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International Organization of Legal Metrology

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The International Organization of Legal Metrology ( French : Organisation Internationale de Métrologie Légale - OIML ), is an intergovernmental organisation that was created in 1955 to promote the global harmonisation of the legal metrology procedures that underpin and facilitate international trade.

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139-482: Such harmonisation ensures that certification of measuring devices in one country is compatible with certification in another, thereby facilitating trade in the measuring devices and in products that rely on the measuring devices. Such products include weighing devices , taxi meters , speedometers , agricultural measuring devices such as cereal moisture meters , health related devices such as exhaust measurements and alcohol content of drinks . Since its establishment,

278-440: A balance , which compares the torque on the arm due to a sample weight to the torque on the arm due to a standard reference mass using a horizontal lever . Spring scales measure force , which is the tension force of constraint acting on an object, opposing the local force of gravity. They are usually calibrated so that measured force translates to mass at earth's gravity. The object to be weighed can be simply hung from

417-431: A fulcrum . One plate holds an object of unknown mass (or weight ), while objects of known mass or weight, called weights , are added to the other plate until mechanical equilibrium is achieved and the plates level off, which happens when the masses on the two plates are equal. The perfect scale rests at neutral. A spring scale will make use of a spring of known stiffness to determine mass (or weight). Suspending

556-421: A load cell instead. A voltage is applied to the device, and the weight causes the current through it to change. The current is converted to a digital number by an analog-to-digital converter , translated by digital logic to the correct units, and displayed on the display. Usually, the device is run by a microprocessor chip. A digital bathroom scale is a scale on the floor which a person stands on. The weight

695-744: 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

834-582: A certain mass will extend the spring by a certain amount depending on the spring's stiffness (or spring constant ). The heavier the object, the more the spring stretches, as described in Hooke's law . Other types of scales making use of different physical principles also exist. Some scales can be calibrated to read in units of force (weight) such as newtons instead of units of mass such as kilograms . Scales and balances are widely used in commerce, as many products are sold and packaged by mass. The balance scale

973-501: A cloud service or an ERP system for real-time monitoring and management of material flow. A pallet jack scale is a device that combines a pallet jack and a weighing scale. It allows you to weigh and move pallets at the same time, saving time and labor. Pallet jack scales are used in various industries, such as manufacturing, logistics, and shipping. French language French ( français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz] )

1112-431: 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,

1251-400: A constant gravity or acceleration. Very precise measurements are achieved by ensuring that the balance's fulcrum is essentially friction -free (a knife edge is the traditional solution), by attaching a pointer to the beam which amplifies any deviation from a balance position; and finally by using the lever principle, which allows fractional masses to be applied by movement of

1390-400: A force to counter the sample being measured and output the result by measuring the force needed to achieve balance. Such a measurement device is called an electromagnetic force restoration sensor. Pendulum type scales do not use springs. These designs use pendulums and operate as a balance that is unaffected by differences in gravity. An example of application of this design are scales made by

1529-555: 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

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1668-419: A fulcrum at its center. For highest accuracy, the fulcrum would consist of a sharp V-shaped pivot seated in a shallower V-shaped bearing. To determine the mass of the object, a combination of reference masses was hung on one end of the beam while the object of unknown mass was hung on the other end (see balance and steelyard balance ). For high precision work, such as empirical chemistry, the center beam balance

1807-923: A further 63 as Corresponding (non-voting) Members including all the G20 , EU and BRICS countries. Between them, the OIML Members cover 86 % of the world's population and 96 % of its economy. The Headquarters of the OIML is located in Paris, France. The definition of "legal metrology" varies amongst jurisdictions , reflecting the extent to which metrology is bound into the jurisdiction's own legal and regulatory code. The OIML, in their publication International Vocabulary of Terms in Legal Metrology defined "legal metrology" as ... concerns regulatory requirements of measurements and measuring instruments for

