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97-478: Jungholz forms a pene-exclave of Austria that is connected to the rest of Austria by a single point, which is the summit of the mountain Sorgschrofen (1,636 m, 5,367 ft). As well as housing border post number 110 on the normal international border between Tyrol and Bavaria , a second border starts and, having gone round Jungholz, ends there. There are thus borders extending in four directions from

194-572: 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

291-744: 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

388-431: 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,

485-416: A discontinuity on land, such as in the case of Point Roberts. Along rivers that change course, pene-enclaves can be observed as complexes comprising many small pene-enclaves. A pene-enclave can also exist entirely on land, such as when intervening mountains render a territory, although geographically attached, inaccessible from other parts of a country except through alien territory. A commonly cited example

582-555: 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

679-421: A key). Originally, it was a term of property law that denoted the situation of a land or parcel of land surrounded by land owned by a different owner, and that could not be reached for its exploitation in a practical and sufficient manner without crossing the surrounding land. In law, this created a servitude of passage for the benefit of the owner of the surrounded land. The first diplomatic document to contain

776-617: A new replacement site. The same possible curtailments and alterations never apply to proper exclaves. 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 ,

873-685: A part of a sovereign state (like the Kaliningrad Oblast ). A pene-exclave is a part of the territory of one country that can be conveniently approached – in particular, by wheeled traffic – only through the territory of another country. Pene-exclaves are also called functional exclaves or practical exclaves. Many pene-exclaves partially border their own territorial waters (i.e., they are not surrounded by other nations' territorial waters), such as Point Roberts, Washington , and Minnesota's Northwest Angle . A pene-exclave can also exist entirely on land, such as when intervening mountains render

970-652: 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

1067-527: A quantitative principle applies: the land boundary must be longer than the coastline. Thus a state is classified as a sovereign semi-enclave if it borders on just one state, and its land boundary is longer than its sea coastline. (Since Vinokurov's writing in 2007, Canada and the Kingdom of Denmark have each gained a second bordering state — each other — with the 2022 division of Hans Island .) Vinokurov affirms that "no similar quantitative criterion

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1164-494: 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

1261-683: 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 ,

1358-476: A territory comprises both land territory and territorial waters. In the case of enclaves in territorial waters, they are called maritime (those surrounded by territorial sea) or lacustrine (if in a lake) enclaves. Most of the true national-level enclaves now existing are in Asia and Europe. While subnational enclaves are numerous the world over, there are only a few national-level true enclaves in Africa, Australia and

1455-472: A territory inaccessible from other parts of a country except through alien territory. A commonly cited example is the Kleinwalsertal , a valley part of Vorarlberg , Austria, that is accessible only from Germany to the north. The word enclave is French and first appeared in the mid-15th century as a derivative of the verb enclaver (1283), from the colloquial Latin inclavare (to close with

1552-547: 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

1649-457: 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

1746-437: 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

1843-494: Is a logically extended back-formation of enclave . Enclaves exist for a variety of historical , political and geographical reasons. For example, in the feudal system in Europe, the ownership of feudal domains was often transferred or partitioned, either through purchase and sale or through inheritance, and often such domains were or came to be surrounded by other domains. In particular, this state of affairs persisted into

1940-563: Is a territory that is entirely surrounded by the territory of only one other state or entity . An enclave can be an independent territory or part of a larger one. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters . Enclave is sometimes used improperly to denote a territory that is only partly surrounded by another state. Enclaves that are not part of a larger territory are not exclaves, for example Vatican City and San Marino (both enclaved by Italy ) and Lesotho (enclaved by South Africa ) are enclaved sovereign states . An exclave

2037-870: Is a portion of a state or district geographically separated from the main part, by some surrounding alien territory. Many exclaves are also enclaves, but an exclave surrounded by the territory of more than one state is not an enclave. The Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan is an example of an exclave that is not an enclave, as it borders Armenia , Turkey and Iran . Semi-enclaves and semi-exclaves are areas that, except for possessing an unsurrounded sea border (a coastline contiguous with international waters ), would otherwise be enclaves or exclaves. Semi-enclaves and enclaves are mutually exclusive. Likewise, semi-exclaves and exclaves are mutually exclusive. Enclaves and semi-enclaves can exist as independent states ( Monaco , The Gambia and Brunei are semi-enclaves), while exclaves and semi-exclaves proper always constitute just

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2134-472: 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

