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French language



 
 
French (français, ) is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language
First language

A first language is the language a human being learns from birth. A person's first language is a basis for sociolinguistic identity....
, by 190 million as second language
Second language

A second language is any language learned after the First language . Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas....
, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
, where the language originated. Most of the rest live in Québec
Quebec

Quebec , in French language, Qu?bec , is a Provinces and territories of Canada in the Central Canada and Eastern Canada regions of Canada....
 (Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
), Belgium
Belgium

* A small German-speaking Community of Belgium exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the history of Belgium and a complex Communities and regions of Belgium....
, Switzerland
Switzerland

Switzerland is a landlocked Swiss Alps country of roughly 7.7 million people in Western Europe with an area of 41,285 km?. Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 states called Cantons of Switzerland....
, Francophone Africa
African French

African French is the generic name of the varieties of french language spoken by an estimated 115 million African people spread across 31 francophone African countries....
, Luxembourg
Luxembourg

Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a small landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany....
, and Monaco
Monaco

Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a small sovereign city-state located in South Western Europe . The territory lies on the northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea....
.

French is a descendant of the Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 language of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, as are national languages such as Portuguese
Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
, Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
, Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
, Catalan
Catalan language

Catalan is a Romance languages, the national language and official language of Andorra, and a official language in the Autonomous Communities of Spain of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community and in the city of Alghero in the Italy List of islands in the Mediterranean of Sardinia....
 and Romanian
Romanian language

Romanian or Daco-Romanian ; self-designation: limba rom?na, ) is a Romance languages spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova....
 and minority languages ranging from Occitan
Occitan language

Occitan , known also as Lenga d'?c or Langue d'oc is a Romance languages spoken in Occitania, that is, Southern France, the Occitan Valleys of Italy, Monaco and in the Aran Valley of Spain....
 to Neapolitan
Neapolitan language

Neapolitan is the language of the city and region of Naples, Campania . On October 14, 2008 the Neapolitan language was accepted by a law by the Region of Campania....
 and many more.






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French (français, ) is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language
First language

A first language is the language a human being learns from birth. A person's first language is a basis for sociolinguistic identity....
, by 190 million as second language
Second language

A second language is any language learned after the First language . Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas....
, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
, where the language originated. Most of the rest live in Québec
Quebec

Quebec , in French language, Qu?bec , is a Provinces and territories of Canada in the Central Canada and Eastern Canada regions of Canada....
 (Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
), Belgium
Belgium

* A small German-speaking Community of Belgium exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the history of Belgium and a complex Communities and regions of Belgium....
, Switzerland
Switzerland

Switzerland is a landlocked Swiss Alps country of roughly 7.7 million people in Western Europe with an area of 41,285 km?. Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 states called Cantons of Switzerland....
, Francophone Africa
African French

African French is the generic name of the varieties of french language spoken by an estimated 115 million African people spread across 31 francophone African countries....
, Luxembourg
Luxembourg

Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a small landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany....
, and Monaco
Monaco

Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a small sovereign city-state located in South Western Europe . The territory lies on the northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea....
.

French is a descendant of the Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 language of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, as are national languages such as Portuguese
Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
, Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
, Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
, Catalan
Catalan language

Catalan is a Romance languages, the national language and official language of Andorra, and a official language in the Autonomous Communities of Spain of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community and in the city of Alghero in the Italy List of islands in the Mediterranean of Sardinia....
 and Romanian
Romanian language

Romanian or Daco-Romanian ; self-designation: limba rom?na, ) is a Romance languages spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova....
 and minority languages ranging from Occitan
Occitan language

Occitan , known also as Lenga d'?c or Langue d'oc is a Romance languages spoken in Occitania, that is, Southern France, the Occitan Valleys of Italy, Monaco and in the Aran Valley of Spain....
 to Neapolitan
Neapolitan language

Neapolitan is the language of the city and region of Naples, Campania . On October 14, 2008 the Neapolitan language was accepted by a law by the Region of Campania....
 and many more. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages
Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European languages language family. The term "Celtic" was used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, having much earlier been used by Greek and Roman writers to describe tribes in central Gaul....
 of Roman Gaul
Gaul

Gaul is the name used for the region of Western Europe comprising part of present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the River Rhine....
 and by the Germanic
Germanic languages

The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European languages language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Pre-Roman Iron Age....
 language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.

It is an official language
Official language

An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration....
 in 29 countries
List of countries where French is an official language

The following is a list of the 29 countries where French language is an official language.Note that in most of these countries, French is not the only language, and therefore the population does not indicate the number of French-speakers....
, 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
United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, Social change, human rights and achieving world peace....
 agencies and a large number of international organizations
List of international organisations which have French as an official language

List of international organisations which have French language as an official, administrative or working language....
. According to the European Union
European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 European Union member state, located primarily in Europe. It was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community....
, 129 million (26% of the 497,198,740) people in 27 member states speak French, of which 65 million (12%) are native speakers and 69 million (14%) claim to speak it as a second language, which makes it the third most spoken second language in the Union, after English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 and German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
. In addition, prior to the ascension of English in the early 20th century, French served as the preeminent language of diplomacy among European and colonial powers as well as a lingua franca
Lingua franca

A lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues....
 among the educated classes of Europe.

Geographic distribution


Europe


Legal status in France

Per the Constitution of France
Constitution of France

The current Constitution of France was adopted on October 4, 1958. It is typically called the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, and replaced that of the French Fourth Republic dating from 1946....
, French has been the official language since 1992 (although previous legal texts have made it official since 1539, see ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts
Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts

The Ordinance of Villers-Cotter?ts is an extensive piece of reform legislation signed into law by Francis I of France of France on August 10, 1539 in the city of Villers-Cotter?ts....
). France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
 mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education
Education

File:Inukshuk Monterrey 1.jpgEducation can be seen as a product or a process and considered in a broad sense or a technical sense. According to philosophy of education George F....
 outside of specific cases (though these dispositions are often ignored) and legal contract
Contract

A contract is an exchange of promises between two or more parties to do, or refrain from doing, an act which is enforceable in a court of law. It is a binding legal agreement....
s; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words.

