French language

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French
français
Pronunciation
Francophone Africa, Canada, and other locations in the Francophonie
SpeakersL1: 74 million (2020)[1]
L2: 238 million (2022)[1]
Total: 310 million[1]
Early forms
French alphabet)
French Braille
Signed French
(français signé)
Official status
Official language in


Non-official but administrative/cultural

T)
ISO 639-3fra
fra
Glottologstan1290
Linguasphere51-AAA-i
  Countries and regions where French is the native language of the majority[a]
  Countries and territories where French is an official language but not a majority native language
  Countries, regions, and territories where French is an administrative or cultural language but with no official status
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French (français

influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to the French colonial empire, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole
. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French.

French is an

27 countries, as well as one of the most geographically widespread languages in the world, with about 50 countries and territories having it as a de jure or de facto official, administrative, or cultural language.[2] Most of these countries are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the community of 54 member states which share the official use or teaching of French. It is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France; Canada (especially in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick); Belgium (Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region); western Switzerland (specifically the cantons forming the Romandy region); parts of Luxembourg; parts of the United States (the states of Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont); Monaco; the Aosta Valley region of Italy; and various communities elsewhere.[3]

French is estimated to have about 310 million speakers, of which about 80 million are native speakers.[4] According to the OIF, approximately 321 million people worldwide are "able to speak the language" as of 2022,[5] without specifying the criteria for this estimation or whom it encompasses.[6]

French is increasingly being spoken as a native language in Francophone Africa, especially in regions like Abidjan,[7] Douala, Yaoundé,[8] Libreville,[9] Antananarivo,[10] and the Democratic Republic of Congo.[11][12][13]

In 2015, approximately 40% of the francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) lived in Europe, 36% in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas, and 1% in Asia and Oceania.[14] French is the second-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union.[15] Of Europeans who speak other languages natively, approximately one-fifth are able to speak French as a second language.[16] French is the second-most taught foreign language in the EU. All institutions of the EU use French as a working language along with English and German; in certain institutions, French is the sole working language (e.g. at the Court of Justice of the European Union).[17] French is also the 16th most natively spoken language in the world, sixth most spoken language by total number of speakers and is on the top five of the most studied languages worldwide (with about 120 million learners as of 2017).[18] As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 16th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

French has a long history as an international language of literature and scientific standards and is a primary or second language of many international organisations including the

.

History

French is a

Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin) that evolved out of the Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in northern France. The language's early forms include Old French and Middle French
.

Vulgar Latin in Gaul

Due to Roman rule, Latin was gradually adopted by the inhabitants of Gaul. As the language was learned by the common people, it developed a distinct local character, with grammatical differences from Latin as spoken elsewhere, some of which is attested in graffiti.

Arpitan
.

The evolution of Latin in Gaul was shaped by its coexistence for over half a millennium beside the native

Gaulish language, which did not go extinct until the late sixth century, long after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.[20] The population remained 90% indigenous in origin;[21][22] the Romanizing class were the local native elite (not Roman settlers), whose children learned Latin in Roman schools. At the time of the collapse of the Empire, this local elite had been slowly abandoning Gaulish entirely, but the rural and lower class populations remained Gaulish speakers who could sometimes also speak Latin or Greek.[23] The final language shift from Gaulish to Vulgar Latin among rural and lower class populations occurred later, when both they and the incoming Frankish ruler/military class adopted the Gallo-Roman Vulgar Latin speech of the urban intellectual elite.[23]

The Gaulish language likely survived into the sixth century in France despite considerable

loanwords and calques (including oui,[24] the word for "yes"),[25] sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence,[26][27][28] and influences in conjugation and word order.[25][29][19] Recent computational studies suggest that early gender shifts may have been motivated by the gender of the corresponding word in Gaulish.[30]

The estimated number of French words that can be attributed to Gaulish is placed at 154 by the Petit Robert,[31] which is often viewed as representing standardized French, while if non-standard dialects are included, the number increases to 240.[32] Known Gaulish loans are skewed toward certain semantic fields, such as plant life (chêne, bille, etc.), animals (mouton, cheval, etc.), nature (boue, etc.), domestic activities (ex. berceau), farming and rural units of measure (arpent, lieue, borne, boisseau), weapons,[33] and products traded regionally rather than further afield.[34] This semantic distribution has been attributed to peasants being the last to hold onto Gaulish.[34][33]

Old French