2231-489: 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

2328-407: Is both an exclave of A and an enclave from the viewpoint of B. The singular territory D, although an enclave, is not an exclave. An enclave is a part of the territory of a state that is enclosed within the territory of another state. To distinguish the parts of a state entirely enclosed in a single other state, they are called true enclaves . A true enclave cannot be reached without passing through

2425-652: 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

2522-563: 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

2619-404: 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

2716-483: Is needed to define the scope of non-sovereign semi-enclaves/exclaves." Sometimes, administrative divisions of a country, for historical or practical reasons, caused some areas to belong to one division while being attached to another. The term pene -exclave was defined in Robinson (1959) as "parts of the territory of one country that can be approached conveniently – in particular by wheeled traffic – only through

2813-469: 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

2910-401: Is often used as a synonym for enclave (such as "the pockets of Puducherry district"). In British administrative history, subnational enclaves were usually called detachments or detached parts , and national enclaves as detached districts or detached dominions . In British ecclesiastic history, subnational enclaves were known as peculiars (see also royal peculiar ). The word exclave

3007-828: 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

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3104-639: 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 ,

3201-480: Is the Kleinwalsertal , a valley part of Vorarlberg , Austria, that is only accessible from Germany to the north, being separated from the rest of Austria by high mountains traversed by no roads. Another example is the Spanish village of Os de Civís , accessible from Andorra. Hence, such areas are enclaves or exclaves for practical purposes , without meeting the strict definition. Many pene-exclaves partially border

3298-553: 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

3395-483: 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

3492-492: 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

3589-424: 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

3686-764: 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

3783-609: 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

3880-609: 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

3977-464: 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

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4074-533: 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

4171-559: 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,

4268-399: 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

4365-877: 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

4462-626: 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

4559-775: 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

4656-506: 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;

4753-599: The 19th century in the Holy Roman Empire , and these domains (principalities, etc.) exhibited many of the characteristics of sovereign states. Prior to 1866 Prussia alone consisted of more than 270 discontiguous pieces of territory. Residing in an enclave within another country has often involved difficulties in such areas as passage rights, importing goods, currency, provision of utilities and health services, and host nation cooperation. Thus, over time, enclaves have tended to be eliminated. For example, two-thirds of

4850-773: 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

4947-692: The Americas (each such enclave being surrounded by the territorial waters of another country). A historical example is West Berlin before the reunification of Germany . Since 1945, all of Berlin had been ruled de jure by the four Allied powers. However, the East German government and the Soviet Union treated East Berlin as an integral part of East Germany, so West Berlin was a de facto enclave within East Germany . Also, 12 small West Berlin enclaves, such as Steinstücken , were separated from

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5044-570: The Bavarian–Austrian border treaty of 1844 Jungholz went to Austria. Its customs union with Germany dates to a Treaty signed in 1868. In 1938 following the German takeover of Austria, Jungholz and the similarly isolated Kleinwalsertal were annexed to Gau Swabia in Bavaria, though returned to Austria after the end of WWII. This Tyrol location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Pene-exclave An enclave

5141-703: 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

5238-917: 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,

5335-538: 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

5432-468: The Gambia and Brunei . Vinokurov (2007) declares, "Technically, Portugal , Denmark , and Canada also border only one foreign state, but they are not enclosed in the geographical, political, or economic sense. They have vast access to international waters. At the same time, there are states that, although in possession of sea access, are still enclosed by the territories of a foreign state." Therefore,

5529-416: 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

5626-410: 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

5723-441: 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

5820-402: 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

5917-476: The city, some by only a few meters. True exclave is an extension of the concept of true enclave . In order to access a true exclave from the mainland, a traveller must go through the territory of at least one other state. Semi-enclaves and semi-exclaves are areas that, except for possessing an unsurrounded sea border, would otherwise be enclaves or exclaves. Semi-enclaves can exist as independent states that border only one other state, such as Monaco ,

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6014-404: 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

6111-448: 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

6208-489: 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

6305-476: The enclave and exclave system in Baarle . As both Netherlands and Belgium are members of the European Union and Schengen Area , people, goods and services flow freely with little or no restrictions. For illustration, in the figure (above), A1 is a semi-enclave (attached to C and also bounded by water that only touches C's territorial water). Although A2 is an exclave of A, it cannot be classed as an enclave because it shares borders with B and C. The territory A3

