129-524: Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers ( French for 'Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Crafts'), better known as Encyclopédie ( French: [ɑ̃siklɔpedi] ), was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers, known as
258-572: A de jure or de facto official, administrative, or cultural language. 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
387-744: A French official to teachers in the department of Finistère , in western Brittany, included the following: "And remember, Gents: you were given your position in order to kill the Breton language". The prefect of Basses-Pyrénées in the French Basque Country wrote in 1846: "Our schools in the Basque Country are particularly meant to replace the Basque language with French..." Students were taught that their ancestral languages were inferior and they should be ashamed of them; this process
516-981: A Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts, by a Company of Persons of Letters, edited by M. Diderot of the Academy of Sciences and Belles-lettres of Prussia: as to the Mathematical Portion, arranged by M. d'Alembert of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, of the Academy of Sciences in Prussia and of the Royal Society of London.") The title page was amended as d'Alembert acquired more titles. The work consisted of 28 volumes, with 71,818 articles and 3,129 illustrations. The first seventeen volumes were published between 1751 and 1765; eleven volumes of plates were finished by 1772. Engraver Robert Bénard provided at least 1,800 plates for
645-614: A co-editor of the Encyclopédie . D'Alembert's formula for obtaining solutions to the wave equation is named after him. The wave equation is sometimes referred to as d'Alembert's equation , and the fundamental theorem of algebra is named after d'Alembert in French. Born in Paris, d'Alembert was the natural son of the writer Claudine Guérin de Tencin and the chevalier Louis-Camus Destouches , an artillery officer. Destouches
774-431: A comprehensive academic study entitled "The World's 10 most influential languages". In the article, Weber ranked French as, after English, the second-most influential language of the world, ahead of Spanish. His criteria were the numbers of native speakers, the number of secondary speakers (especially high for French among fellow world languages), the number of countries using the language and their respective populations,
903-555: A foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050. French is the fastest growing language on the continent (in terms of either official or foreign languages). French is increasingly being spoken as a native language in Francophone Africa, especially in regions like Ivory Coast , Cameroon , Gabon, Madagascar , and
1032-712: A full 25% of the Encyclopédie . The publication became a place where these contributors could share their ideas and interests, still, as Frank Kafker has argued, the Encyclopedists were not a unified group: ... despite their reputation, [the Encyclopedists] were not a close-knit group of radicals intent on subverting the Old Regime in France. Instead they were a disparate group of men of letters, physicians, scientists, craftsmen and scholars ... even
1161-599: A period of prosperity and prominence among European nations. Richelieu established the Académie française to protect the French language. By the early 1800s, Parisian French had become the primary language of the aristocracy in France. Near the beginning of the 19th century, the French government began to pursue policies with the end goal of eradicating the many minorities and regional languages ( patois ) spoken in France. This began in 1794 with Henri Grégoire 's "Report on
1290-402: A philosopher—and what is that but an ass who plagues himself all his life, that he may be talked about after he is dead. Destouches secretly paid for the education of Jean le Rond, but did not want his paternity officially recognised. D'Alembert first attended a private school. The chevalier Destouches left d'Alembert an annuity of 1,200 livres on his death in 1726. Under the influence of
1419-553: A place in the civil and literary history of its century. It sought not only to give information, but to guide opinion", wrote the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica . In The Encyclopédie and the Age of Revolution , a work published in conjunction with a 1989 exhibition of the Encyclopédie at the University of California, Los Angeles , Clorinda Donato writes the following: The encyclopedians successfully argued and marketed their belief in
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#17327570030791548-621: A play called Les Philosophes to criticize the Encyclopédie . When Abbé André Morellet , one of the contributors to the Encyclopédie , wrote a mock preface for it, he was sent to the Bastille due to allegations of libel. To defend themselves from controversy, the encyclopedia's articles wrote of theological topics in a mixed manner. Some articles supported orthodoxy, and some included overt criticisms of Christianity. To avoid direct retribution from censors, writers often hid criticism in obscure articles or expressed it in ironic terms. Nonetheless,
1677-425: A prospectus for the Encyclopédie was published to attract subscribers to the project. This four page prospectus was illustrated by Jean-Michel Papillon, and accompanied by a plan, stating that the work would be published in five volumes from June 1746 until the end of 1748. The text was translated by Mills and Sellius, and it was corrected by an unnamed person, who appears to have been Denis Diderot . The prospectus
1806-494: A relic of the old nominal case system of Latin longer than most other Romance languages (with the notable exception of Romanian which still currently maintains a case distinction), differentiating between an oblique case and a nominative case. The phonology was characterized by heavy syllabic stress, which led to the emergence of various complicated diphthongs such as -eau which would later be leveled to monophthongs. The earliest evidence of what became Old French can be seen in
1935-683: 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 United Nations , the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ,
2064-433: A series of bitter exchanges between the men and contributed to the end of d'Alembert and Rameau's friendship. A long preliminary discourse d'Alembert wrote for the 1762 edition of his Elémens attempted to summarise the dispute and act as a final rebuttal. D'Alembert also discussed various aspects of the state of music in his celebrated Discours préliminaire of Diderot 's Encyclopédie . D'Alembert claims that, compared to
2193-459: A spirit of Independence and revolt, and...laying the foundations of an edifice of error, for the corruption of morals and religion, and the promotion of unbelief." Following the publication of the seventh volume, on the initiative of the Parlement of Paris , the French government suspended the encyclopedia's privilège in 1759. Despite these issues, work continued "in secret," partially because