In addition to French, there are also a variety of regional languages and dialects. France has signed the European Charter for Regional Languages, but has not ratified it since that would go against the 1958 Constitution.

Switzerland
French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland
Switzerland

Switzerland is a landlocked Swiss Alps country of roughly 7.7 million people in Western Europe with an area of 41,285 km?. Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 states called Cantons of Switzerland....
 (along with German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
, Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
, and Romansh) and is spoken in the part of Switzerland called Romandie. French is the native language of about 20% of the Swiss population.

Belgium

In Belgium
Belgium

* A small German-speaking Community of Belgium exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the history of Belgium and a complex Communities and regions of Belgium....
, French is the official language of Wallonia
Wallonia

Wallonia is the Francophone southern part of Belgium. This region makes up about 31% of the Belgian population.Since 1970, Wallonia has approximately coincided with the territory of the Walloon Region, which is a federated component of the Belgian state and provides a government and a parliament to both Wallonia and the smaller German-s...
 (excluding the East Cantons, which are German-speaking
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
) and one of the two official languages —along with Dutch
Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic languages spoken by over 22 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as a second language."1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language speakers of Dutch is very small. Most native...
— of the Brussels-Capital Region where it is spoken by the majority of the population, though often not as their primary language. French and German are not official languages nor recognised minority languages in the Flemish Region
Flemish Region

The Flemish Region is one of the three official Communities and regions of Belgium of the Kingdom of Belgium alongside the Walloon Region and the Brussels-Capital Region....
, although along borders with the Walloon and Brussels-Capital regions, there are a dozen municipalities with language facilities for French-speakers. A mirror 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, while the remaining 60% speak Dutch. Of the latter, 59% claim to speak French as a second language. French is thus known by an estimated 75% of all Belgians, either as a mother tongue, as second, or as third language.

Monaco and Andorra

Although Monégasque
Monégasque language

Mon?gasque is a Romance language and a dialect of the modern Ligurian language , which is spoken in Monaco. It is rather similar to the language spoken in Genoese dialect, but differs from its neighbour languages Intemelian and Mentonasque....
 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
Catalan language

Catalan is a Romance languages, the national language and official language of Andorra, and a official language in the Autonomous Communities of Spain of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community and in the city of Alghero in the Italy List of islands in the Mediterranean of Sardinia....
 is the only official language of Andorra
Andorra

Andorra , officially the Principality of Andorra , also called the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra, is a small landlocked country in western Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France....
; however, French is commonly used due to the proximity to France. French nationals make up 7% of the population.

Italy

French is also an official language, along with Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
, in the province of Aosta Valley
Aosta Valley

The Aosta Valley is a mountainous Autonomous regions with special statute Regions of Italy in north-western Italy. It is bordered by France to the west, Switzerland to the north and the region of Piedmont to the south and east....
, Italy
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
. In addition, a number of Franco-Provençal
Franco-Provençal language

Franco-Proven?al or Arpitan is a Romance languages with several distinct dialects that form a linguistic sub-group separate from O?l languages and Occitan language....
 dialects are spoken in the province, although they do not have official recognition.

Luxembourg
French is one of three official languages of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
Luxembourg

Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a small landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany....
, alongside German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
 and Luxembourgish, the natively-spoken language of Luxembourg. Luxembourg's education system is trilingual: the first years of primary school are in Luxembourgish, before changing to German; while in secondary school, the language of instruction changes to French.

The Channel Islands

French is an official language in Jersey
Jersey

The Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes the nearly uninhabited islands of the Minquiers, ?cr?hous, the Pierres de Lecq and other rocks and reefs....
 and Guernsey
Guernsey

The Bailiwick of Guernsey is a British Isles Crown dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.As well as the island of Guernsey itself, it also includes Alderney, Sark, Herm, Jethou, Brecqhou, Burhou, Lihou and other islets....
, the two bailiwicks collectively referred to as the Channel Islands
Channel Islands

The Channel Islands are a group of islands in the English Channel, off the France coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey....
, although they are separate entities. Both use French to some degree, mostly in an administrative capacity. Jersey Legal French
Jersey Legal French

Jersey Legal French, also known as Jersey French, is the official dialect of French language used administratively in Jersey. Since the anglicisation of the island, it survives as a written language for some laws, contracts, and other documents....
 is the standardized variety used in Jersey. However, Norman
Norman language

Norman is a Romance languages and one of the Langues d'o?l. The northern Norman can be classified in the septentrional O?l languages with Picard language and Walloon language....
 is the historical vernacular
Vernacular

Vernacular refers to the native language of a country or a locality. In general linguistics, it is used to describe local languages as opposed to Lingua franca, official standards or global languages....
 langue d'Oïl
Langues d'oïl

Langues d'o?l is the linguistic and historical designation of the Gallo-Romance languages originating from the northern territories of Roman Gaul, which today make up northern France, part of Belgium, and the Channel Islands....
 of the islands.

Americas


Canada

Bilingualstopsign
French is the second most common language in Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
, after English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, and both are official languages at the federal level. French is the sole official language in the province of Quebec
Quebec

Quebec , in French language, Qu?bec , is a Provinces and territories of Canada in the Central Canada and Eastern Canada regions of Canada....
, being the mother tongue for some 7 million people. New Brunswick
New Brunswick

New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only Constitution of Canada bilingual province in the federation. The provincial capital is Fredericton....
, where about a third of the population is francophone, is also officially bilingual. Portions of Ontario
Ontario

Ontario is a Provinces and territories of Canada located in the Central Canada part of Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area....
, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is a Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada located on Canada's southeastern coast. It is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada....
 and Manitoba
Manitoba

Manitoba is a prairie provinces in Canada, which has an area of 647,797 square kilometres and a population of 1,207,959 , with more than half located within the Winnipeg Capital Region ....
 have sizeable French minorities, but its prescription as an official language in those jurisdictions and the level of francophone services varies.

Haiti
French is an official language of Haiti
Haiti

Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Haitian Creole language- and French language-speaking Caribbean country. Along with the Dominican Republic, it occupies the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antilles archipelago....
, although it is mostly spoken by the upper class
Upper class

The upper class is a concept in sociology that refers to the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class often have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area....
, while Haitian Creole (a French-based creole language) is more widely spoken as a mother tongue.