6402-402: The enforced reduction of scope of a foreign embassy has always been a possibility, even to the point of expelling the foreign embassy entirely, usually on a breakdown of relations, in reaction to extreme actions such as espionage , or as another form of sanction. The same seems to be possible in profit-driven moving or drilling under any of the sites below, providing safeguards as the structure or

6499-406: 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

6596-439: 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 ,

6693-715: 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

6790-401: 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

6887-424: 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

6984-612: 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 ,

7081-479: 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

7178-485: 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

7275-534: 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

7372-471: 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

7469-400: The premises. Most non-embassy lands in such ownership are also not enclaves as they fall legally short of extraterritoriality , they are subject to alike court jurisdiction as before their grant/sale in most matters. Nonetheless, for a person's offence against the property itself, equally valid jurisdiction in criminal matters is more likely than elsewhere, assuming the perpetrator is found in

7566-568: The prosecuting authority's homeland. Devoid of permanent residents, formally defined new sovereignty is not warranted or asserted in the examples below. Nonetheless, minor laws, especially on flag flying , are sometimes relaxed to accommodate the needs of the accommodated nation's monument. Embassies enjoy many different legal statuses approaching quasi-sovereignty, depending on the agreements reached and in practice upheld from time-to-time by host nations. Subject to hosts adhering to basic due process of international law , including giving warnings,

7663-471: 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

7760-458: The sea or another body of water, which comprises their own territorial waters (i.e., they are not surrounded by other nations' territorial waters). They border their own territorial waters in addition to a land border with another country, and hence they are not true exclaves. Still, one cannot travel to them on land without going through another country. Attribution of a pene-enclave status to a territory can sometimes be disputed, depending on whether

7857-472: The summit, called a quadripoint . Two Austrian (Tyrolean, Reutte ) and two German (Bavarian, Oberallgäu ) municipalities meet at that point, starting with Jungholz and continuing clockwise: On 24 June 1342, Hermann Häselin, a farmer from Wertach in Germany, sold the area to Heinz Lochpyler, an Austrian taxman from nearby Tannheim . The buyer had the area incorporated with his other possession of Tyrol. In

7954-477: The territory is considered to be practically inaccessible from the mainland or not. One or more parcels/holdings of land in most countries is owned by other countries. Most instances are exempt from taxes. In the special case of embassies/consulates these enjoy special privileges driven by international consensus particularly the mutual wish to ensure free diplomatic missions , such as being exempt from major hindrances and host-country arrests in ordinary times on

8051-405: The territory of a single other state that surrounds it. In 2007, Evgeny Vinokurov called this the restrictive definition of "enclave" given by international law, which thus "comprises only so-called 'true enclaves'". Two examples are Büsingen am Hochrhein , a true enclave of Germany, and Campione d'Italia , a true enclave of Italy, both of which are surrounded by Switzerland. The definition of

8148-597: The territory of another country." Thus, a pene-exclave , although having land borders, is not completely surrounded by the other's land or territorial waters. Catudal (1974) and Vinokurov (2007) further elaborate upon examples, including Point Roberts . "Although physical connections by water with Point Roberts are entirely within the sovereignty of the United States, land access is only possible through Canada." Pene-enclaves are also called functional enclaves or practical enclaves. They can exhibit continuity of state territory across territorial waters but, nevertheless,

8245-644: The then-existing national-level enclaves were extinguished on 1 August 2015, when the governments of India and Bangladesh implemented a Land Boundary Agreement that exchanged 162 first-order enclaves (111 Indian and 51 Bangladeshi). This exchange thus effectively removed another two dozen second-order enclaves and one third-order enclave, eliminating 197 of the India–Bangladesh enclaves in all. The residents in these enclaves had complained of being effectively stateless. Only Bangladesh's Dahagram–Angarpota enclave remained. Netherlands and Belgium decided to keep

8342-466: 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

8439-679: 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

8536-508: 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

8633-485: 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

8730-404: The word enclave was the Treaty of Madrid , signed in 1526. Later, the term enclave began to be used also to refer to parcels of countries, counties, fiefs, communes, towns, parishes, etc. that were surrounded by alien territory. This French word eventually entered English and other languages to denote the same concept, although local terms have continued to be used. In India, the word "pocket"

8827-536: 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

8924-402: 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

9021-819: 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

9118-400: 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

9215-708: 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

9312-594: 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

9409-570: 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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