2322-547: A variant of Canadian French , is spoken in parts of New England . Missouri French was historically spoken in Missouri and Illinois (formerly known as Upper Louisiana ), but is nearly extinct today. French also survived in isolated pockets along the Gulf Coast of what was previously French Lower Louisiana , such as Mon Louis Island , Alabama and DeLisle, Mississippi (the latter only being discovered by linguists in
2451-457: A working language along with English and German ; in some institutions, French is the sole working language (e.g. at the Court of Justice of the European Union ). French is also the 16th most natively spoken language in the world, the sixth most spoken language by total number of speakers , and is among the top five most studied languages worldwide, with about 120 million learners as of 2017. As
2580-437: Is 95%, and in the French collectivity of Wallis and Futuna , it is 84%. In French Polynesia and to a lesser extent Wallis and Futuna, where oral and written knowledge of the French language has become almost universal (95% and 84% respectively), French increasingly tends to displace the native Polynesian languages as the language most spoken at home. In French Polynesia, the percentage of the population who reported that French
2709-472: Is a widespread second language among the Lebanese people , and is taught in many schools along with Arabic and English. French is used on Lebanese pound banknotes, on road signs, on Lebanese license plates , and on official buildings (alongside Arabic). Today, French and English are secondary languages of Lebanon , with about 40% of the population being Francophone and 40% Anglophone. The use of English
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#17327570030792838-489: Is also a working language in nonprofit organisations such as the Red Cross (alongside English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Russian), Amnesty International (alongside 32 other languages of which English is the most used, followed by Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Italian), Médecins sans Frontières (used alongside English, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic), and Médecins du Monde (used alongside English). Given
2967-472: Is also famously known for incorrectly arguing in Croix ou Pile that the probability of a coin landing heads increased for every time that it came up tails. In gambling, the strategy of decreasing one's bet the more one wins and increasing one's bet the more one loses is therefore called the D'Alembert system , a type of martingale . In South Australia , a small inshore island in south-western Spencer Gulf
3096-652: Is enacted only in New Brunswick, where about one third of the population is Francophone. French is also an official language of all of the territories ( Northwest Territories , Nunavut , and Yukon ). Out of the three, Yukon has the most French speakers, making up just under 4% of the population. Furthermore, while French is not an official language in Ontario , the French Language Services Act ensures that provincial services are available in
3225-563: Is growing in the business and media environment. Out of about 900,000 students, about 500,000 are enrolled in Francophone schools, public or private, in which the teaching of mathematics and scientific subjects is provided in French. Actual usage of French varies depending on the region and social status. One-third of high school students educated in French go on to pursue higher education in English-speaking institutions. English
3354-404: Is known as Old French. The period of Old French spanned between the 8th and 14th centuries. Old French shared many characteristics with Latin. For example, Old French made use of different possible word orders just as Latin did because it had a case system that retained the difference between nominative subjects and oblique non-subjects . The period is marked by a heavy superstrate influence from
3483-469: Is often considered to be a useful skill by business owners in the United Kingdom; a 2014 study found that 50% of British managers considered French to be a valuable asset for their business, thus ranking French as the most sought-after foreign language there, ahead of German (49%) and Spanish (44%). MIT economist Albert Saiz calculated a 2.3% premium for those who have French as a foreign language in
3612-828: Is one of the official languages of such major international and regional courts, tribunals, and dispute-settlement bodies as the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights , the Caribbean Court of Justice , the Court of Justice for the Economic Community of West African States , the Inter-American Court of Human Rights , the International Court of Justice , the International Criminal Tribunal for
3741-446: Is only a few nodes away from " divination " and " black magic ". The authors of the Encyclopédie challenged religious authority. The authors, especially Diderot and d'Alembert, located religion within a system of reason and philosophy. They did not reject all religious claims, but believed theology and notions of God must be proven. Louis de Jaucourt therefore harshly criticized superstition as an intellectual error in his article on
3870-639: Is taught in universities around the world, and is one of the world's most influential languages because of its wide use in the worlds of journalism, jurisprudence , education, and diplomacy. In diplomacy, French is one of the six official languages of the United Nations (and one of the UN Secretariat 's only two working languages ), one of twenty official and three procedural languages of the European Union , an official language of NATO ,
3999-553: Is the language of business and communication, with French being an element of social distinction, chosen for its emotional value. French is an official language of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu , where 31% of the population was estimated to speak it in 2023. In the French special collectivity of New Caledonia , 97% of the population can speak, read and write French while in French Polynesia this figure
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4128-483: Is the native language of about 23% of the Swiss population, and is spoken by 50% of the population. Along with Luxembourgish and German, French is one of the three official languages of Luxembourg , where it is generally the preferred language of business as well as of the different public administrations. It is also the official language of Monaco . At a regional level, French is acknowledged as an official language in
4257-492: Is the second-most spoken language (after English) in the states of Maine and New Hampshire . In Louisiana , it is tied with Spanish for second-most spoken if Louisiana French and all creoles such as Haitian are included. French is the third most spoken language (after English and Spanish) in the states of Connecticut , Rhode Island , and New Hampshire . Louisiana is home to many distinct French dialects, collectively known as Louisiana French . New England French , essentially