French overseas territories
French is also the official language in France's overseas territories of French Guiana
French Guiana

French Guiana is an overseas department of France, located on the northern coast of South America. Like the other Overseas departments, French Guiana is also an overseas region of France, one of the 26 regions of France, and is an integral part of the French Republic....
, Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe is an island group or archipelago located in the eastern Caribbean Sea at , with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres . It is an overseas department of France....
, Martinique
Martinique

Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, having a land area of 1,128 km?. It is an overseas department of France. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia....
, Saint Barthélemy, St. Martin
Saint Martin (France)

Saint Martin , officially the Collectivity of Saint Martin , is an overseas collectivity of France located in the Caribbean. It came into being on February 22, 2007, encompassing the northern parts of the Saint Martin and neighbouring islets, the largest of which is ?le Tintamarre....
 and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon
Saint-Pierre and Miquelon

The Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon is a group of small French islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, the main ones being Saint Pierre and Miquelon, south of Newfoundland , Canada....


The United States

French in the United States
Although it has no official recognition on a federal level, French is the third most-spoken language in the United States, after English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 and Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
, and the second most-spoken in the states of Louisiana
Louisiana

The State of Louisiana is a U.S. state located in the U.S. Southern States of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans....
, Maine
Maine

The State of Maine is a U.S. state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, New Hampshire to the southwest, the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast....
, Vermont
Vermont

Vermont is a U.S. state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States United States. The state ranks 43rd by land area, , and 45th by total area....
 and New Hampshire
New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a U.S. state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States United States of America. The state was named after the southern English Counties of England of Hampshire....
. Louisiana is home to two distinct dialects, Cajun French
Cajun French

Cajun French is one of three Variety or dialects of the French language spoken primarily in the U.S. state of Louisiana, specifically in the southern parishes....
 and Creole French
Louisiana Creole French

Louisiana Creole is a French-based creole languages language spoken by the mixed Louisiana Creole people of the state of Louisiana. The language consists of elements of French, Native American, Spanish, and West African roots....
. According to the 2000 US Census, there are over 194,000 people in Louisiana
Louisiana

The State of Louisiana is a U.S. state located in the U.S. Southern States of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans....
 who speak French at home, the most of any state if excluding French Creoles.

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
First language

A first language is the language a human being learns from birth. A person's first language is a basis for sociolinguistic identity....
 or second language
Second language

A second language is any language learned after the First language . Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas....
.

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
Abidjan

Abidjan is the economic and former official capital of C?te d'Ivoire . It is the largest city in the nation, and the second largest French speaking city in the world....
, Côte d'Ivoire
Côte d'Ivoire

, formerly Ivory Coast, officially the , is a country in West Africa. The government officially discourages the use of the name Ivory Coast in English, preferring the French name to be used in all languages ....
 and in Libreville
Libreville

Libreville is the capital city and largest city of Gabon. The city is a port on the Komo River, near the Gulf of Guinea, and a trade center for a timber region....
, Gabon
Gabon

Gabon is a country in west central Africa sharing borders with the Gulf of Guinea to the west, Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, and Cameroon to the north, with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south....
. It is not possible to speak of a single form of African French
African French

African French is the generic name of the varieties of french language spoken by an estimated 115 million African people spread across 31 francophone African countries....
, but rather of diverse forms of African French which have developed due to the contact with many indigenous African languages
African languages

There are an estimated 2,000 languages spoken in Africa. They fall into four major language family:*Afro-Asiatic languages stretches from North Africa to the Horn of Africa and Southwest Asia....
.

In the territories of the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering about 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by Asia ; on the west by Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean ....
, the French language is often spoken alongside French-derived creole languages, the major exception being Madagascar
Madagascar

Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the List of islands by area, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are Endemism to Madagascar....
. There, a Malayo-Polynesian language (Malagasy
Malagasy

Malagasy is the name of the people who live in Madagascar. Malagasy is also the name of the national and official language spoken in Madagascar....
) is spoken alongside French. The French language has also met with competition from English, since English has been the official language in Mauritius
Mauritius

Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius, , is an island nation off the coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 900 kilometres east of Madagascar....
 and the Seychelles
Seychelles

Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an archipelago Country of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....
 for a while and has recently become an official language of Madagascar.

Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is a geographical term used to describe the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara, or those African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara....
 is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, due to the expansion of education. It is also where the language has evolved the most in recent years. Some vernacular forms of French in Africa can be difficult to understand for French speakers from other countries, 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 in many African countries, most of them former French or Belgian colonies
Belgian colonial empire

The Belgian colonial empire consisted of three colonialism possessed by Belgium between 1901 to 1962. This empire was unlike those of the major European imperial powers since roughly 98% of it was just one colony ? the Belgian Congo ? and that had originated as the private property of the country's king, L?opold II of Belgium, rather than b...
:

In addition, French is an administrative language and commonly used, though not on an official basis, in Mauritius
Mauritius

Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius, , is an island nation off the coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 900 kilometres east of Madagascar....
 and in the Maghreb
Maghreb

The Maghreb , also rendered Maghrib , meaning "place of sunset" or "western" in Arabic, is a region in North Africa. The term is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but in older Arabic usage pertained only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea....
 states:
  • Algeria
    Algeria

    Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country of the Mediterranean sea, second largest in the Arab World, and the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area....
  • Mauritania
    Mauritania

    Mauritania , officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, by Senegal on the southwest, by Mali on the east and southeast, by Algeria on the northeast, and by the Morocco-controlled Western Sahara on the northwest....
  • Morocco
    Morocco

    Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 34 million and an area just under 447,000 km2....
  • Tunisia
    Tunisia

    Tunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast....


In Algeria, various reforms have been implemented in recent decades to improve the status of Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
 relative to French, especially in education.

