122-912: The English language in Europe , as a native language , is mainly spoken in the United Kingdom and Ireland . Outside of these states, it has official status in Malta , the Crown Dependencies (the Isle of Man , Jersey and Guernsey ), Gibraltar and the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (two of the British Overseas Territories ). In the Netherlands , English has an official status as
244-595: A regional language on the isles of Saba and Sint Eustatius (located in the Caribbean ). In other parts of Europe , English is spoken mainly by those who have learnt it as a second language , but also, to a lesser extent, natively by some expatriates from some countries in the English-speaking world . The English language is the de facto official language of England , the sole official language of Gibraltar and of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, and one of
366-744: 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
488-521: A bitter war of independence had recently been fought and won. However, knowledge of English is helped by the large Cypriot migrant communities in the UK and Australia , leading to diffusion of culture and language back to their country of origin, and negative sentiments towards the UK have waned or disappeared. There is now a large British expatriate population, in addition to the British military presence in
610-431: 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,
732-703: A conversation, so the total reach of English in the EU in 2006 was 51%. European English is known by a number of colloquial portmanteau words, including: Eurolish (first recorded in 1979), Eurish (1993) and Eurlish (2006). English is descended from the language spoken by the Germanic tribes of the German Bight along the southern coast of the North Sea , the Angles , Saxons , Frisians and Jutes . According to
854-628: A foreign language is clearly leading at 38%, followed by German and French (at 14% each), Russian and Spanish (at 6% each), and Italian (3%). "Very good" knowledge of English is particularly high in Malta (52%), Denmark (44%), Cyprus (42%) and Sweden (40%). Working knowledge varies a lot between European countries. It is very high in Malta, Cyprus, Scandinavia and the Netherlands , but low in Russia , Spain (12%), Hungary (14%), Italy (5%) and Slovakia (14%). On average in 2012, 38% of citizens of
976-555: 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
1098-705: 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
1220-494: 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
1342-539: A second language. 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 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
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#17327807066971464-526: 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 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
1586-888: 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 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
1708-523: A split into two cultural areas – the mainly English or Scots Lowlands , and the mainly Gaelic -speaking Highlands (which then could be thought to include Galloway and Carrick ; see Galwegian Gaelic ). This caused divisions in the country where the Lowlands remained, historically, more influenced by the English to the south: the Lowlands lay more open to attack by invading armies from
1830-764: A spokesperson of the Baden-Württemberg Judiciary, all judges of the Stuttgart Commercial Court and the Mannheim Commercial Court will be able to conduct hearings in the English language. The courts have been created with the intent of settling international disputes, thus increasing the role of Germany in international commercial law. In 2021, Juhana Vartiainen , then mayor of Helsinki , proposed to elevate English as an official language in Finland . He cited
1952-482: A trilingual country, there was a proposal in 2019 to make English an official language, but this ultimately failed to get the required minimum number of signatures to be discussed by the parliament . In 2021, a similar proposal was made, which failed to meet the 4500 minimum signatures. In 2020, two English-language courts opened in Stuttgart and Mannheim , in the state of Baden-Württemberg , Germany. According to
2074-547: 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
2196-408: Is Beowulf ; the most famous Middle English work being Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales . The rise of Modern English began around the fifteenth century, with Early Modern English reaching its literary pinnacle at the time of William Shakespeare . Some scholars divide Early Modern English and Late Modern English at around 1800, in concert with the British conquest of much of the rest of
2318-437: 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
2440-779: 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 , 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
2562-472: 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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#17327807066972684-489: 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
2806-464: Is also commonly used in Cyprus to communicate with foreign visitors. The large number of British tourists (and other, largely Northern European ones, who use English as a lingua franca ) who visit Cyprus regularly has contributed largely to the continued use of English on Cyprus, especially in its thriving tourist industry. After independence in the 1960s there was some attempt to encourage French, which
2928-486: Is also widely available via satellite . Whereas a century ago, most Gibraltarians were monolingual Spanish speakers, the majority is now naturally bilingual in English and Spanish. The Isle of Man is a Crown Dependency . English and Manx Gaelic are the two official languages.. The last native speaker of Manx, Ned Maddrell , died in 1974. All inhabitants of the Isle of Man speak English. In 1814, Malta became part of
3050-430: Is among the top five most studied languages worldwide, with about 120 million learners as of 2017. 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