4386-424: Is the sole official language in the province of Quebec , where some 80% of the population speak it as a native language and 95% are capable of conducting a conversation in it. Quebec is also home to the city of Montreal , which is the world's fourth-largest French-speaking city, by number of first language speakers. New Brunswick and Manitoba are the only officially bilingual provinces, though full bilingualism
4515-764: The Aosta Valley region of Italy where it is the first language of approximately 50% of the population, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands . It is also spoken in Andorra and is the main language after Catalan in El Pas de la Casa . The language is taught as the primary second language in the German state of Saarland , with French being taught from pre-school and over 43% of citizens being able to speak French. The majority of
4644-609: 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. French is estimated to have about 310 million speakers, of which about 80 million are native speakers. According to
4773-609: The Democratic Republic of Congo . There is not a single African French , but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages . Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth. 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
4902-517: The Democratic Republic of the Congo . In some North African countries, though not having official status, it is also a first language among some upper classes of the population alongside indigenous languages, but only a second one among the general population. In 2015, approximately 40% of the Francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) lived in Europe, 36% in sub-Saharan Africa and
5031-535: The Encyclopédie could not seize the production plates for the Encyclopédie in Paris because those printing plates ostensibly existed only in Switzerland. Meanwhile, the actual production of volumes 8 through 17 quietly continued in Paris. In 1775, Charles Joseph Panckoucke obtained the rights to reissue the work. He issued five volumes of supplementary material and a two-volume index from 1776 to 1780. Some scholars include these seven "extra" volumes as part of
5160-425: The Encyclopédie expressed favor for laissez-faire ideals or principles of economic liberalism. Articles concerning economics or markets, such as "Economic Politics", generally favored free competition and denounced monopolies. Articles often criticized guilds as creating monopolies and approved of state intervention to remove such monopolies. The writers advocated extending laissez-faire principles of liberalism from
5289-502: The Encyclopédie was organised in the late 1740s, d'Alembert was engaged as co-editor (for mathematics and science) with Diderot, and served until a series of crises temporarily interrupted the publication in 1757. He authored over a thousand articles for it, including the famous Preliminary Discourse . D'Alembert "abandoned the foundation of Materialism " when he "doubted whether there exists outside us anything corresponding to what we suppose we see." In this way, d'Alembert agreed with
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5418-441: The Encyclopédie , its title expanded. As of 1750, the full title was Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une société de gens de lettres, mis en ordre par M. Diderot de l'Académie des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Prusse, et quant à la partie mathématique, par M. d'Alembert de l'Académie royale des Sciences de Paris, de celle de Prusse et de la Société royale de Londres. ("Encyclopedia: or
5547-558: The Encyclopédistes . It was edited by Denis Diderot and, until 1759, co-edited by Jean le Rond d'Alembert . The Encyclopédie is most famous for representing the thought of the Enlightenment . According to Denis Diderot in the article "Encyclopédie", the Encyclopédie' s aim was "to change the way people think" and for people to be able to inform themselves and to know things. He and the other contributors advocated for
5676-533: The European Union , French was the dominant language within all institutions until the 1990s. After several enlargements of the EU (1995, 2004), French significantly lost ground in favour of English, which is more widely spoken and taught in most EU countries. French currently remains one of the three working languages, or "procedural languages", of the EU, along with English and German. It is the second-most widely used language within EU institutions after English, but remains
5805-559: The Francien dialect is one that not only continued but also thrived during the Middle French period (14th–17th centuries). Modern French grew out of this Francien dialect. Grammatically, during the period of Middle French, noun declensions were lost and there began to be standardized rules. Robert Estienne published the first Latin-French dictionary, which included information about phonetics, etymology, and grammar. Politically,
5934-399: 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 official language in 27 countries , as well as one of the most geographically widespread languages in the world, with about 50 countries and territories having it as
6063-532: The Idealist Berkeley and anticipated the transcendental idealism of Kant . In 1752, he wrote about what is now called D'Alembert's paradox : that the drag on a body immersed in an inviscid , incompressible fluid is zero. In 1754, d'Alembert was elected a member of the Académie des sciences , of which he became Permanent Secretary on 9 April 1772. In 1757, an article by d'Alembert in
6192-877: The International Olympic Committee , the Council of Europe , the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , Organization of American States (alongside Spanish, Portuguese and English), the Eurovision Song Contest , one of eighteen official languages of the European Space Agency , World Trade Organization and the least used of the three official languages in the North American Free Trade Agreement countries. It
6321-478: The Journal introduced Mills as an English scholar who had been raised in France and who spoke both French and English as a native. The Journal reported that Mills had discussed the work with several academics, was zealous about the project, had devoted his fortune to support this enterprise, and was the sole owner of the publishing privilege. However, the cooperation fell apart later on in 1745. André le Breton ,
6450-626: The Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia , while Old French literature began to be produced in the eleventh century, with major early works often focusing on the lives of saints (such as the Vie de Saint Alexis ), or wars and royal courts, notably including the Chanson de Roland , epic cycles focused on King Arthur and his court , as well as a cycle focused on William of Orange . It
