French language
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French language
French (français, ) is a Romance language spoken, around the world, by more than 130 million people as a first language (mother tongue), by 190 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 54 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,[1] where the language originated. The rest live essentially in Canada (Quebec), Belgium, Switzerland, Francophone Africa, Luxembourg, and Monaco. Most second language speakers of French live in Francophone Africa, arguably exceeding the number of native speakers.[2] The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the Francophone country with the largest population. French is a descendant of the Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are national languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Romanian, and minority languages ranging from Catalan and Occitan to Neapolitan and many more. 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 29 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. According to the European Union, 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 either as a second or foreign language, which makes it the third most spoken second language in the Union, after English and German. In addition, prior to the mid 20th century, French served as the preeminent language of diplomacy among European and colonial powers as well as a lingua franca among the educated classes of Europe. Geographic distributionEuropeLegal status in FranceAccording to the Constitution of France, French has been the official language since 1992[3] (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 and dialects. France has signed the European Charter for Regional Languages, but has not ratified it since that would go against the 1958 Constitution. SwitzerlandFrench is one of the three official languages of Switzerland (along with German and Italian) and is spoken in the part of Switzerland called Romandie. French is the native language of about 20% of the Swiss population. Swiss french is mostly mutually compatible with the standard french spoken in France, but small changes, such as different numbers are often used. BelgiumIn 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.[4] French and German are not official languages nor recognized minority languages in the Flemish 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 as a first language. Of the latter, 59% claim to speak French as a second language, meaning that about three quarters of the Belgian population can speak French.[5][6] MaltaMaltese is a Semitic language[7] influenced by Italian and to a lesser extent French; 17% of the Maltese population speaks French.[8] A French presence has existed on Malta since the arrival of the Ordre des Hospitaliers in 1530. Monaco and AndorraAlthough 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; however, French is commonly used due to the proximity to France. French nationals make up 7% of the population.
Knowledge of French in the European Union and candidate countries[9] ItalyFrench 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.[10] LuxembourgFrench is one of three official languages of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, alongside German 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 United Kingdom and the Channel IslandsFrench is an official language in Jersey and Guernsey, the two bailiwicks collectively referred to as the Channel Islands, although they are separate entities. Both use French to some degree, mostly in an administrative capacity. Jersey Legal French is the standardized variety used in Jersey. However, Norman is the historical vernacular langue d'Oïl of the islands. A large portion of words of the English Language (originating in Great Britain) are of French root or origin. This is due to the Norman Invasion which made French the language of administration and was spoken by the aristocracy and upper classes (while the peasants and lower classes spoke an Anglo-Saxon Language). French is a large minority language and immigrant language in the UK with over 1 million speakers as a first language. It is also the most popular foreign language with just under a quarter of the British population being able to speak French proficiently. AmericasCanada
Bilingual (English/French) stop sign on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, an example of bilingualism at the federal level in Canada. French is the second most common language in Canada, after English, and both are official languages at the federal level. French is the sole official language in the province of Quebec, being the mother tongue for some 7 million people. New Brunswick, where about a third of the population is francophone, is the only officially bilingual province. Portions of Ontario, Nova Scotia and Manitoba have sizeable French minorities, but its prescription as an official language in those jurisdictions and the level of francophone services varies. HaitiFrench 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 overseas territoriesFrench is also the official language in France's overseas territories of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy, St. Martin and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. The United States
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. 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.[2] 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[13] and in Libreville, Gabon.[14] It is not possible 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.[15] 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 with competition from English, since English has been the official language in Mauritius and the Seychelles for a while 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 rapid demographic growth.[16] It is also where the language has evolved the most in recent years.[17][18] Some vernacular forms of French in Africa can be difficult to understand for French speakers from other countries,[19] 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:
In addition, French is an administrative language and commonly used, though not on an official basis, in Mauritius and in the Maghreb states: In Algeria, various reforms have been implemented in recent decades 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; 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 nineteenth 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. AsiaLebanon
A Lebanese "mille livres" (thousand-pound) bank note SyriaLike Lebanon, French was official in Syria until 1943. But in contrast to Lebanon, the language is not official, but still spoken by educated group, both elites and middle-class. Southeast AsiaFrench is an administrative language in Laos and Cambodia, although its influence has waned in recent years.[20] In colonial Vietnam, the elites spoke French, and many who worked for the French spoke a French creole known as "Tây B?i" (now extinct). The language was also spoken by the elite in the leased territory Guangzhouwan in southern China. In Burma, 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 offers a B.A. in French, and Alliance Française has active centres in Rangoon and Mandalay. The Francophone community is estimated to number from 25,000 to 50,000+. IndiaFrench has de-jure official status in the Indian Union Territory of Pondicherry, along with the regional languages Tamil, Telugu. Some students of Tamil Nadu opt for French as their second or third language (usually behind English and Tamil). French is commonly taught as a third language in secondary schools in most cities of Maharashtra, including Mumbai, 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 offer French as an option as early as grade 4. In grade 9, students are asked to drop either French or Hindi, which is their native language. OceaniaFrench is a second official language of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu and Wallis & Futuna. In France's territories of French Polynesia, and New Caledonia it has more than 90% speakers either as native or secondary language. Dialects
HistoryPhonology
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.
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:
Orthography
Writing systemFrench 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 (?) 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, , 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.
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. Some proposals exist to simplify the existing writing system, but they still fail to gather interest. [22] [23] [24] GrammarFrench 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. VocabularyThe 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:
NumeralsThe French counting system is partially vigesimal: twenty () 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 to unify the different counting system (mostly vigesimal near the coast, due to Celtic (via Breton) 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 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.[26] In Belgium, however, quatre-vingts is universally used. It should also be noted that French uses a period (also called a full stop) or a space to separate thousands where English uses a comma or (more recently) a space. 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:
ExamplesThe "Canadian" audio samples here are not necessarily from speakers of Quebec French, which has distinct regional pronunciations of certain words.references needed
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Audio
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