3172-462: 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 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
3294-652: 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
3416-467: Is expected to rise. Euro English or European English, less commonly known as EU English and EU Speak, is a dialect of English based on the technical jargon of the European Union and the native languages of its non-native English speaking population. English is the most commonly spoken foreign language in 19 out of 25 European Union countries (excluding Ireland) In the EU25 , working knowledge of English as
3538-503: 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
3660-404: 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
3782-429: Is not the first language, there are many examples of the mandated primacy of English: for example, many European companies, such as Airbus , Philips, Renault , Volvo, etc. have designated English to be the language of communication for their senior management, and many universities offer their programmes in English. The language is also a required subject in most European countries. Thus, the percentage of English speakers
English language in Europe - Misplaced Pages Continue
3904-469: 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
4026-828: 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
4148-468: Is probable that many of their retainers spoke a northern form of Middle English , although probably French was more common. Most of the evidence suggests that English spread into Scotland via the burgh , proto-urban institutions which were first established by King David I . Incoming burghers were mainly English (especially from Northumbria , and the Earldom of Huntingdon ), Flemish and French. Although
4270-541: Is spoken in nearby areas of Germany. North Frisian is spoken on the North Frisian Islands in the North Sea. While native English speakers are generally able to read Scots, except for some odd unfamiliar words, Frisian is largely unintelligible (though it was much closer to modern English's predecessors, Middle English and especially Old English ). After Scots and Frisian, the next closest relative
4392-576: 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 ,
4514-553: 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
4636-410: Is the main constituent of Llanito, it is also heavily influenced by British English , involving a certain amount of code-switching into English. English remains the sole official language , used by Government. It is also the medium of instruction in schools and most Gibraltarians who go on to tertiary education do so in the UK. Gibraltar receives Spanish television and radio, and British television
4758-583: Is the modern Low German language of the eastern Netherlands and northern Germany, which was the old homeland of the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain. Other less closely related living languages include Dutch , German , and the North Germanic languages . Many French words are also intelligible to an English speaker, as English absorbed a tremendous amount of vocabulary from the Norman language after
4880-483: 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
5002-492: 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
English language in Europe - Misplaced Pages Continue
5124-424: 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
5246-620: Is widely received in Malta and is highly popular. Like Gibraltar, Menorca was ceded to Britain in the Treaty of Utrecht, although as it transpired this was to be a temporary dominion. Nevertheless, while under British Control Menorca become the Royal Navy's main Mediterranean base and English has been very widely spoken throughout Menorca ever since. Although not an official language, English tends to be used on much public signage for
5368-873: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , around 449 AD, Vortigern , King of the Britons, issued an invitation to the "Angle kin" (Angles, led by Hengist and Horsa ), to help him against the Picts . In return, the Angles were granted lands in the South-East. Further aid was sought, and in response "came men of Ald Seaxum of Anglum of Iotum" (Saxons, Angles and Jutes). The Chronicle documents the subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms: Northumbria , Mercia , East Anglia , Kent , Essex , Sussex and Wessex . These Germanic invaders dominated
5490-726: The Anglian spoken in the Northumbrian kingdom of Bernicia, which in the 6th century conquered the Brittonic kingdom of Gododdin and renamed its capital of Din Eidyn to Edinburgh (see the etymology of Edinburgh ). Scots continues to heavily influence the spoken English of the Scottish people today. It is much more similar to dialects in the north of England than to 'British' English, even today. The introduction of King James Version of
5612-764: 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
5734-413: 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 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
5856-517: The British Empire , under the terms of the Treaty of Vienna . Prior to the arrival of the British, the language of the educated Maltese elite had been Italian , and all legal statutes, taxation, education and clerical discourses were conducted either in Italian or in Latin . However, this was increasingly downgraded by the increased use of English. The British began scripting and codifying Maltese – hitherto an unscripted vernacular – in or around 1868. From this point on,
5978-539: 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
6100-485: 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
6222-441: 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,
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#17327807066976344-439: 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
6466-501: The Norman Conquest in 1066, the Anglo-Norman language (or Anglo-French during the Plantagenet period) was the language of the elite and the administration and few Kings of England spoke English. A large number of French words were absorbed into Old English, which also lost most of its inflections, resulting in Middle English . Around the year 1500, the Great Vowel Shift marked the transformation of Middle English into Modern English . The most famous surviving work from Old English