6579-775: The World Trade Organization , the International Olympic Committee , the General Conference on Weights and Measures , and the International Committee of the Red Cross . 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 . Due to Roman rule, Latin
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#17327570030796708-456: The secularization of learning away from the Jesuits . Diderot wanted to incorporate all of the world's knowledge into the Encyclopédie and hoped that the text could disseminate all this information to the public and future generations. Thus, it is an example of democratization of knowledge . It was also the first encyclopedia to include contributions from many named contributors, and it was
6837-506: The 1990s) but these varieties are severely endangered or presumed extinct. French is one of two official languages in Haiti alongside Haitian Creole . It is the principal language of education, administration, business, and public signage and is spoken by all educated Haitians. It is also used for ceremonial events such as weddings, graduations, and church masses. The vast majority of the population speaks Haitian Creole as their first language;
6966-773: The 20th century, when it was replaced by English as the United States became the dominant global power following the Second World War . Stanley Meisler of the Los Angeles Times said that the fact that the Treaty of Versailles was written in English as well as French was the "first diplomatic blow" against the language. During the Grand Siècle (17th century), France, under the rule of powerful leaders such as Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV , enjoyed
7095-703: The Canadian capital, is also effectively bilingual, as it has a large population of federal government workers, who are required to offer services in both French and English, and is just across the river from the Quebecois city of Gatineau . According to the United States Census Bureau (2011), French is the fourth most spoken language in the United States after English, Spanish, and Chinese, when all forms of French are considered together and all dialects of Chinese are similarly combined. French
7224-614: The Caribbean that are collectively referred to as the French West Indies , namely Guadeloupe , Saint Barthélemy , Saint Martin , and Martinique . French is the official language of both French Guiana on the South American continent, and of Saint Pierre and Miquelon , an archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland in North America. French was the official language of the colony of French Indochina , comprising modern-day Vietnam , Laos , and Cambodia . It continues to be an administrative language in Laos and Cambodia, although its influence has waned in recent decades. In colonial Vietnam,
7353-490: The Church of Rome to be a Socinianist, and that was all he meant, and he abstained from further work on the encyclopaedia following his response to the critique. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1781. D'Alembert's first exposure to music theory was in 1749 when he was called upon to review a Mémoire submitted to the Académie by Jean-Philippe Rameau . This article, written in conjunction with Diderot , would later form
7482-410: The Destouches family, at the age of 12 d'Alembert entered the Jansenist Collège des Quatre-Nations (the institution was also known under the name "Collège Mazarin"). Here he studied philosophy, law, and the arts, graduating as baccalauréat en arts in 1735. In his later life, d'Alembert scorned the Cartesian principles he had been taught by the Jansenists : "physical promotion, innate ideas and
7611-408: 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. 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
7740-416: The Germanic Frankish language , which non-exhaustively included the use in upper-class speech and higher registers of V2 word order , a large percentage of the vocabulary (now at around 15% of modern French vocabulary ) including the impersonal singular pronoun on (a calque of Germanic man ), and the name of the language itself. Up until its later stages, Old French , alongside Old Occitan , maintained
7869-418: The Great of Prussia proposed the name "d'Alembert" for a suspected (but non-existent) moon of Venus, however d'Alembert refused the honor. In July 1739 he made his first contribution to the field of mathematics, pointing out the errors he had detected in Analyse démontrée (published 1708 by Charles-René Reynaud ) in a communication addressed to the Académie des Sciences . At the time L'analyse démontrée
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#17327570030797998-410: The Indian Ocean, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas, and 1% in Asia and Oceania. French is the second most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union . Of Europeans who speak other languages natively, approximately one-fifth are able to speak French as a second language. French is the second most taught foreign language in the EU. All institutions of the EU use French as
8127-441: The Latin spoken in Gaul , and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl —languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French ( Francien ) largely supplanted. French was also 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
8256-402: The OIF, approximately 321 million people worldwide are "able to speak the language" as of 2022, without specifying the criteria for this estimation or whom it encompasses. In Francophone Africa, it is spoken mainly as a second language. However it has also become a native language in a number of urban areas, especially in regions like Ivory Coast , Cameroon , Gabon, Madagascar , and
8385-404: The Pergamon Press, New York and Paris with ISBN 0-08-090105-0 . French language French ( français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz] ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family . Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . French evolved from Gallo-Romance ,
8514-522: The ancients may have left us in this genre." He praises Rameau as "that manly, courageous, and fruitful genius" who picked up the slack left by Jean-Baptiste Lully in the French musical arts. D'Alembert was a participant in several Parisian salons , particularly those of Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin , of the marquise du Deffand and of Julie de Lespinasse . D'Alembert became infatuated with Julie de Lespinasse, and eventually took up residence with her. He suffered bad health for many years and his death
8643-411: The articles, several of its editors were sent to jail. Like most encyclopedias, the Encyclopédie attempted to collect and summarize human knowledge in a variety of fields and topics, ranging from philosophy to theology to science and the arts. The Encyclopédie was controversial for reorganizing knowledge based on human reason instead of by nature or theology. Knowledge and intellect branched from