1946-436: A kitchen during cooking. These are usually lightweight and compact. In electronic versions of spring scales, the deflection of a beam supporting the unknown mass is measured using a strain gauge , which is a length-sensitive electrical resistance . The capacity of such devices is only limited by the resistance of the beam to deflection. The results from several supporting locations may be added electronically, so this technique

2085-454: A manner that they can be adopted "as is" by countries that wish to do so, or countries can select those parts that they wish to include in their own legislation. As of March 2022 104 Recommendations have been published, usually in both English and French . Recommendations may be downloaded free of charge from the OIML website . International Documents (prefixed by the letter "D"), which are informative in nature and intended to improve

2224-424: A margin of error +/- 7 mg. Many microbalances and ultra-microbalances that weigh fractional gram values are torsion balances. A common fiber type is quartz crystal. A microbalance (also called an ultramicrobalance, or nanobalance) is an instrument capable of making precise measurements of the mass of objects of relatively small mass: on the order of a million parts of a gram and below. An analytical balance

2363-462: A non-salaried President for a six-year term of office from amongst its Members. The Committee meets annually under the chairmanship of its President. Secretarial services, day-to-day running and financial management of the OIML are provided by the BIML ( French : Bureau International de Métrologie légale ). The BIML is the OIML headquarters, located in the 9th Arrondissement of Paris and is headed by

2502-567: A number of publications, including: Vocabularies (prefixed by the letter "V") that provide standardised terminology in the field of metrology. The OIML has produced two principal works: In addition, the OIML was a partner in the JCGM which produced the International vocabulary of metrology - Basic and general concepts and associated terms (VIM) , a document published by the BIPM on behalf of

2641-456: A pair of equal-length arms and pivoting in the center of each arm from a central vertical column, creating a parallelogram. From the side of each vertical column a peg extended. To the amazement of observers, no matter where Roberval hung two equal weight along the peg, the scale still balanced. In this sense, the scale was revolutionary: it evolved into the more-commonly encountered form consisting of two pans placed on vertical column located above

2780-705: 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

2919-410: A personal hand in their development. Even with all the advances in weighing scale design and development, all scales until the seventeenth century AD were variations on the balance scale. The standardization of the weights used – and ensuring traders used the correct weights – was a considerable preoccupation of governments throughout this time. The original form of a balance consisted of a beam with

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3058-431: A platform can be floated on a cantilever beam system which brings the proportional force to a noseiron bearing; this pulls on a stilyard rod to transmit the reduced force to a conveniently sized beam. One still sees this design in portable beam balances of 500 kg capacity which are commonly used in harsh environments without electricity, as well as in the lighter duty mechanical bathroom scale (which actually uses

3197-494: 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

3336-569: A salaried director who is, ex-officio, secretary to both the International Conference and the International Committee. CIML Presidents BIML Directors The OIML has two categories of membership; "Member State" and "Corresponding Member". The Member State category is for countries or economies that are prepared to finance and actively participate in the work of the OIML and which have acceded to

3475-587: 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

3614-526: 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

3753-941: 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

3892-510: A small mass along the measuring arm of the beam, as described above. For greatest accuracy, there needs to be an allowance for the buoyancy in air, whose effect depends on the densities of the masses involved. To reduce the need for large reference masses, an off-center beam can be used. A balance with an off-center beam can be almost as accurate as a scale with a center beam, but the off-center beam requires special reference masses and cannot be intrinsically checked for accuracy by simply swapping

4031-421: A smooth turbulence-free airflow that prevents balance fluctuation and the measure of mass down to 1 μg without fluctuations or loss of product. Also, the sample must be at room temperature to prevent natural convection from forming air currents inside the enclosure from causing an error in reading. Single-pan mechanical substitution balances maintain consistent response throughout the useful capacity, which

4170-573: A spring scale, internally). The additional pivots and bearings all reduce the accuracy and complicate calibration; the float system must be corrected for corner errors before the span is corrected by adjusting the balance beam and poise. In 1669 the Frenchman Gilles Personne de Roberval presented a new kind of balance scale to the French Academy of Sciences. This scale consisted of a pair of vertical columns separated by