6588-420: 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
6710-402: The Sovereign Base Areas , as well as the UN buffer zone , whose peacekeepers usually also use English as a lingua franca . All of the above maintains an English-speaking presence on the island. Gibraltar has been a British overseas territory since an Anglo-Dutch force led by Sir George Rooke seized " The Rock " in 1704 and Spain ceded the territory in perpetuity to Great Britain in
6832-420: The Statutes of Kilkenny in 1367. English rule expanded in the 16th century by the Tudor conquest of Ireland , leading the Gaelic order to collapse at the start of the 17th century. The Flight of the Earls in 1607 paved the way for the Plantation of Ulster and a deepening of the English language culture in Ireland. The Cromwellian Plantation and suppression of Catholicism, including both native Irish and
6954-509: The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus though English remains official in the SBAs. Since the effective partition of the island in 1974, Greek and Turkish Cypriots have had little opportunity or inclination to learn the others' language, and are more likely to talk to each other in English. Older Turkish Cypriots who worked or lived with Greek Cypriots prior to partition often speak Greek quite fluently. Indeed, many Ottoman soldiers took Greek wives and were allowed to marry up to four. English
7076-520: The United Nations , the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization , 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
7198-399: The United States , Australia or Canada . In addition, the introduction of universal state education in the national schools from 1831 proved a powerful vector for the transmission of English as a home language, with the greatest retreat of the Irish language occurring in the period between 1850 and 1900. By the 20th century, Ireland had a centuries-old history of diglossia . English was
7320-409: The fealty of many native Gaelic nobles . By the 14th century, however, English rule was largely limited to the area around Dublin known as the Pale . English influence on the country waned during this period to the point that the English-dominated Parliament was driven to legislate that any Irish of English descent must speak English (requiring those that did not know English to learn it) through
7442-443: The prestige language while the Irish language was associated with poverty and disfranchisement . Accordingly, some Irish people who spoke both Irish and English refrained from speaking to their children in Irish, or, in extreme cases, feigned the inability to speak Irish themselves. Despite state support for the Irish language in the Irish Free State (later the Republic of Ireland ) after independence, Irish continued to retreat,
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#17327807066977564-399: The "Old English" (those of Anglo-Norman descent), further cemented English influence across the country. As the centuries passed and the social conditions in Ireland deteriorated, culminating in the Great Irish Famine , Irish parents didn't speak Irish to their children as they knew that the children might have to emigrate and Irish would be of no use outside the home country, in Britain ,
7686-500: The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht . The territory's Gibraltarian inhabitants have a rich cultural heritage as a result of the mix of the neighbouring Andalusian population with immigrants from Great Britain , Genoa , Malta , Portugal , Morocco and India . The vernacular language of the territory is Llanito . It consists of a mix of Andalusian Spanish and British English as well as languages such as Maltese , Portuguese , Genoese and Haketia . Even though Andalusian Spanish
7808-455: 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;
7930-408: The 2000s a Gaeltacht Quarter was established in Belfast to drive inward investment as a response to a notable level of public interest in learning Irish and the expansion of Irish-medium education (predominantly attended by children whose home language is English) since the 1970s. In recent decades, some Nationalists in Northern Ireland have used it as a means of promoting an Irish identity. However,
8052-474: 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
8174-465: The Bible into Scottish churches also was a blow to the Scots language, since it used Southern English forms. In 1707 the Scottish and English Parliaments signed a Treaty of Union . Implementing the treaty involved dissolving both the English and the Scottish Parliaments , and transferring all their powers to a new Parliament in London which then became the British Parliament . A customs and currency union also took place. With this, Scotland's position
8296-510: 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
8418-614: 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,
8540-484: The Channel Islands speak English. In 1914, the Ottoman Empire declared war against the United Kingdom and France as part of the complex series of alliances that led to World War I . The British then annexed Cyprus on 2 November 1914 as part of the British Empire, making the Cypriots British subjects . Most of Cyprus gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1960, with the UK, Greece and Turkey retaining limited rights to intervene in internal affairs. Parts of
8662-408: 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
8784-704: The European Union (excluding the United Kingdom and Ireland ) stated that they have sufficient knowledge of English to have a conversation in this language. Native language Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.150 via cp1114 cp1114, Varnish XID 925900192 Upstream caches: cp1114 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:58:26 GMT French language French ( français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz] )
8906-484: 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