8772-556: The basis of Rameau's 1750 treatise Démonstration du principe de l'harmonie . D'Alembert wrote a glowing review praising the author's deductive character as an ideal scientific model. He saw in Rameau's music theories support for his own scientific ideas, a fully systematic method with a strongly deductive synthetic structure. Two years later, in 1752, d'Alembert attempted a fully comprehensive survey of Rameau's works in his Eléments de musique théorique et pratique suivant les principes de M. Rameau . Emphasizing Rameau's main claim that music
8901-525: The capacity to spread. The Encyclopédie ' s influence continues today. Historian Dan O'Sullivan compares it to Misplaced Pages : Like Misplaced Pages, the Encyclopédie was a collaborative effort involving numerous writers and technicians. As do Wikipedians today, Diderot and his colleagues needed to engage with the latest technology in dealing with the problems of designing an up-to-date encyclopedia. These included what kind of information to include, how to set up links between various articles, and how to achieve
9030-415: The clergy or other censors, which threatened the publication of the project as well as the authors themselves. The King's Council suppressed the Encyclopédie in 1759. The Catholic Church , under Pope Clement XIII , placed it on its list of banned books . Prominent intellectuals criticized it, most famously Lefranc de Pompignan at the French Academy . A playwright, Charles Palissot de Montenoy , wrote
9159-401: The contributors still openly attacked the Catholic Church in certain articles with examples including criticizing excess festivals, monasteries, and celibacy of the clergy. The Encyclopédie is often seen as an influence for the French Revolution because of its emphasis on Enlightenment political theories. Diderot and other authors, in famous articles such as "Political Authority", emphasized
9288-552: The country near French-speaking Quebec, however, it is the foreign language more commonly taught. Vowel phonemes in French Jean le Rond d%27Alembert Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert ( / ˌ d æ l ə m ˈ b ɛər / DAL -əm- BAIR ; French: [ʒɑ̃ batist lə ʁɔ̃ dalɑ̃bɛʁ] ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician , physicist , philosopher, and music theorist . Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot ,
9417-519: The demographic prospects of the French-speaking nations of Africa, researcher Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry wrote in 2014 that French "could be the language of the future". However, some African countries such as Algeria intermittently attempted to eradicate the use of French, and as of 2024 it was removed as an official language in Mali and Burkina Faso . Significant as a judicial language, French
9546-448: The economic power of the countries using the language, the number of major areas in which the language is used, and the linguistic prestige associated with the mastery of the language (Weber highlighted that French in particular enjoys considerable linguistic prestige). In a 2008 reassessment of his article, Weber concluded that his findings were still correct since "the situation among the top ten remains unchanged." Knowledge of French
9675-569: The editors of the Encyclopédie was to gather all the knowledge in the world, Diderot and D'Alembert knew they would need various contributors to help them with their project. Many of the philosophes ( intellectuals of the French Enlightenment ) contributed to the Encyclopédie , including Diderot himself, Voltaire , Rousseau , and Montesquieu . The most prolific contributor was Louis de Jaucourt , who wrote 17,266 articles between 1759 and 1765, or about eight per day, representing
9804-594: The elites primarily spoke French, while many servants who worked in French households spoke a French pidgin known as " Tây Bồi " (now extinct). After French rule ended, South Vietnam continued to use French in administration, education, and trade. However, since the Fall of Saigon and the opening of a unified Vietnam's economy, French has gradually been effectively displaced as the first foreign language of choice by English in Vietnam. Nevertheless, it continues to be taught as
9933-484: The first full issue of the Encyclopédie , for a total of 35 volumes, although they were not written or edited by the original authors. From 1782 to 1832, Panckoucke and his successors published an expanded edition of the work in some 166 volumes as the Encyclopédie Méthodique . That work, enormous for its time, occupied a thousand workers in production and 2,250 contributors. Since the objective of
10062-659: The first general encyclopedia to describe the mechanical arts . In the first publication, seventeen folio volumes were accompanied by detailed engravings. Later volumes were published without the engravings, in order to better reach a wide audience within Europe. The Encyclopédie was originally conceived as a French translation of Ephraim Chambers 's Cyclopaedia (1728). Ephraim Chambers had first published his Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences in two volumes in London in 1728, following several dictionaries of arts and sciences that had emerged in Europe since
10191-516: The first government authority to adopt Modern French as official was the Aosta Valley in 1536, while the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) named French the language of law in the Kingdom of France . During the 17th century, French replaced Latin as the most important language of diplomacy and international relations ( lingua franca ). It retained this role until approximately the middle of
10320-915: The former Yugoslavia , International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda , the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea the International Criminal Court and the World Trade Organization Appellate Body . It is the sole internal working language of the Court of Justice of the European Union , and makes with English the European Court of Human Rights 's two working languages. In 1997, George Weber published, in Language Today ,
10449-829: The gender of the corresponding word in Gaulish. The estimated number of French words that can be attributed to Gaulish is placed at 154 by the Petit Robert , which is often viewed as representing standardized French, while if non-standard dialects are included, the number increases to 240. 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, and products traded regionally rather than further afield. This semantic distribution has been attributed to peasants being
10578-454: The language are very closely related to those of the rest of the French-speaking world. French is the second most commonly spoken language in Canada and one of two federal official languages alongside English. As of the 2021 Canadian census , it was the native language of 7.7 million people (21% of the population) and the second language of 2.9 million (8% of the population). French