4309-472: A stand and the outside gears fixed to pans, as well as the "sprocket gear balance" consisting of a bicycle-type chain looped around an odd number of sprockets with the central one fixed and the outermost two free to pivot and attached to a pan. Because it has more moving joints which add friction, the Roberval balance is consistently less accurate than the traditional beam balance, but for many purposes this

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4448-426: A two-pan, beam balance) are one of the traditional symbols of justice , as wielded by statues of Lady Justice . This corresponds to the use in a metaphor of matters being "held in the balance". It has its origins in ancient Egypt. Scales also are widely used as a symbol of finance, commerce, or trade, in which they have played a traditional, vital role since ancient times. For instance, balance scales are depicted in

4587-547: 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

4726-437: 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

4865-779: 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

5004-460: Is a class of balance designed to measure small mass in the sub-milligram range. The measuring pan of an analytical balance (0.1 mg or better) is inside a transparent enclosure with doors so that dust does not collect and so any air currents in the room do not affect the balance's operation. This enclosure is often called a draft shield. The use of a mechanically vented balance safety enclosure , which has uniquely designed acrylic airfoils, allows

5143-439: Is a weighing system that is built into a forklift truck. It allows for the weighing of loads while they are being lifted and transported by the forklift. This eliminates the need for separate weighing operations and reduces the time and labor required for material handling operations. Forklift scales are used in various industries, such as manufacturing, logistics, and shipping. Material Handler Scale : A Material Handler Scale

5282-400: Is a weighing system that is integrated into a material handler machine, such as a grapple or a magnet. It allows for the accurate and efficient weighing of materials while they are being moved, unloaded, or loaded. A Material Handler Scale can be used in various industries, such as scrap, recycling, waste, and port and harbor. A Material Handler Scale can also transfer the weighing information to

5421-472: 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

5560-423: Is achieved by maintaining a constant load on the balance beam and thus the fulcrum by subtracting mass on the same side of the beam to which the sample is added. Electronic analytical scales measure the force needed to counter the mass being measured rather than using actual masses. As such they must have calibration adjustments made to compensate for gravitational differences. They use an electromagnet to generate

5699-489: 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

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5838-430: 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

5977-462: 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

6116-491: Is compensated for by its usability. The torsion balance is one of the most mechanically accurate of analog balances. Pharmacy schools still teach how to use torsion balances in the U.S. It utilizes pans like a traditional balance that lie on top of a mechanical chamber which bases measurements on the amount of twisting of a wire or fiber inside the chamber. The scale must still use a calibration weight to compare against, and can weigh objects greater than 120 mg and come within

6255-652: 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

6394-503: 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

6533-404: 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

6672-469: 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

6811-828: 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

6950-703: Is organised around a three-layer model: The overall direction of the OIML is vested in the International Conference ( French : Conférence internationale de Métrologie légale ) which meets every four years. The Conference is attended by delegations from Member States and [non-voting] Corresponding Members of the Organisation. The management of the OIML is vested in the International Committee ( French : Comité international de Métrologie légale - CIML). The Committee consists of one member from each Member State. These members normally have active official functions in legal metrology in their country. The Committee elects

7089-451: Is shown on an LED or LCD display. The digital electronics may do more than just display weight, it may calculate body fat, BMI , lean mass, muscle mass, and water ratio. Some modern bathroom scales are wirelessly or cellularly connected and have features like smartphone integration, cloud storage, and fitness tracking. They are usually powered by a button cell, or battery of AA or AAA size. Digital kitchen scales are used for weighing food in

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7228-524: Is still one of the most accurate technologies available, and is commonly used for calibrating test masses. However, bronze fragments discovered in central Germany and Italy had been used during the Bronze Age as an early form of currency. In the same time period, merchants had used standard weights of equivalent value between 8 and 10.5 grams from Great Britain to Mesopotamia. The balance (also balance scale , beam balance and laboratory balance )