While the predominant European language in Egypt
Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
 is English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
, French is considered to be a more sophisticated language by some elements of the Egyptian upper and upper-middle classes; 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
Noble court

A royal or noble court, as an instrument of government broader than a court, comprises an extended household centred on a patron whose rule may govern law or be governed by it....
 language of Egypt during the nineteenth century. Egypt participates in La Francophonie
La Francophonie

La Francophonie, or the Francophonie, is an international organization of polities and governments with French language as the mother or customary language, wherein a significant proportion of people are francophone or where there is a notable affiliation with the French language or Culture of France....
.

French is also the official language of Mayotte and Réunion
Reunion

Reunion may refer to:...
, two overseas territories of France located in the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering about 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by Asia ; on the west by Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean ....
, as well as an administrative and educational language in Mauritius
Mauritius

Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius, , is an island nation off the coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 900 kilometres east of Madagascar....
, along with English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
.

Asia


Lebanon
French was the official language in Lebanon
Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon or Lebanese Republic , is a country in Western Asia, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea....
, along with Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
, until 1941, when the country declared independence from France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
. French is still considered an official language by the Lebanese people
Lebanese people

The Lebanese people are a Levantine people originating in what is today the country of Lebanon, including those who had inhabited Mount Lebanon prior to the creation of the modern Lebanese state....
 and is used on bank notes (along with Arabic) and on official buildings. French is widely used by the Lebanese, especially for administrative purposes, and is taught in many schools as a primary language along with Arabic.

Southeast Asia
French is an administrative language in Laos
Laos

Laos , officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and People's Republic of China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west....
 and Cambodia
Cambodia

The Kingdom of Cambodia is a country in South East Asia with a population of over 13 million people. The kingdom's capital and largest city is Phnom Penh....
, although its influence has waned in recent years. In colonial Vietnam
Vietnam

Vietnam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam , is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by People's Republic of China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east....
, the elites spoke French, and many who worked for the French spoke a French creole known as "Tây B?i
Tây B?i

T?y B?i, is a term used for a type of verbal communication which consists of French language words mixed with Vietnamese words spoken by non French-educated Vietnamese, usually those who worked as servants in French households or milieux....
" (now extinct). The language was also spoken by the elite in the leased territory Guangzhouwan in southern China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
.

In Myanmar
Myanmar

Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia, or Indochina. The country is bordered by the People's Republic of China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, and the Bay of Bengal to the southwest with...
, French is gaining popularity amongst university students and the tourism sector, as the country slowly opens up. French is not offered at the basic education level, but the University of Foreign Languages in Yangon
Yangon

Yangon is the largest city and a former capital of Burma. It is the capital of Yangon Division. Although the State Peace and Development Council has officially relocated the capital to Naypyidaw since March 2006, Yangon, with a population of four million, continues to be the country's largest city and the most important commercial center....
 offers a B.A. in French, and Alliance Française
Alliance française

The Alliance Fran?aise is an organisation whose mission is to promote French language and French culture outside France. Its primary concern is teaching French as a second language....
 has active centres in Yangon
Yangon

Yangon is the largest city and a former capital of Burma. It is the capital of Yangon Division. Although the State Peace and Development Council has officially relocated the capital to Naypyidaw since March 2006, Yangon, with a population of four million, continues to be the country's largest city and the most important commercial center....
 and Mandalay
Mandalay

Mandalay is the second largest city and the last royal capital of Myanmar. Located north of Yangon on the east bank of the Ayeyarwady River, the city has a population of nearly 1 million, and is the capital of Mandalay Division....
. The Francophone community is estimated to number from 25,000 to 50,000+.

In Singapore
Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country microstate located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. It lies 137 kilometres north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands....
, the top 10% of Primary School Leaving Examination
Primary School Leaving Examination

The Primary School Leaving Examination is a national examination taken by all students in Singapore near the end of their sixth year in primary education, which is also their last year in primary school before they leave for secondary education....
 graduates may choose to opt for French as a second or third language in secondary school, however, French is not an official language in Singapore
Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country microstate located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. It lies 137 kilometres north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands....
, and is little spoken among locals.

India
French has de-jure official status in the Indian Union Territory
Union Territory

A Union Territory is a sub-national administrative division of India, in the Federal republic framework of governance. Unlike the States and territories of India, which have their own elected governments, union territories are ruled directly by the federal Government of India; the President of India appoints an Administrator of the Governmen...
 of Pondicherry
Puducherry

; , , , ) is a Union Territory of India. It is a former France colony, consisting of four non-contiguous enclaves, or districts, and named after the largest, Pondicherry ....
, along with the regional languages Tamil
Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has Official language in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore....
, Telugu
Telugu language

Telugu or Telegu is one of the four classical languages of India. It is a South-Central Dravidian languages mostly spoken in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where it is the official language....
 and Malayalam. Some students of Tamil Nadu opt for French as their second or third language (usually behind English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 and Tamil
Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has Official language in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore....
).

French is commonly taught as a third language in secondary schools in most cities of Maharashtra
Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a States and territories of India located on the western coast of India. Maharashtra is a part of Western India. It is India's List of states of India by area and List of states of India by population....
, including Mumbai
Mumbai

Mumbai— formerly Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. The city proper has approximately 14 million people and, along with the neighbouring suburbs of Navi Mumbai and Thane, Mumbai forms the World's largest urban agglomerations according to the United Nations World Urbanization Prospects report with around 19...
, as part of the preparation for secondary school (X-SSC) and higher secondary school (XII-HSC) certificate examinations. Certain high-profile schools affiliated with the CBSE in the NCR
National Capital Region (India)

For other uses see National Capital Region. The National Capital Region in India is a name for the conurbation or metropolitan area which encompasses the entire National Capital Territory of Delhi as well as urban areas ringing it in neighbouring states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan....
 offer French as an option as early as grade 4. In grade 9, students are asked to drop either French or Hindi
Hindi

Standard Hindi, also known as High Hindi, Nagari Hindi or Literary Hindi is a Standard language register of Hindi. It is one of the 22 official languages of India, and is used, along with English language, for administration of the central government....
, which is their native language.