10707-479: The language, although it has now given way to Tamil and English. A former French mandate , Lebanon designates Arabic as the sole official language, while a special law regulates cases when French can be publicly used. Article 11 of Lebanon's Constitution states that "Arabic is the official national language. A law determines the cases in which the French language is to be used". The French language in Lebanon
10836-612: The language. The Act applies to areas of the province where there are significant Francophone communities, namely Eastern Ontario and Northern Ontario . Elsewhere, sizable French-speaking minorities are found in southern Manitoba, Nova Scotia , Prince Edward Island and the Port au Port Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador, where the unique Newfoundland French dialect was historically spoken. Smaller pockets of French speakers exist in all other provinces. The Ontarian city of Ottawa ,
10965-479: The last to hold onto Gaulish. The beginning of French in Gaul was greatly influenced by Germanic invasions into the country. These invasions had the greatest impact on the northern part of the country and on the language there. A language divide began to grow across the country. The population in the north spoke langue d'oïl while the population in the south spoke langue d'oc . Langue d'oïl grew into what
11094-500: The late 17th century. This work became quite renowned, and four editions were published between 1738 and 1742. An Italian translation appeared between 1747 and 1754. In France a member of the banking family Lambert had started translating Chambers into French, but in 1745 the expatriate Englishman John Mills and German Gottfried Sellius were the first to actually prepare a French edition of Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia for publication, which they entitled Encyclopédie . Early in 1745
11223-490: The market to the individual level, such as with privatization of education and opening of careers to all levels of wealth. At the same time, the Encyclopédie was a vast compendium of knowledge, notably on the technologies of the period, describing the traditional craft tools and processes. Much information was taken from the Descriptions des Arts et Métiers . These articles applied a scientific approach to understanding
11352-559: The mathematician Jean Paul de Gua de Malves . Among those hired by Malves were the young Étienne Bonnot de Condillac , Jean le Rond d'Alembert , and Denis Diderot . Within thirteen months, in August 1747, Gua de Malves was fired for being an ineffective leader. Le Breton then hired Diderot and d'Alembert to be the new editors. Diderot would remain as editor for the next 25 years, seeing the Encyclopédie through to its completion; d'Alembert would leave this role in 1758. As d'Alembert worked on
11481-404: The maximum readership. Approximate size of the Encyclopédie : Print run : 4,250 copies (note: even single-volume works in the 18th century seldom had a print run of more than 1,500 copies). Readex Microprint Corporation, New York, 1969. 5 volumes. The full text and images reduced to four double-spread pages of the original appearing on one folio-sized page of this printing. Later released by
11610-492: The mechanical and production processes, and offered new ways to improve machines to make them more efficient. Diderot felt that people should have access to "useful knowledge" that they can apply to their everyday life. The Encyclopédie played an important role in the intellectual foment leading to the French Revolution . "No encyclopaedia perhaps has been of such political importance, or has occupied so conspicuous
11739-420: The necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalize the use of the French language". When public education was made compulsory , only French was taught and the use of any other ( patois ) language was punished. The goals of the public school system were made especially clear to the French-speaking teachers sent to teach students in regions such as Occitania and Brittany . Instructions given by
11868-558: The other arts, music, "which speaks simultaneously to the imagination and the senses," has not been able to represent or imitate as much of reality because of the "lack of sufficient inventiveness and resourcefulness of those who cultivate it." He wanted musical expression to deal with all physical sensations rather than merely the passions alone. D'Alembert believed that modern ( Baroque ) music had only achieved perfection in his age, as there existed no classical Greek models to study and imitate. He claimed that "time destroyed all models which
11997-534: The other main foreign language in the Vietnamese educational system and is regarded as a cultural language. All three countries are full members of La Francophonie (OIF). French was the official language of French India , consisting of the geographically separate enclaves referred to as Puducherry . It continued to be an official language of the territory even after its cession to India in 1956 until 1965. A small number of older locals still retain knowledge of
12126-445: The place of publication. However, the title pages of the subsequent text volumes, 8 through 17, published together in 1765, show Neufchastel as the place of publication. Neuchâtel is safely across the French border in what is now part of Switzerland but which was then an independent principality, where official production of the Encyclopédie was secure from interference by agents of the French state. In particular, regime opponents of
12255-479: The potential of reason and unified knowledge to empower human will and thus helped to shape the social issues that the French Revolution would address. Although it is doubtful whether the many artisans, technicians, or laborers whose work and presence are interspersed throughout the Encyclopédie actually read it, the recognition of their work as equal to that of intellectuals, clerics, and rulers prepared
12384-471: The preferred language of certain institutions or administrations such as the Court of Justice of the European Union , where it is the sole internal working language, or the Directorate-General for Agriculture . Since 2016, Brexit has rekindled discussions on whether or not French should again hold greater role within the institutions of the European Union. A leading world language , French
12513-416: The project had highly placed supporters, such as Malesherbes and Madame de Pompadour . The authorities deliberately ignored the continued work; they thought their official ban was sufficient to appease the church and other enemies of the project. During the "secretive" period, Diderot accomplished a work of subterfuge. The title pages of volumes 1 through 7, published between 1751 and 1757, claimed Paris as
12642-489: The publisher commissioned to manage the physical production and sales of the volumes, cheated Mills out of the subscription money, claiming for example that Mills's knowledge of French was inadequate. In a confrontation Le Breton physically assaulted Mills. Mills took Le Breton to court, but the court decided in Le Breton's favour. Mills returned to England soon after the court's ruling. For his new editor, Le Breton settled on