7367-498: Is such a simple device that its usage likely far predates the evidence. What has allowed archaeologists to link artifacts to weighing scales are the stones for determining absolute mass. The balance scale itself was probably used to determine relative mass long before absolute mass. The oldest attested evidence for the existence of weighing scales dates to the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt , with Deben (unit) balance weights, from

7506-470: Is suitable for determining the mass of very heavy objects, such as trucks and rail cars, and is used in a modern weighbridge . These scales are used in the modern bakery , grocery , delicatessen , seafood , meat , produce and other perishable goods departments. Supermarket scales can print labels and receipts, mark mass and count, unit price, total price and in some cases tare . Some modern supermarket scales print an RFID tag that can be used to track

7645-576: 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 ,

7784-553: 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

7923-483: 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

8062-492: 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

8201-424: 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

8340-410: Is used to describe a weighing device that is used to measure the mass, force exertion , tension, and resistance of an object without the need of a power supply. Types of mechanical scales include decimal balances , spring scales , hanging scales, triple beam balances , and force gauges . A spring scale measures mass by reporting the distance that a spring deflects under a load. This contrasts to

8479-439: Is used. It is also common in high-capacity applications such as crane scales to use hydraulic force to sense mass. The test force is applied to a piston or diaphragm and transmitted through hydraulic lines to a dial indicator based on a Bourdon tube or electronic sensor. Electronic digital scales display weight as a number, usually on a liquid crystal display (LCD). They are versatile because they may perform calculations on

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8618-764: 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

8757-462: 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

8896-539: 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

9035-485: 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

9174-559: 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,

9313-483: The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to ensure compatibility between each organisation's work. The OIML has no legal authority to impose solutions on its Members, but its Recommendations are often used by Member States as part of their own national legislation. As of May 2024, 64 countries had signed up as Member States and

9452-877: 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

9591-626: 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

9730-1012: 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

9869-400: The 1940s, various electronic devices were being attached to these designs to make readings more accurate. Load cells – transducers that convert force to an electrical signal – have their beginnings as early as the late nineteenth century, but it was not until the late twentieth century that their widespread usage became economically and technologically viable. A mechanical scale or balance

10008-506: 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;

10147-836: 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

10286-703: 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

10425-917: 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,

10564-538: 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

10703-484: 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

10842-672: The JCGM Recommendations (prefixed by the letter "R") which are model regulations that establish the metrological characteristics required of certain measuring instruments and which specify methods and equipment for checking their conformity. Most of the Recommendations have a similar structure. The four main topics covered in the reports are metrological requirements, technical requirements, methods and equipment for testing and verifying conformity to requirements and test report format. Recommendations are written in such