9028-628: The Maltese language gradually gained currency as the main language on the islands, its grammars and conventions evolving in a mix between Italian, Arabic and English. Between the 1870s and 1930s, Malta had three official languages, Italian, Maltese and English, but in 1934, English and Maltese were declared the sole official languages . The British associated Italian with the Benito Mussolini regime in Italy, which had made territorial claims on
9150-574: The Norman conquest, and French in later centuries; as a result, a substantial proportion of English vocabulary is very close to French, with some slight spelling differences (word endings, use of old French spellings, etc.) and some occasional shifts in meaning. The second English dominion was Ireland . With the arrival of the Normans in Ireland in 1169, King Henry II of England gained Irish lands and
9272-957: The Republic are rarely, if ever, translated into English. These include the names of legislative bodies (such as Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann ), government positions such as Taoiseach and Tánaiste , of the elected representative(s) in the Dáil ( Teachta Dála ), and political parties (such as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael ). Ireland's police force, the Garda Síochána , are referred to as "the Gardaí", or "the Guards" for short. Irish appears on government forms, euro-currency , and postage stamps , in traditional music and in media promoting folk culture . Irish placenames are still common for houses, streets, villages, and geographic features, especially
9394-565: The Wars of Independence though, the English of Lothian who lived under the King of Scots had to accept Scottish identity. The growth in prestige of English in the 14th century, and the complementary decline of French in Scotland, made English the prestige language of most of eastern Scotland. Thus, from the end of the 14th century, and certainly by the end of the 15th century, Scotland began to show
9516-556: The amount of interest from Unionists remains low, particularly since the 1960s. About 165,000 people in Northern Ireland have some knowledge of Irish. Ability varies; 64,847 people stated they could understand, speak, read and write Irish in the 2011 UK census, the majority of whom have learnt it as a second language. Otherwise, except for place names and folk music, English is effectively the sole language of Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement specifically acknowledges
9638-688: The benefit of tourists and expatriates, alongside Castilian Spanish and Menorcan Catalan . There are also pockets of native English speakers to be found throughout Europe, such as in southern Spain , France , Algarve in Portugal , as well as numerous US and British military bases in Germany . There are communities of native English speakers in some European cities outside the UK and Ireland, such as Amsterdam , Athens , Barcelona , Berlin , Brussels , Copenhagen , Helsinki , Oslo , Paris , Prague , Rome , Stockholm , and Vienna . In Luxembourg ,
9760-519: 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
9882-558: The difficulty typically encountered by foreigners in learning Finnish and the aim of making Helsinki more attractive to international talent. 8,000 Helsinkians speak English as their native language, which is 1.2% of Helsinki's population and makes it the 7th most spoken native language in the city. Throughout Europe, tourism, publishing, finance, computers and related industries rely heavily on English due to Anglophone trade ties. Air traffic control and shipping movements are almost all conducted in English. In areas of Europe where English
10004-537: The economic marginality of many Irish-speaking areas (see Gaeltacht ) being a primary factor. For this reason Irish is spoken as a mother tongue by only a very small number of people on the island of Ireland. Irish has been a compulsory subject in schools in the Republic since the 1920s and proficiency in Irish was until the mid-1980s required for all government jobs. It may be noted, however, that certain Irish words (especially those germane to political and civic life) in
10126-448: 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
10248-594: 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
10370-568: The end of the 19th century (54% spoke Welsh in 1891; see Welsh language ). The Welsh language is currently spoken by about one-fifth of the population. It has been enjoying support from the authorities for some decades, resulting in a revival , and is in a healthy position in many parts of Wales. The bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey are two Crown Dependencies. Besides English, some (very few) inhabitants of these islands speak regional languages, or those related to French (such as Jèrriais , Dgèrnésiais and Sercquiais ). All inhabitants of
10492-516: 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
10614-915: 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 ,
10736-829: 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
10858-519: The island were excluded from the territory of the new independent republic and remain under UK control. These zones are what are known as the Sovereign Base Areas or SBAs. The British colonial history of Cyprus has left Cypriots with a good level of English but it is no longer an official language in either the Greek south side of the island, formally known as the Republic of Cyprus or the Turkish north,
10980-552: The islands, although the use of Italian by nationalists was more out of cultural affinities with Italy than any sympathy with Italian Fascism . With the outbreak of World War II , the Maltese lost their sense of fraternity with the Italian world, and there was a decline in Italian spoken in Malta. English remains an official language in Malta, but since independence in 1964, the country's cultural and commercial links with Italy have strengthened, owing to proximity. Italian television
11102-454: 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
11224-479: 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
11346-612: 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 ,
