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96-635: The Ontario Film Review Board ( French : Commission de contrôle cinématographique de l’Ontario ) is an inactive agency of the government of the Canadian province of Ontario that was formerly responsible for that province's motion picture rating system . Until 2015, the board reported to the Minister of Consumer Services but as of 1 October 2015, the board was overseen by the Ontario Film Authority. The board's activities were based on

192-572: 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

288-744: 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

384-431: 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,

480-555: 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

576-524: A group of artists, known as the Ontario Film and Video Appreciation Society (OFVAS). The Board refused to view or rate Not a Love Story on the grounds that OFVAS did not own the film or have any distribution rights. Ratings were provided on the other films. The artists then took the Board to court over the ratings given, and the refusal to rate Not a Love Story. The Board's actions were challenged under

672-652: 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

768-494: 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

864-683: 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 ,

960-416: A set of Content Advisories: The primary reason for the addition of the 18A category was films such as Scary Movie and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut . Adult movies were given a sticker which denotes: Janet Robinson was the board's most recent Chair. The longest-serving chair was O. J. Silverthorne, who retired from that position after 40 years. The following people were appointed as Chair of

1056-547: 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

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1152-457: 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

1248-523: A year-long pilot project to designate certain films which were deemed inappropriate for children. Theatre operators were required to identify such films as "adult entertainment" on marquees and advertising. The Blue Dahlia and Her Kind of Man were among the first films to be identified as adult entertainment in Ontario. Further changes to the Theatres Act in 1975 empowered what was now known as

1344-437: 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

1440-472: 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

1536-489: 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

1632-652: 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

1728-563: 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

1824-404: 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

1920-469: 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

2016-828: 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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2112-639: 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 ,

2208-553: 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

2304-483: 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

2400-492: 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

2496-424: 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

2592-1029: The Film Classification Act, 2005 . The Ontario Film Review Board ceased operation as of October 1, 2019, with responsibility for film classification being transferred from the Ontario Film Authority, which is to be wound down, and the Ontario Film Review Board to the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services. Films were briefly deemed to have the same classification as those given by the British Columbia Film Classification Office , and adult films will be cleared for screening in Ontario if they have been approved by any jurisdiction in Canada. Ratings are now no longer required for movies to be shown in Ontario. A three-person Board of Censors

2688-764: 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

2784-609: 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

2880-609: 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

2976-517: The Democratic Republic of the Congo . In some North African countries, though not having official status, it is also a first language among some upper classes of the population alongside indigenous languages, but only a second one among the general population. In 2015, approximately 40% of the Francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) lived in Europe, 36% in sub-Saharan Africa and

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3072-533: 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

3168-559: 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,

3264-399: 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

3360-877: 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

3456-626: 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

3552-680: The Ontario Film Authority was incorporated. It entered into an agreement with the Minister of Consumer Services dated 5 May 2014. On 1 October 2015, an amendment to Ontario Regulation 187/09 came into effect, providing that the Ontario Film Authority is the sole administrative authority for the purpose of administering all provisions of the Film Classification Act, 2005 and the regulations made under that Act. This restructuring of administrative oversight in 2015

3648-775: 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

3744-552: The 18A rating which when applied to a film prohibits persons under 18 from attending unless accompanied by an adult. The Adult Accompaniment rating was renamed 14A but its effect was otherwise unchanged. On 30 April 2004, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found certain sections of the Theatres Act to violate the freedom of expression provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in

3840-506: 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;

3936-773: 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

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4032-582: The Board of Censors, and subsequently the Ontario Film Review Board. 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 ,

4128-703: 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

4224-917: 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,

4320-408: The Empire, this local elite had been slowly abandoning Gaulish entirely, but the rural and lower class populations remained Gaulish speakers who could sometimes also speak Latin or Greek. The final language shift from Gaulish to Vulgar Latin among rural and lower class populations occurred later, when both they and the incoming Frankish ruler/military class adopted the Gallo-Roman Vulgar Latin speech of

4416-416: 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

4512-410: 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

4608-441: 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

4704-402: 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

4800-425: The Ontario Censor Board to review and censor videotapes and 8 mm film formats as well as conventional theatrical films. In the late 1970s and early 80s the Board was involved in a number of high-profile disputes with the Toronto International Film Festival (known then as the Festival of Festivals) over the Board's refusal to approve some films for screening without cuts, and for banning other films outright. In 1977,

4896-439: The board ordered cuts from the film Je, tu, il, elle which depicted two women having sex; the Festival pulled the film from its programme. In 1978, it demanded a 38-second cut from a love scene in In Praise of Older Women ; director Robert Lantos agreed but at the last minute substituted the uncut version of the film. The screening was introduced by federal Secretary of State for Canada John Roberts who publicly denounced

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4992-422: The board, telling the audience at the Elgin Theatre that “because of the actions of the Ontario censor it is time for an active affirmation that censors shouldn’t tell people what they should or should not see.” In 1982, the board refused to approve Pierre Rissient ’s Cinq et la peau ; instead of substituting another film, festival organizers protested the ban by posting a sign outside the theatre explaining why

5088-503: The case of R. v. Glad Day Bookshops Inc. . The Ontario government modified the regulation under the Theatres Act was modified on 5 July 2004 to restrict the grounds on which a motion picture can be banned from Ontario, namely to pornographic films which involve violence, degradation or minors . The Legislative Assembly of Ontario introduced Bill 158, the Film Classification Act , for first reading on 9 December 2004. Minister of Consumer and Business Services Jim Watson introduced