10981-5080: The OIML Convention. The Corresponding Member category is for countries or economies that want to be informed of OIML activities, but cannot, or prefer not to, be a Member State . As of May 2024, a total of 64 states are Member States and 63 are Corresponding Members. Member States [REDACTED]   Albania [REDACTED]   Algeria [REDACTED]   Australia [REDACTED]   Austria [REDACTED]   Belarus [REDACTED]   Belgium [REDACTED]   Brazil [REDACTED]   Bulgaria [REDACTED]   Cambodia [REDACTED]   Canada [REDACTED]   Colombia [REDACTED]   China [REDACTED]   Croatia [REDACTED]   Cuba [REDACTED]   Cyprus [REDACTED]   Czech Republic [REDACTED]   Denmark [REDACTED]   Egypt [REDACTED]   Ethiopia [REDACTED]   Finland [REDACTED]   France [REDACTED]   Germany [REDACTED]   Greece [REDACTED]   Hungary [REDACTED]   India [REDACTED]   Indonesia [REDACTED]   Iran [REDACTED]   Ireland [REDACTED]   Israel [REDACTED]   Italy [REDACTED]   Japan [REDACTED]   Kazakhstan [REDACTED]   Kenya [REDACTED]   Korea [REDACTED]   Monaco [REDACTED]   Montenegro [REDACTED]   Morocco [REDACTED]   Netherlands [REDACTED]   New Zealand [REDACTED]   North Macedonia [REDACTED]   Norway [REDACTED]   Pakistan [REDACTED]   Poland [REDACTED]   Portugal [REDACTED]   Romania [REDACTED]   Russia [REDACTED]   Saudi Arabia [REDACTED]   Serbia [REDACTED]   Slovakia [REDACTED]   Slovenia [REDACTED]   South Africa [REDACTED]   Spain [REDACTED]   Sri Lanka [REDACTED]   Sweden [REDACTED]    Switzerland [REDACTED]   Tanzania [REDACTED]   Thailand [REDACTED]   Tunisia [REDACTED]   Turkey [REDACTED]   Ukraine [REDACTED]   United Kingdom [REDACTED]   United States [REDACTED]   Vietnam [REDACTED]   Zambia Corresponding Members [REDACTED]   Angola [REDACTED]   Argentina [REDACTED]   Azerbaijan [REDACTED]   Bahrain [REDACTED]   Bangladesh [REDACTED]   Barbados [REDACTED]   Benin [REDACTED]   Bolivia [REDACTED]   Bosnia and Herzegovina [REDACTED]   Botswana [REDACTED]   Burkina Faso [REDACTED]   Chinese Taipei [REDACTED]   Costa Rica [REDACTED]   Djibouti [REDACTED]   Dominican Republic [REDACTED]   Ecuador [REDACTED]   Estonia [REDACTED]   Fiji [REDACTED]   Gabon [REDACTED]   Georgia [REDACTED]   Ghana [REDACTED]   Guatemala [REDACTED]   Guinea [REDACTED]   Guyana [REDACTED]   Hong Kong [REDACTED]   Iceland [REDACTED]   Iraq [REDACTED]   Jordan [REDACTED]   Kiribati [REDACTED]   Kuwait [REDACTED]   Kyrgyzstan [REDACTED]   Latvia [REDACTED]   Lithuania [REDACTED]   Luxembourg [REDACTED]   Madagascar [REDACTED]   Malawi [REDACTED]   Malaysia [REDACTED]   Mali [REDACTED]   Malta [REDACTED]   Mauritius [REDACTED]   Mexico [REDACTED]   Moldova [REDACTED]   Mongolia [REDACTED]   Mozambique [REDACTED]   Namibia [REDACTED]     Nepal [REDACTED]   Nigeria [REDACTED]   Oman [REDACTED]   Panama [REDACTED]   Papua New Guinea [REDACTED]   Paraguay [REDACTED]   Peru [REDACTED]   Philippines [REDACTED]   Qatar [REDACTED]   Rwanda [REDACTED]   Saint Lucia [REDACTED]   Seychelles [REDACTED]   Sierra Leone [REDACTED]   Singapore [REDACTED]   Sudan [REDACTED]   Trinidad and Tobago [REDACTED]   Uganda [REDACTED]   United Arab Emirates [REDACTED]   Uruguay [REDACTED]   Uzbekistan The technical work of

11120-498: The OIML and other organisations have exchanged memoranda of understanding (MoU) with each other. As of October 2024 the MoU in existence were: Weighing scale A scale or balance is a device used to measure weight or mass . These are also known as mass scales , weight scales , mass balances , massometers , and weight balances . The traditional scale consists of two plates or bowls suspended at equal distances from

11259-435: The OIML has developed a number of guidelines to assist its Members, particularly developing nations, to draw up appropriate legislation concerning metrology across all facets of society and guidelines on certification and calibration requirements of new products, particularly where such calibration has a legal impact such as in trade, health care and taxation. The OIML works closely with other international organisations such as