11468-479: 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
11590-401: The military aristocracy employed French and Gaelic , these small urban communities appear to have been using English as something more than a lingua franca by the end of the 13th century. English appeared in Scotland for the first time in literary form in the mid-14th century, when its form unsurprisingly differed little from other northern English dialects. As a consequence of the outcome of
11712-420: 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
11834-507: The official languages of Ireland, Malta, Northern Ireland , Scotland , Wales , the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey and the European Union . The United Kingdom and Ireland form a "European Anglosphere" with an area of about 316,000 km (122,000 sq mi) and a population of over 71 million. According to a survey published in 2006, 13% of EU citizens then spoke English as their native language. Another 38% of EU citizens then stated that they had sufficient English skills to hold
11956-652: 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;
12078-551: The original Celtic-speaking inhabitants. The dialects spoken by these invaders formed what would be called Old English , which was also strongly influenced by another Germanic language, Old East Norse , spoken by Danish Viking invaders who settled mainly in the North-East. English, England and East Anglia are derived from words referring to the Angles: Englisc , Angelcynn and Englaland . For 300 years following
12200-534: 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
12322-637: The position both of Irish and of Ulster Scots in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland . Anglic speakers were actually established in Lothian by the 7th century, but remained confined there, and indeed contracted slightly to the advance of the Gaelic language. However, during the 12th and 13th centuries, Norman landowners and their retainers, were invited to settle by the king. It
12444-503: The practice used by his Norman predecessors in their subjugation of the English, and constructed a series of great stone castles in order to control Wales, thus preventing further military action against England by the Welsh. With ‘English’ political control at this time came Anglo-Norman customs and language; English did not displace Welsh as the majority language of the Welsh people until the anti-Welsh language campaigns, which began towards
12566-471: 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
12688-471: 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
12810-495: The south and absorbed English influence through their proximity to and their trading relations with their southern neighbours. In 1603 the Scottish King James VI inherited the throne of England, and became James I of England. James moved to London and only returned once to Scotland. By the time of James VI's accession to the English throne the old Scottish Court and Parliament spoke Scots. Scots developed from
12932-470: The thousands of townlands . But with these important exceptions, and despite the presence of Irish loan words in Hiberno-English , Ireland is today largely an English-speaking country. Fluent or native Irish speakers are a minority in most of the country, with Irish remaining as a vernacular mainly in the relatively small Gaeltacht regions, and most Irish speakers also have fluent English. At
13054-627: The time of partition, English had become the first language of the vast majority in Northern Ireland. It had small elderly Irish-speaking populations in the Sperrin Mountains as well as in the northern Glens of Antrim and Rathlin Island. There were also pockets of Irish speakers in the southernmost part of County Armagh . All of these Irish speakers were bilingual and chose to speak English to their children, and thus these areas of Northern Ireland are now entirely English-speaking. However, in
13176-466: 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
13298-679: 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
13420-508: 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
13542-485: 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
13664-536: 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
13786-462: 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
13908-517: The world, as the influence of native languages affected English enormously. English belongs to the western sub-branch of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The closest undoubted living relatives of English are Scots and the Frisian languages . West Frisian is spoken by approximately half a million people in the Dutch province of Friesland (Fryslân). Saterland Frisian
14030-417: 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 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
14152-545: Was consolidated within the United Kingdom. Today, almost all residents of Scotland speak English, although many speak various dialects of Scots which differ markedly from Scottish Standard English . Approximately 2% of the population use Scottish Gaelic as their language of everyday use, primarily in the northern and western regions of the country. Virtually all Scottish Gaelic speakers also speak fluent English. In 1282 Edward I of England defeated Llywelyn ap Gruffudd , Wales's last independent prince, in battle. Edward followed
14274-819: 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
14396-463: 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
14518-596: 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
14640-594: 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
14762-459: Was still the most important European language. This policy would have been in line with that in place in Greece at the time. Furthermore, in the 1960s, affluent French-speaking tourists (both from France and Lebanon) in terms of percentage were more important than today. Overall though, the French policy was indicative of a desire to distance Cyprus from the former British colonial power, against which
14884-570: 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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