12771-441: The relationship between individuals and the general will . The natural state of humanity, according to the authors, is barbaric and unorganized. To balance the desires of individuals and the needs of the general will, humanity requires civil society and laws that benefit all persons. Writers, to varying degrees, criticized Thomas Hobbes ' notions of a selfish humanity that requires a sovereign to rule over it. In terms of economics,
12900-471: The rest largely speak French as a first language. As a French Creole language , Haitian Creole draws the large majority of its vocabulary from French, with influences from West African languages, as well as several European languages. It is closely related to Louisiana Creole and the creole from the Lesser Antilles . French is the sole official language of all the overseas territories of France in
13029-534: The seventh volume of the Encyclopedia suggested that the Geneva clergymen had moved from Calvinism to pure Socinianism , basing this on information provided by Voltaire . The Pastors of Geneva were indignant, and appointed a committee to answer these charges. Under pressure from Jacob Vernes , Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others, d'Alembert eventually made the excuse that he considered anyone who did not accept
13158-412: The shift of the origin of political authority from divinity or heritage to the people. This Enlightenment ideal, espoused by Rousseau and others, advocated that people have the right to consent to their government in a form of social contract. Another major, contentious component of political issues in the Encyclopédie was personal or natural rights. Articles such as "Natural Rights" by Diderot explained
13287-498: The small minority who were persecuted for writing articles belittling what they viewed as unreasonable customs—thus weakening the might of the Catholic Church and undermining that of the monarchy—did not envision that their ideas would encourage a revolution. Following is a list of notable contributors with their area of contribution (for a more detailed list, see Encyclopédistes ): Due to the controversial nature of some of
13416-492: The teachings of the Catholic Church could be treated as authoritative in matters of science. The editors also refused to treat the decisions of political powers as definitive in intellectual or artistic questions. Some articles talked about changing social and political institutions that would improve their society for everyone. Given that Paris was the intellectual capital of Europe at the time and that many European leaders used French as their administrative language, these ideas had
13545-402: The terrain for demands for increased representation. Thus the Encyclopédie served to recognize and galvanize a new power base, ultimately contributing to the destruction of old values and the creation of new ones (12). While many contributors to the Encyclopédie had no interest in radically reforming French society, the Encyclopédie as a whole pointed that way. The Encyclopédie denied that
13674-402: The three categories of human thought, whereas all other perceived aspects of knowledge, including theology, were simply branches or components of these human-made categories. The introduction to the Encyclopédie , D'Alembert's " Preliminary Discourse ", is considered an important exposition of Enlightenment ideals. Among other things, it presents a taxonomy of human knowledge (see Fig. 3), which
13803-641: The topic. The writers further doubted the authenticity of presupposed historical events cited in the Bible and questioned the validity of miracles, such as the Resurrection. However, some contemporary scholars argue the skeptical view of miracles in the Encyclopédie may be interpreted in terms of " Protestant debates about the cessation of the charismata ." These challenges led to suppression from church and state authorities. The Encyclopédie and its contributors endured many attacks and attempts at censorship by
13932-466: The total number of French speakers will reach approximately 500 million in 2025 and 650 million by 2050, largely due to rapid population growth in sub-Saharan Africa . OIF estimates 700 million French speakers by 2050, 80% of whom will be in Africa. In a study published in March 2014 by Forbes , the investment bank Natixis said that French could become the world's most spoken language by 2050. In
14061-619: The two official languages—along with Dutch —of the Brussels-Capital Region , where it is spoken by the majority of the population (approx. 80%), often as their primary language. French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian, and Romansh , and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland, called Romandy , of which Geneva is the largest city. The language divisions in Switzerland do not coincide with political subdivisions, and some cantons have bilingual status: for example, cities such as Biel/Bienne and cantons such as Valais , Fribourg and Bern . French
14190-568: The urban intellectual elite. The Gaulish language likely survived into the sixth century in France despite considerable Romanization . Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French contributing loanwords and calques (including oui , the word for "yes"), sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence, and influences in conjugation and word order. Recent computational studies suggest that early gender shifts may have been motivated by
14319-485: The use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, and legal contracts; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words. In Belgium, French is an official language at the federal level along with Dutch and German. At the regional level, French is the sole official language of Wallonia (excluding a part of the East Cantons , which are German-speaking ) and one of
14448-549: The vortices". The Jansenists steered d'Alembert toward an ecclesiastical career, attempting to deter him from pursuits such as poetry and mathematics . Theology was, however, "rather unsubstantial fodder" for d'Alembert. He entered law school for two years, and was nominated avocat in 1738. He was also interested in medicine and mathematics. Jean enrolled first as Jean-Baptiste Daremberg and subsequently changed his name, perhaps for reasons of euphony, to d’Alembert. Later, in recognition of d'Alembert's achievements, Frederick
14577-445: The work. The Encyclopédie sold 4,000 copies during its first twenty years of publication and earned a profit of 2 million livres for its investors. Because of its occasional radical contents, the Encyclopédie caused much controversy in conservative circles, and after the publication of the second volume, it was briefly suspended from publishing by royal edict of 1752. Joly de Fleury accused it of "destroying royal authority, fomenting