11398-602: The OIML is carried out by Technical Committees (TC), each committee having responsibility for a different aspect of legal metrology. In some cases the Technical Committee is broken up into one or more Subcommittees (SC). Within each TC or SC the actual technical work is carried out by Project Groups led by conveners. TCs, SCs and Project Groups are led by volunteer experts from OIML Member States. As of March 2022 there are 18 Technical Committees and 46 Subcommittees. The Technical Committees are: The OIML produces

11537-510: The OIML is to enable economies to put in place effective legal metrology infrastructures that are mutually compatible and internationally recognised, for all areas for which governments take responsibility, such as those which facilitate trade, establish mutual confidence and harmonise the level of consumer protection worldwide. At the same meeting, its objectives were then stated as follows: The OIML, which has an annual operating budget of about two million euros that comes from Member subscriptions

11676-549: The Toledo Scale Company. A programmable scale has a programmable logic controller in it, allowing it to be programmed for various applications such as batching, labeling, filling (with check weight function), truck scales , and more. Another important function is counting, e. g. used to count small parts in larger quantities during the annual stock taking. Counting scales (which can also do just weighing) can range from mg to tonnes. The scales (specifically,

11815-625: The UK by the International Organization of Legal Metrology . An industrial weighing scale is a device that measures the weight or mass of objects in various industries. It can range from small bench scales to large weighbridges, and it can have different features and capacities. Industrial weighing scales are used for quality control, inventory management, and trade purposes. There are many kinds of industrial weighing scales that are used for different purposes and applications. Some of

11954-507: The basis of “self-declaration” with additional supporting evidence. However, for participation in Scheme A, compliance shall be demonstrated by peer evaluation on the basis of accreditation or peer assessment. The work of the OIML overlaps with the work of a number of other international organisations. In order to minimise the impact of this overlap and also to ensure that the work of the OIML and other organisations can intermesh with each other,

12093-483: The beam is as close to equilibrium as possible. In precision balances, a more accurate determination of the mass is given by the position of a sliding mass moved along a graduated scale. A decimal balance uses the lever in which the arm for weights is 10 times longer than the arm for weighted objects, so that much lighter weights may be used to weigh heavy object. Similarly a centesimal balance uses arms in ratio 1:100. Unlike spring-based scales, balances are used for

12232-411: The certificates pertaining to these operations are filed in a manner that enables third parties to assess them should the need arise. The OIML has identified four main activities that fulfil the purposes of legal metrology: The International Organization of Legal Metrology (OIML), an intergovernmental organisation , was established under a diplomatic treaty signed in Paris on 12 October 1955 to promote

12371-412: The common types are: Weighbridges  : A large scale that can weigh trucks, lorries, containers, and other heavy-duty vehicles. They are used in industries like manufacturing, shipping, mining, agriculture, etc Container Stacker Scale : A container stacker scale is a specialized weighing system designed for accurately measuring the weight of shipping containers. It is typically integrated into

12510-429: The contents of the pans as a center-beam balance can. To reduce the need for small graduated reference masses, a sliding weight called a poise can be installed so that it can be positioned along a calibrated scale. A poise adds further intricacies to the calibration procedure, since the exact mass of the poise must be adjusted to the exact lever ratio of the beam. For greater convenience in placing large and awkward loads,

12649-519: 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

12788-432: The displacement of the spring by any variety of mechanisms to produce an estimate of the gravitational force applied by the object. Rack and pinion mechanisms are often used to convert the linear spring motion to a dial reading. Spring scales have two sources of error that balances do not: the measured mass varies with the strength of the local gravitational force (by as much as 0.5% at different locations on Earth), and

12927-578: The earliest design for such a device dates to 1770 and credits Richard Salter, an early scale-maker. Spring scales came into wide usage in the United Kingdom after 1840 when R. W. Winfield developed the candlestick scale for weighing letters and packages, required after the introduction of the Uniform Penny Post . Postal workers could work more quickly with spring scales than balance scales because they could be read instantaneously and did not have to be carefully balanced with each measurement. By