Oceania

French is a second official language of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu
Vanuatu

Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, north-east of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and south of the Solomon Islands, near New Zealand....
, along with France's territories of French Polynesia
French Polynesia

French Polynesia is a France overseas collectivity in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is made up of several groups of Polynesian islands, the most famous island being Tahiti in the Society Islands group, which is also the most populous island and the seat of the capital of the territory ....
, Wallis & Futuna and New Caledonia
New Caledonia

New Caledonia , is a "sui generis collectivity" of France located in the subregion of Melanesia in the Oceania. It comprises a main island , the Loyalty Islands, and several smaller islands....
.

Dialects


History


Phonology


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.
  • Voiced stops (i.e. ) are typically produced fully-voiced throughout.
  • Voiceless stops (i.e. ) are unaspirated.
  • Nasals: The velar nasal occurs only in final position in borrowed (usually English) words: parking, camping, swing. The palatal nasal can occur in word initial position (e.g. gnon), but it is most frequently found in intervocalic, onset position or word-finally (e.g. montagne).
  • Fricatives: French has three pairs of homorganic fricatives distinguished by voicing, i.e. labiodental , dental , and palato-alveolar . Notice that are dental, like the plosives , and the nasal .
  • French has one rhotic whose pronunciation varies considerably among speakers and phonetic contexts. In general it is described as a voiced uvular fricative
    Voiced uvular fricative

    The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is R....
     as in roue, "wheel" . Vowels are often lengthened before this segment. It can be reduced to an approximant, particularly in final position (e.g. fort) or reduced to zero in some word-final positions. For other speakers, a uvular trill is also fairly common, and an apical trill occurs in some dialects.
  • Lateral and central approximants: The lateral approximant is unvelarised in both onset (lire) and coda position (il). In the onset, the central approximants , , and each correspond to a high vowel, , , and respectively. There are a few minimal pairs where the approximant and corresponding vowel contrast, but there are also many cases where they are in free variation. Contrasts between and occur in final position as in paye, "pay", vs. pays, "country".


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:
  • final consonants: Final single consonants, in particular s, x, z, t, d, n and m, are normally silent. (The final letters c, r, f and l, however, are normally pronounced.)
    • When the following word begins with a vowel, however, a silent consonant may once again be pronounced, to provide a liaison
      Liaison (linguistics)

      In French language, most written word-final consonants are silent in most contexts. Liaison is the pronunciation of such a consonant immediately before a following vowel sound....
       or "link" between the two words. Some liaisons are mandatory, for example the s in les amants or vous avez; some are optional, depending on dialect
      Dialect

      A dialect is a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class....
       and register
      Register (linguistics)

      In linguistics, a register is a subset of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, an English language speaker may adhere more closely to prescription and description, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal and refrain from using the word "ain't" when speaking in a formal setting, bu...
      , for example the first s in deux cents euros or euros irlandais; and some are forbidden, for example the s in beaucoup d'hommes aiment. The t of et is never pronounced and the silent final consonant of a noun is only pronounced in the plural and in set phrase
      Set phrase

      A set phrase is an expression whose parts are fixed . It is often possible to express the idea conveyed by a set phrase with a different phrasing, but it is markedness to do so....
      s like pied-à-terre.
    • Doubling a final n and adding a silent e at the end of a word (e.g. chien ? chienne) makes it clearly pronounced. Doubling a final l and adding a silent e (e.g. gentil ? gentille) adds a [j] sound.
  • elision
    Elision (French)

    In French language, elision refers to the suppression of a final unstressed vowel immediately before another word beginning with a vowel. The term also refers to the orthographic convention by which the deletion of a vowel is reflected in writing, and indicated with an apostrophe....
     or vowel dropping: Some monosyllabic function words ending in a or e, such as je and que, drop their final vowel when placed before a word that begins with a vowel sound (thus avoiding a hiatus
    Hiatus (linguistics)

    Hiatus in linguistics is the separate pronunciation of two adjacent vowels, sometimes with an intervening glottal stop. In poetic metre , hiatus can also refer to the failure of two vowels straddling a word boundary to coalesce, for example by elision of the first vowel....
    ). The missing vowel is replaced by an apostrophe. (e.g. je ai is instead pronounced and spelled ? j'ai). This gives, for example, the same pronunciation for l'homme qu'il a vu ("the man whom he saw") and l'homme qui l'a vu ("the man who saw him").


Orthography


  • Nasal
    Nasal vowel

    A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the Soft palate so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. The term stands in opposition to the term "oral vowel" refers to an ordinary vowel without this nasalisation....
    : n
    N

    N is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled en ....
     and m. When n or m follows a vowel or diphthong, the n or m becomes silent and causes the preceding vowel to become nasalized (i.e. pronounced with the soft palate extended downward so as to allow part of the air to leave through the nostrils). Exceptions are when the n or m is doubled, or immediately followed by a vowel. The prefixes en- and em- are always nasalized. The rules get more complex than this but may vary between dialects.
  • Digraphs
    Digraph (orthography)

    A digraph, bigraph , or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined....
    : French not only uses diacritic
    Diacritic

    A diacritic is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. The term derives from the Greek language d?a???t???? ....
    s to specify its large range of vowel sounds and diphthongs, but also specific combinations of vowels, sometimes with following consonants, to show which sound is intended.
  • Gemination: Within words, double consonants are generally not pronounced as geminates in modern French (but geminates can be heard in the cinema or TV news from as recently as the 1970s, and in very refined elocution they may still occur). For example, illusion is pronounced and not . But gemination does occur between words. For example, une info ("a news item" or "a piece of information") is pronounced , whereas une nympho ("a nymphomaniac") is pronounced .
  • Accents
    Diacritic

    A diacritic is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. The term derives from the Greek language d?a???t???? ....
     are used sometimes for pronunciation, sometimes to distinguish similar words, and sometimes for etymology alone.
    • Accents that affect pronunciation
      • The acute accent
        Acute accent

        The acute accent is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet and Greek alphabet writing systems....
         (l'accent aigu), é (e.g. école—school), means that the vowel is pronounced instead of the default .
      • The grave accent
        Grave accent

