /mɛʁsi/ |
| You\'re welcome | De rien ("it is nothing") / Je vous en prie (formal) Je t\'en prie (informal) | ||
| I\'m sorry | Pardon / Je suis désolé (if male) / Je suis désolée (if female) | /paʀdɔ̃/ / /dezɔle/ | /paʁdɔ̃/ / /dezɔle/ |
| Who? | Qui ? | /ki/ | /ki/ |
| What? | Quoi ? | /kwa/ | /kwa/ |
| When? | Quand ? | /kɑ̃/ | /kɑ̃/ |
| Where? | Où ? | /u/ | /u/ |
| Why? | Pourquoi ? | /puʀkwa/ | /puʁkwa/ |
| What\'s your name? | Comment vous appelez-vous ? (formal) Comment t\'appelles-tu ? (informal) | ||
| Because | Parce que / "À cause de" — literally "because of" or "due to" | /paʁs(ə)kə/ | /paʁs(ə)kə/ |
| For (when used as "because") | Car | ||
| Therefore | Donc | ||
| How? | Comment ? | /kɔmɑ̃/ | /kɔmɑ̃/ |
| How much? | Combien ? | /kɔ̃bjɛ̃/ | /kɔ̃bjɛ̃/ |
| I do not understand. | Je ne comprends pas. | /ʒə nə kɔ̃pʀɑ̃ pɑ/ | /ʒə nə kɔ̃pʁɑ̃ pɑ/ |
| Yes, I understand. | Oui, je comprends. Except when responding to a negatively posed question, in which case Si is used preferentially over Oui | /wi ʒə kɔ̃pʀɑ̃/ | /wi ʒə kɔ̃pʁɑ̃/ |
| Help! | Au secours !! (à l\'aide !) | /oskuːʀ/ | /oskuːʁ/ |