13066-448: 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

13205-435: The elasticity of the measurement spring can vary slightly with temperature. With proper manufacturing and setup, however, spring scales can be rated as legal for commerce. To remove the temperature error, a commerce-legal spring scale must either have temperature-compensated springs or be used at a fairly constant temperature. To eliminate the effect of gravity variations, a commerce-legal spring scale must be calibrated where it

13344-594: 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

13483-400: The equipment used for loading and unloading containers, such as container handlers or stacker cranes. Container stacker scales provide real-time weight measurements, allowing logistics professionals to ensure that each container is loaded within the specified weight limits. Container stacker scales are used in industries like ports, shipping, and logistics Forklift scale : A forklift scale

13622-516: 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

13761-915: 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 ,

13900-402: The fulcrum and the parallelogram below them. The advantage of the Roberval design is that no matter where equal weights are placed in the pans, the scale will still balance. Further developments have included a "gear balance" in which the parallelogram is replaced by any odd number of interlocking gears greater than one, with alternating gears of the same size and with the central gear fixed to

14039-829: 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

14178-506: The global harmonisation of legal metrology procedures that underpin and facilitate international trade. Under French law, its principal body, the International Conference on Legal Metrology, is accorded diplomatic status. The Convention that set up the OIML listed eight objectives behind its establishment. At the 2011 meeting in Prague of the International Committee of Legal Metrology (CIML), the OIML updated its mission to read: The mission of

14317-427: The global harmonisation, uniform interpretation and implementation of legal metrological requirements for measuring instruments and/or modules, b) to avoid unnecessary re-testing when obtaining national type evaluations and approvals, and to support the recognition of measuring instruments and/or modules under legal metrological control, while achieving and maintaining confidence in the results in support of facilitating

14456-488: The global trade of individual instruments, and c) to establish rules and procedures for fostering mutual confidence among participating OIML Member States and Corresponding Members in the results of type evaluations that indicate conformity of measuring instruments and/or modules, under legal metrological control, to the metrological and technical requirements established in the applicable OIML Recommendation(s). There are three categories of participants: The requirements for

14595-812: The item for tampering or returns. In most cases, these types of scales have a sealed calibration so that the reading on the display is correct and cannot be tampered with. In the US, the scales are certified by the National Type Evaluation Program (NTEP), in South Africa by the South African Bureau of Standards , in Australia, they are certified by the National Measurement Institute (NMI) and in

14734-454: 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

14873-479: 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

15012-612: 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 ,

15151-479: 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

15290-423: The measurement and transmit it to other digital devices. On a digital scale, the force of the weight causes a spring to deform, and the amount of deformation is measured by one or more transducers called strain gauges . A strain gauge is a conductor whose electrical resistance changes when its length changes. Strain gauges have limited capacity and larger digital scales may use a hydraulic transducer called

15429-420: 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

15568-589: 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;

15707-534: 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

15846-420: The participation of OIML Issuing Authorities and their associated Test Laboratories in Scheme A or Scheme B are the same, but the method of demonstrating compliance is different. OIML Issuing Authorities are required to demonstrate compliance with ISO/IEC 17065 and Test Laboratories are required to demonstrate compliance with ISO/IEC 17025. For participation in Scheme B, it is sufficient to demonstrate compliance on

15985-493: The precision measurement of mass as their accuracy is not affected by variations in the local gravitational field. (On Earth, for example, these can amount to ±0.5% between locations. ) A change in the strength of the gravitational field caused by moving the balance does not change the measured mass, because the moments of force on either side of the center balanced beam are affected equally. A center beam balance will render an accurate measurement of mass at any location experiencing

16124-471: 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

16263-447: The protection of health , public safety , the environment , enabling taxation , protection of consumers and fair trade . In the glossary of their book Metrology - in short Howarth and Redgrave state that "legal metrology" Ensures accuracy and reliability of measurement where measured values can affect health, safety, or the transparency of financial transactions e.g. weights and measures. These two statements are held together by