        The grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Catalan language, French language, Greek language until 1982 , Italian language, Norwegian language, Occitan language, Portuguese language, Scottish Gaelic language, Vietnamese language, Welsh language, Dutch language, and other languages....
         (
        l'accent grave), è (e.g. él
        ève—pupil) means that the vowel is pronounced instead of the default .
      • The circumflex
        Circumflex

        The circumflex is a diacritic mark used in written Serbian language, Croatian language, Esperanto, French language, West Frisian language, Norwegian language, Romanian language, Slovak language, Vietnamese language, Romaji, Romanization of Persian, Welsh language, Portuguese language, Italian language, Afrikaans language, Turkish language...
         (
        l'accent circonflexe) ê (e.g. for
        êt—forest) shows that an e is pronounced and that an ô is pronounced . In standard French, it also signifies a pronunciation of for the letter â, but this differentiation is disappearing. In the late 19th century, the circumflex was used in place of s after a vowel, where that letter s was not to be pronounced. Thus, forest became forêt and hospital became hôpital.
      • The diaeresis
        Umlaut (diacritic)

        The word umlaut is the name of a type of sound shift in spoken language and of the diacritic mark used to represent it Orthography. The diacritic mark comprises a pair of dots or lines placed over the letter that represents the affected Vowel....
         (
        le tréma) (e.g. na
        ïf—foolish, Noël—Christmas) as in English, specifies that this vowel is pronounced separately from the preceding one, not combined, and is not a schwa
        Schwa

        In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An stress and tone neutral vowel sound in any language, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel....
        .
      • The cedilla
        Cedilla

        A cedilla or cedille is a hook added under certain consonant letters as a diacritic to modify their pronunciation....
         (
        la cédille) ç (e.g. gar
        çon—boy) means that the letter ç is pronounced in front of the hard vowels a, o and u (c is otherwise before a hard vowel). C is always pronounced in front of the soft vowels e, i, and y, thus ç is never found in front of soft vowels.
    • Accents with no pronunciation effect
      • The circumflex does not affect the pronunciation of the letters i or u, and in most dialects, a as well. It usually indicates that an s came after it long ago, as in île (island, compare with English isle).
      • All other accents are used only to distinguish similar words, as in the case of distinguishing the adverbs and ("there", "where") from the article la ("the" fem. sing.) and the conjunction ou ("or") respectively.


Writing system


French is written using the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
, plus five diacritics (the circumflex
Circumflex

The circumflex is a diacritic mark used in written Serbian language, Croatian language, Esperanto, French language, West Frisian language, Norwegian language, Romanian language, Slovak language, Vietnamese language, Romaji, Romanization of Persian, Welsh language, Portuguese language, Italian language, Afrikaans language, Turkish language...
 accent, acute accent
Acute accent

The acute accent is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet and Greek alphabet writing systems....
, grave accent
Grave accent

The grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Catalan language, French language, Greek language until 1982 , Italian language, Norwegian language, Occitan language, Portuguese language, Scottish Gaelic language, Vietnamese language, Welsh language, Dutch language, and other languages....
, diaeresis
Umlaut (diacritic)

The word umlaut is the name of a type of sound shift in spoken language and of the diacritic mark used to represent it Orthography. The diacritic mark comprises a pair of dots or lines placed over the letter that represents the affected Vowel....
, and cedilla
Cedilla

A cedilla or cedille is a hook added under certain consonant letters as a diacritic to modify their pronunciation....
) and the two ligatures
Ligature (typography)

In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes are joined as a single glyph. Ligatures usually replace consecutive characters sharing common components, and are part of a more general class of glyphs called "contextual forms" where the specific shape of a letter depends on context such as surrounding letters or prox...
 (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:
  • Old French doit > French doigt "finger" (Latin digitus)
  • Old French pie > French pied "foot" (Latin pes (stem: ped-))


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, , 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
Académie française

L'Acad?mie fran?aise, or the French Academy, is the pre-eminent France learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Acad?mie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to Louis XIII of France....
 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.
  • acute accent
    Acute accent

    The acute accent is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet and Greek alphabet writing systems....
     (
    é): Over an e, indicates the sound of a short ai in English, with no diphthong
    Diphthong

    In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel?that is, a unitary vowel that changes vowel quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a glissando of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow. This contrasts with "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, where the tongue is held s...
    . An
    é in modern French is often used where a combination of e and a consonant, usually s, would have been used formerly: écouter < escouter. This type of accent mark is called accent aigu in French.
  • grave accent
    Grave accent

    The grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Catalan language, French language, Greek language until 1982 , Italian language, Norwegian language, Occitan language, Portuguese language, Scottish Gaelic language, Vietnamese language, Welsh language, Dutch language, and other languages....
     (
    à, è, ù): Over a or u, used only to distinguish homophones: à ("to") vs. a ("has"), ou ("or") vs. ("where"). Over an e, indicates the sound .
  • circumflex
    Circumflex

    The circumflex is a diacritic mark used in written Serbian language, Croatian language, Esperanto, French language, West Frisian language, Norwegian language, Romanian language, Slovak language, Vietnamese language, Romaji, Romanization of Persian, Welsh language, Portuguese language, Italian language, Afrikaans language, Turkish language...
     (
    â, ê, î, ô, û): Over an a, e or o, indicates the sound , or , respectively (the distinction a vs. â tends to disappear in many dialects). Most often indicates the historical deletion of an adjacent letter (usually an s or a vowel): château < castel, fête < feste, sûr < seur, dîner < disner. It has also come to be used to distinguish homophones: du ("of the") vs. (past participle of devoir "to have to do something (pertaining to an act)"; note that is in fact written thus because of a dropped e: deu). (See Use of the circumflex in French
    Use of the circumflex in French

    The circumflex is one of the five diacritics used in the French language. It may be used atop the vowels a, e, i, o, and u.In French, the circumflex has three primary functions:...
    )
  • diaeresis
    Diaeresis