14706-536: The workplace. In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese . In English-speaking Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, French is the first foreign language taught and in number of pupils is far ahead of other languages. In the United States, French is the second-most commonly taught foreign language in schools and universities, although well behind Spanish. In some areas of
14835-402: The world's French-speaking population lives in Africa. According to a 2023 estimate from the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie , an estimated 167 million African people spread across 35 countries and territories can speak French as either a first or a second language . This number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as
14964-431: Was a mathematical science that had a single principle from which could be deduced all the elements and rules of musical practice as well as the explicit Cartesian methodology employed, d'Alembert helped to popularise the work of the composer and advertise his own theories. He claims to have "clarified, developed, and simplified" the principles of Rameau, arguing that the single idea of the corps sonore [ fr ]
15093-432: Was a standard work, which d'Alembert himself had used to study the foundations of mathematics . D'Alembert was also a Latin scholar of some note and worked in the latter part of his life on a translation of Tacitus , for which he received wide praise including that of Denis Diderot . In 1740, he submitted his second scientific work from the field of fluid mechanics Mémoire sur la réfraction des corps solides , which
15222-664: Was abroad at the time of d'Alembert's birth. Days after birth his mother left him on the steps of the Saint-Jean-le-Rond de Paris [ fr ] church. According to custom, he was named after the patron saint of the church. D'Alembert was placed in an orphanage for foundling children, but his father found him and placed him with the wife of a glazier , Madame Rousseau, with whom he lived for nearly 50 years. She gave him little encouragement. When he told her of some discovery he had made or something he had written she generally replied, You will never be anything but
15351-577: Was as the result of a urinary bladder illness. As a known unbeliever , D'Alembert was buried in a common unmarked grave . In France, the fundamental theorem of algebra is known as the d'Alembert/ Gauss theorem, as an error in d'Alembert's proof was caught by Gauss. He also created his ratio test , a test to determine if a series converges. The D'Alembert operator , which first arose in D'Alembert's analysis of vibrating strings, plays an important role in modern theoretical physics. While he made great strides in mathematics and physics, d'Alembert
15480-819: Was during the period of the Crusades in which French became so dominant in the Mediterranean Sea that became a lingua franca ("Frankish language"), and because of increased contact with the Arabs during the Crusades who referred to them as Franj , numerous Arabic loanwords entered French, such as amiral (admiral), alcool (alcohol), coton (cotton) and sirop (syrop), as well as scientific terms such as algébre (algebra), alchimie (alchemy) and zéro (zero). Within Old French many dialects emerged but
15609-400: 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. This local variety evolved into the Gallo-Romance tongues, which include French and its closest relatives, such as Arpitan . The evolution of Latin in Gaul
15738-411: Was inspired by Francis Bacon 's The Advancement of Learning . The three main branches of knowledge are: "Memory"/History, "Reason"/Philosophy, and "Imagination"/Poetry. This tree of knowledge was created to help readers evaluate the usefulness of the content within the Encyclopédie , and to organize its content. Notable is the fact that theology is ordered under "philosophy" and that "Knowledge of God"
15867-652: Was known in the Occitan-speaking region as Vergonha . Spoken by 19.71% of the European Union's population, French is the third most widely spoken language in the EU, after English and German and the second-most-widely taught language after English. Under the Constitution of France , French has been the official language of the Republic since 1992, although the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts made it mandatory for legal documents in 1539. France mandates
15996-467: Was named Ile d'Alembert by the French explorer, Nicolas Baudin during his expedition to New Holland . The island is better known by the alternative English name of Lipson Island . The island is a conservation park and seabird rookery. Diderot portrayed d'Alembert in Le rêve de D'Alembert ( D'Alembert's Dream ), written after the two men had become estranged. It depicts d'Alembert ill in bed, conducting
16125-584: Was not sufficient to derive the entirety of music. D'Alembert instead claimed that three principles would be necessary to generate the major musical mode , the minor mode, and the identity of octaves . Because he was not a musician, however, d'Alembert misconstrued the finer points of Rameau's thinking, changing and removing concepts that would not fit neatly into his understanding of music. Although initially grateful, Rameau eventually turned on d'Alembert while voicing his increasing dissatisfaction with J. J. Rousseau 's Encyclopédie articles on music. This led to
16254-533: Was recognised by Clairaut . In this work d'Alembert theoretically explained refraction . In 1741, after several failed attempts, d'Alembert was elected into the Académie des Sciences. He was later elected to the Berlin Academy in 1746 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1748. In 1743, he published his most famous work, Traité de dynamique , in which he developed his own laws of motion . When
16383-515: Was reviewed quite positively and cited at some length in several journals. The Mémoires pour l'histoire des sciences et des beaux arts journal was lavish in its praise: "here are two of the greatest efforts undertaken in literature in a very long time" ( voici deux des plus fortes entreprises de Littérature qu'on ait faites depuis long-temps ). The Mercure Journal in June 1745, printed a 25-page article that specifically praised Mills' role as translator;
16512-594: Was shaped by its coexistence for over half a millennium beside the native Celtic Gaulish language , which did not go extinct until the late sixth century, long after the fall of the Western Roman Empire . The population remained 90% indigenous in origin; 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
16641-570: Was the language they use the most at home rose from 67% at the 2007 census to 74% at the 2017 census. In Wallis and Futuna, the percentage of the population who reported that French was the language they use the most at home rose from 10% at the 2008 census to 13% at the 2018 census. According to a demographic projection led by the Université Laval and the Réseau Démographie de l'Agence universitaire de la Francophonie ,
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