16402-508: The reign of Sneferu (c. 2600 BC) excavated, though earlier usage has been proposed. Carved stones bearing marks denoting mass and the Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for gold have been discovered, which suggests that Egyptian merchants had been using an established system of mass measurement to catalog gold shipments or gold mine yields. Although no actual scales from this era have survived, many sets of weighing stones as well as murals depicting

16541-471: 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

16680-553: The seal of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Federal Trade Commission . Scales are also the symbol for the astrological sign Libra . Scales (specifically, a two-pan, beam balance in a state of equal balance) are the traditional symbol of Pyrrhonism indicating the equal balance of arguments used in inducing epoche . Although records dating to the 1700s refer to spring scales for measuring mass,

16819-431: The spring or set on a pivot and bearing platform. In a spring scale, the spring either stretches (as in a hanging scale in the produce department of a grocery store ) or compresses (as in a simple bathroom scale). By Hooke's law , every spring has a proportionality constant that relates how hard it is pulled to how far it stretches. Weighing scales use a spring with a known spring constant (see Hooke's law ) and measure

16958-466: 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

17097-679: 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

17236-508: 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

17375-485: 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

17514-560: The use of balance scales suggest widespread usage. Examples, dating c.  2400–1800 BC , have also been found in the Indus River valley . Uniform, polished stone cubes discovered in early settlements were probably used as mass-setting stones in balance scales. Although the cubes bear no markings, their masses are multiples of a common denominator. The cubes are made of many different kinds of stones with varying densities. Clearly their mass, not their size or other characteristics,

17653-419: The words "regulatory", "accuracy" and "reliability". The word "regulatory" encompasses the "legal" aspects of the term – the role played by governments , national metrology institutes and standards organisations in creating a framework to ensure confidence in the accuracy and reliability of a measurement . This framework requires that the specified test and conformance operations are carried out, and that

17792-462: The work of the metrological services. As of March 2022 31 OIML Documents had been published in this series. Documents may be downloaded free of charge from the OIML website . The OIML also published Basic Publications , Guides , Seminar Reports , Expert Reports and the OIML Bulletin . The OIML-CS is a single Certification System comprising two Schemes: Scheme A and Scheme B. It

17931-536: 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

18070-402: 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

18209-891: Was a factor in sculpting these cubes. In China, the earliest weighing balance excavated was from a tomb of the State of Chu of the Chinese Warring States Period dating back to the 3rd to 4th century BC in Mount Zuojiagong near Changsha , Hunan. The balance was made of wood and used bronze masses. Variations on the balance scale, including devices like the cheap and inaccurate bismar (unequal-armed scales), began to see common usage by c. 400 BC by many small merchants and their customers. A plethora of scale varieties each boasting advantages and improvements over one another appear throughout recorded history, with such great inventors as Leonardo da Vinci lending

18348-417: 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

18487-819: 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

18626-400: 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

18765-652: Was known in the Occitan-speaking region as Vergonha . Spoken by 19.71% of the European Union's population, French is the third most widely spoken language in the EU, after English and German and the second-most-widely taught language after English. Under the Constitution of France , French has been the official language of the Republic since 1992, although the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts made it mandatory for legal documents in 1539. France mandates

18904-634: Was launched on 1 January 2018, replacing the OIML Basic Certificate System and the OIML Mutual Acceptance Arrangement (MAA). The aim of the OIML-CS is to facilitate, accelerate and harmonise the work of national and regional bodies that are responsible for type evaluation and approval of measuring instruments subject to legal metrological control. The objectives of the OIML-CS are a) to promote

19043-594: 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

19182-400: Was the first mass measuring instrument invented. In its traditional form, it consists of a pivoted horizontal lever with arms of equal length – the beam or tron  – and a weighing pan suspended from each arm (hence the plural name " scales " for a weighing instrument). The unknown mass is placed in one pan and standard masses are added to the other pan until

19321-570: 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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