    In linguistics, diaeresis, or dieresis, is the pronunciation of two adjacent vowels in two separate syllables rather than as a diphthong, and it is also the name of the diacritic mark used to prompt the reader to pronounce adjacent vowels in this manner....
     or
    tréma (ë, ï, ü, ÿ): Indicates that a vowel is to be pronounced separately from the preceding one: naïve, Noël. A diaeresis on y only occurs in some proper names and in modern editions of old French texts. Some proper names in which ÿ appears include Aÿ (commune in canton de la Marne formerly Aÿ-Champagne), Rue des Cloÿs (alley in the 18th arrondisement of Paris), Croÿ (family name and hotel on the Boulevard Raspail, Paris), Château du Feÿ (near Joigny), Ghÿs (name of Flemish origin spelt Gh?s where ? in handwriting looked like ÿ to French clerks), l'Haÿ-les-Roses (commune between Paris and Orly airport), Pierre Louÿs (author), Moÿ (place in commune de l'Aisne and family name), and Le Blanc de Nicolaÿ (an insurance company in eastern France). The diaresis on u appears only in the biblical proper names Archélaüs, Capharnaüm, Emmaüs, Ésaü and Saül. Nevertheless, since the 1990 orthographic rectifications, the diaeresis in words containing guë (such as aiguë or ciguë) may be moved onto the u: aigüe, cigüe.
  • umlaut
    Umlaut (diacritic)

    The word umlaut is the name of a type of sound shift in spoken language and of the diacritic mark used to represent it Orthography. The diacritic mark comprises a pair of dots or lines placed over the letter that represents the affected Vowel....
    : Words coming from German retain the old Umlaut (
    ä, ö and ü) if applicable but use French pronunciation, such as kärcher (trade mark of a pressure washer).
  • cedilla
    Cedilla

    A cedilla or cedille is a hook added under certain consonant letters as a diacritic to modify their pronunciation....
     (
    ç): Indicates that an etymological c is pronounced when it would otherwise be pronounced /k/. Thus je lance "I throw" (with c = before e), je lan
    çais "I was throwing" (c would be pronounced before a without the cedilla). The c cedilla (ç) softens the hard /k/ sound to /s/ before the vowels a, o or u, for example ça /sa/. C cedilla is never used before the vowels e or i since these two vowels always produce a soft /s/ sound (ce, ci).


There are two ligatures, which have various origins:
  • The ligature œ is a mandatory contraction of oe in certain words. Some of these are native French words, with the pronunciation or , e.g. sœur "sister" , œuvre "work (of art)" . Note that it usually appears in the combination œu; œil is an exception. Many of these words were originally written with the digraph
    Digraph (orthography)

    A digraph, bigraph , or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined....
     
    eu; the o in the ligature represents a sometimes artificial attempt to imitate the Latin spelling: Latin bovem > Old French buef/beuf > Modern French bœuf. Œ is also used in words of Greek origin, as the Latin rendering of the Greek diphthong ??, e.g. cœlacanthe "coelacanth". These words used to be pronounced with the vowel , but in recent years a spelling pronunciation with has taken hold, e.g. œsophage or . The pronunciation with is often seen to be more correct. The ligature œ is not used in some occurrences of the letter combination oe, for example, when o is part of a prefix (coexister).
  • The ligature æ
    Æ

    ? is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of many languages....
    is rare and appears in some words of Latin and Greek origin like ægosome, ægyrine, æschne, cæcum, nævus or uræus. The vowel quality is identical to é .


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 ) was admitted. The same is true for cheval pluralized as chevaux and many others. Also castel pl. castels became château pl. châteaux.

Grammar


French grammar shares several notable features with most other Romance languages, including:
  • the loss of Latin's declension
    Declension

    In linguistics, declension is the occurrence of inflection in nouns, pronouns and adjectives, indicating such features as grammatical number , grammatical case , and grammatical gender....
    s
  • only two grammatical gender
    Grammatical gender

    In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
    s
  • the development of grammatical article
    Article (grammar)

    An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the types of reference being made by the noun, and to specify the volume or numerical scope of that reference....
    s from Latin demonstrative
    Demonstrative

    Demonstratives are deictic expression words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to, and distinguishes those entities from others. Demonstratives are employed for spatial deixis and as discourse deictics, referring to propositions mentioned in speech....
    s
  • new tense
    Tense

    Tense may refer to:*Grammatical tense, a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs...
    s formed from auxiliaries


French word order is Subject Verb Object, except when the object is a pronoun, in which case the word order is Subject Object Verb
Subject Object Verb

In linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb is the type of languages in which the subject , object , and verb of a sentence appear or usually appear in that order....
. Some rare archaisms allow for different word orders.

Vocabulary

The majority of French words derive from Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin is a blanket term covering the popular dialects and sociolects of the Latin which diverged from each other in the early Middle Ages, evolving into the Romance languages by the 9th century....
 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:
  • brother: frère / fraternel < from Latin frater
  • finger: doigt / digital < from Latin digitus
  • faith: foi / fidèle < from Latin fides
  • cold: froid / frigide < from Latin frigidus
  • eye: œil / oculaire < from Latin oculus


In some examples there is a common word from Vulgar Latin and a more savant word borrowed directly from Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration....
 or even Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
.
  • Cheval—Concours équestreHippodrome


The French words which have developed from Latin are usually less recognisable than Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
 words of Latin origin because as French evolved from Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin is a blanket term covering the popular dialects and sociolects of the Latin which diverged from each other in the early Middle Ages, evolving into the Romance languages by the 9th century....
, the unstressed final syllable
Syllable

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of Speech communication sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter....
 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
Dictionary

A dictionary is a book of Alphabetical order listed words in a specific language, with definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of alphabetically listed words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon....
 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
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 and are fairly recent borrowings. The others are some 707 words from Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
, 550 from ancient Germanic languages
Germanic languages

The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European languages language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Pre-Roman Iron Age....
, 481 from ancient Gallo-Romance languages
Gallo-Romance languages

The Gallo-Romance branch of Romance languages includes French language, Occitan language, Arpitan language, and several other languages spoken in modern France and northern Italy....
, 215 from Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
, 164 from German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
, 160 from Celtic languages
Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European languages language family. The term "Celtic" was used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, having much earlier been used by Greek and Roman writers to describe tribes in central Gaul....
, 159 from Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
, 153 from Dutch
Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic languages spoken by over 22 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as a second language."1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language speakers of Dutch is very small. Most native...
, 112 from Persian
Persian language

name=Persian|nativename=|pronunciation=[f??r'si]|image=|caption=Farsi in Perso-Arabic script |states= Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Bahrain....
 and Sanskrit, 101 from Native American languages, 89 from other Asian languages, 56 from other Afro-Asiatic languages
Afro-Asiatic languages

The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family with about 375 living languages and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Southwest Asia ....
, 55 from Slavic languages
Slavic languages

File:Slavic europe.svgThe Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia....
 and Baltic languages
Baltic languages

The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Indo-European languages language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe....
, 10 for Basque
Basque language

Basque is the language spoken by the Basque people who inhabit the Pyrenees in North-Central Spain and the adjoining region of South-Western France....
 and 144 — about three percent — from other languages.

Numerals

The French counting system is partially vigesimal
Vigesimal

The vigesimal or Base - numeral system is based on 20 ....
: twenty
20 (number)

20 is the natural number following 19 and preceding 21 . A group of twenty units may also be referred to as a score....
 (
) is used as a base number in the names of numbers from 60–99. The French word for eighty, for example, is , which literally means "four twenties", and (literally "sixty-fifteen") means 75. This reform arose after the French Revolution
French Revolution

The French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudalism for the aristocracy and Roman Catholic Church clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Age of Enlightenment principles of cit...
 to unify the different counting system (mostly vigesimal near the coast, due to Celtic (via Breton
Breton language

The Breton language is a Celtic languages spoken by some of the inhabitants of Brittany in France....
) 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
Belgian French

Belgian French is the variety of French spoken mainly in the French Community of Belgium, alongside related minority regional languages such as Walloon language, Picard language, Champenois and Lorrain....
 and Swiss French
Swiss French

Swiss French is the name used for the variety of French spoken in the French-speaking area of Switzerland known as Romandy. Swiss French is not to be confused with Franco-Proven?al language or Romansh language, two other Romance languages spoken in areas not far from Romandy....
 are different in this respect. In Belgium and Switzerland 70 and 90 are
and . In Switzerland, depending on the local dialect, 80 can be (Geneva, Neuchâtel, Jura) or (Vaud, Valais, Fribourg). Octante had been used in Switzerland in the past, but is now considered archaic. In Belgium, however, quatre-vingts is universally used.

It should also be noted that French uses a period or a space to separate thousands where English uses a comma. The comma is used in French numbers as a decimal point: 2,5 =
deux virgule cinq.

Cardinal numbers in French from 1 to 20 are as follows:
  • One: un
  • Two: deux
  • Three: trois
  • Four: quatre
  • Five: cinq
  • Six: six
  • Seven: sept
  • Eight: huit
  • Nine: neuf
  • Ten: dix
  • Eleven: onze
  • Twelve: douze
  • Thirteen: treize
  • Fourteen: quatorze
  • Fifteen: quinze
  • Sixteen: seize
  • Seventeen: dix-sept
  • Eighteen: dix-huit
  • Nineteen: dix-neuf
  • Twenty: vingt


Examples

The "Canadian" audio samples here are not necessarily from speakers of Québec French, which has distinct regional pronunciations of certain words.references needed

English French IPA pronunciation (Canadian accent) IPA pronunciation (French accent)
French français
English anglais
Yes Oui, except when responding to a negatively posed question, in which case Si is used preferentially over Oui (like German "doch")
No Non
Hello! Bonjour ! (formal) or Salut ! (informal)
Good evening! Bonsoir !
Good night! Bonne nuit !
Goodbye! Au revoir !
Have a nice day! Bonne journée !
Please S'il vous plaît (formal) or S'il te plaît (informal)
Thank you Merci
You're welcome De rien ("it is nothing") or Je vous en prie (formal) or Je t'en prie (informal)
I'm sorry Pardon or Je suis désolé (if male) / Je suis désolée (if female) / Je m'excuse / /
Who? Qui ?
What? Quoi ? (?informal ) or Comment ? (?formal >When? Quand ?
Where? Où ?
Why? Pourquoi ?
What's your name? Comment vous appelez-vous ? (formal) or Comment t'appelles-tu ? (informal)
Because Parce que / "À cause de" — literally "because of" or "due to"
For (when used as "because") Car
Therefore Donc
How? Comment ?
How much? Combien ?
I do not understand. Je ne comprends pas.
Yes, I understand. Oui, je comprends. Except when responding to a negatively posed question, in which case Si is used preferentially over Oui
Help! Au secours (à l'aide !) /o s?'ku?/ /o s?ku?/
Can you help me please ? Pouvez-vous m'aider s'il vous plaît ? / Pourriez-vous m'aider s'il vous plaît ? (formal) or Peux-tu m'aider s'il te plaît ? / Pourrais-tu m'aider s'il te plaît (informal)  
Where are the toilets? Où sont les toilettes ?
Do you speak English? Parlez-vous anglais ?
I do not speak French. Je ne parle pas français.
I don't know. Je ne sais pas.
I know. Je sais.
I am thirsty. J'ai soif. (literally, "I have thirst")
I am hungry. J'ai faim. (literally, "I have hunger")
How are you? / How are things going? / How's everything? Comment allez-vous? (formal) or Ça va? / Comment ça va ? (informal)  
I am (very) well / Things are going (very) well // Everything is (very) well Je vais (très) bien (formal) or Ça va (très) bien. / Tout va (très) bien (informal)  
I am (very) bad / Things are (very) bad / Everything is (very) bad Je vais (très) mal (formal) or Ça va (très) mal / Tout va (très) mal (informal)  
I am ok/so-so / Everything is ok/so-so Assez bien or Ça va comme ci, comme ça or simply Ça va.. (Sometimes said: « Couci, couça. ») i. e. « Comme ci, comme ça. »)  
I am fine. Je vais bien.  


See also


External links


Courses and tutorials

  • (extensive)
  • BBC
  • (including French gestures)
  • (easy tables)


Online dictionaries



Vocabulary

  • , with audio


Audio