5184-446: The country near French-speaking Quebec, however, it is the foreign language more commonly taught. Vowel phonemes in French Film Classification Act Originally, motion pictures were reviewed and censored under the Theatres and Cinematographs Act which was passed on 24 March 1911 and established the Board of Censors, the first film review board in Ontario. The law was originally scheduled to be in force on 1 June that year, but

5280-404: 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

5376-448: 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

5472-489: 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

5568-400: The festival into the minds of the public, but internationally it was hugely embarrassing. And it filled the theatre with the wrong people, because they came looking for nothing but blow jobs, and they found themselves in the middle of a long, hard, boring film waiting for a few seconds of a grainy image showing something that looked vaguely like a male sex organ.” In 1985, the name of the board

5664-408: The film was based on a book that was studied by many high school students. The provincial government introduced Bill 82 to change the Theatres Act in May 1984. The bill passed that December and took effect February 1985. These changes renamed the Board of Censors to the Ontario Censor Board the Ontario Film Review Board. Rating categories were restructured again in 2001, with the introduction of

5760-406: 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

5856-439: 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 ,

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5952-715: 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

6048-401: 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

6144-424: 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

6240-501: 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 ,

6336-428: 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

6432-513: The legislation as a means of updating the film classification system while curtailing the censorship powers of the Ontario Film Review Board. The bill's second reading began on 15 February 2005 and was carried on 6 April. After review by the province's Standing Committee on Justice Policy, Bill 158 received its third reading on 19 May then was carried on division on 30 May with Royal Assent proclaimed on 13 June. The statute took legal effect on 31 August 2005. The Film Classification Act, 2005 ended

6528-420: 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

6624-467: The new Canadian Constitution . The Ontario Divisional Court ruled in 1983 that film classification and censorship were justifiable under the Constitution. The court also determined that three of the Board's rulings were valid. Approval with time and place restrictions in the case of The Art of Worldly Wisdom and Rameau's Nephew was considered a "valid exercise of the Board's power." The Board's refusal to review Not A Love Story: A Film About Pornography

6720-442: The original 1911 act prohibited children less than 15 years from attending a commercial film unless accompanied by an adult. This led to an unintended consequence where young girls would approach adult strangers to escort them to movies. There were recommendations that this provision be revoked or changed, especially since the film censorship regime would be deemed sufficient to protect children from inappropriate film content. In 1914,

6816-475: 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

6912-471: 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

7008-553: The province replaced the Theatres and Cinematographs Act with a new law, the Theatres Act . Significant amendments to the act and its regulations were made on various occasions. Videotape and 8 mm film classification was introduced in 1975, following concerns that pornographic presentations were being distributed in such formats beyond the purview of the Board of Censors. In 1981, the Adult Accompaniment rating

7104-463: The provincial government introduced amendments to restrict eligible escorts to parents or legal guardians . Theatre operators were held responsible for ensuring that children were not being escorted by strangers. After its first year, some film exhibitors would flout the law by removing certificate stamp images from films inspected by the Board of Censors then splicing these certificates to films which were not approved for Ontario audiences. In 1953,

7200-689: The provincial power to ban films, although film censorship powers would be retained for some cases of pornographic films. For video games, the Act also gave the province power to enforce the ratings system of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), prohibiting the sale or exhibition of "Mature" and "Adults Only"-rated games to those under the age of 17 and 18 respectively. The OFRB had previously attempted to enforce such restrictions by classifying specific games as films, notwithstanding their rating. The act itself specifies

7296-599: The public could view. The government appealed to the Ontario Supreme Court, but the appeal was dismissed in 1984. The government subsequently added regulations to define the Board`s powers. The board used the following motion picture rating system for theatrical releases in the province: Ratings used from 1946 - 1953: Ratings used from c.  1953 - 1981: Ratings used from 1981 - 2003: The ratings used from 2003–present: These ratings include

7392-471: 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

7488-403: The screen was being kept dark. The board's high profile actions against various films being screened at the festival had the unintended effect of raising their profile and audience interest. According to former festival director Helga Stephenson, “Silly old [Ontario Censor Board chairman] Mary Brown filled some theatres with some pretty tame stuff. The ranting and raving was a very good way to get

7584-420: The start of the film. Films which did not include the Board's stamp could be confiscated by authorities under the new law, which conversely prevented law enforcement officials from stopping the presentation of stamped films because of the film's content (section 6). Enforcement of the stamping provisions began after 1 December 1911, following the Board's initial task of reviewing 4000 extant films. Section 10 of

7680-466: 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

7776-679: 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

7872-508: 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

7968-485: 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

8064-536: 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

8160-402: 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

8256-481: Was "part of a larger provincial initiative to streamline more than 200 boards and commissions", according to The Toronto Star . Significant cases have occurred where a film was either banned outright in Ontario, or certain scenes were ordered removed: Several sources claim the Board banned the NFB anti-pornography documentary Not a Love Story . The Board was asked to rate this film, along with three others, submitted by

8352-404: Was acceptable as the Board did not need to perform hypothetical reviews. The film had not been submitted for commercial distribution, and the judge noted "the applicants were seeking permission to show a film they did not own and which they had no right to exhibit." Concerning the Board's ban of the fourth film, Amerika , the court ruled that the Board had no legally defined rights to determine what

8448-440: Was changed to the Ontario Film Review Board after the provincial government amended the Theatres Act . The Board composition changed from full-time civil servants to part-time members of the public. In 1988 festival films became exempt from review by the board provided the audience was limited to those eighteen and over. In 2005, the original and much amended Theatres Act was replaced by the Film Classification Act . In 2013,

8544-819: 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

8640-533: Was established on 27 June 1911 following passage of the Theatres and Cinematographs Act, 1911 . The initial members were Chair George E. Armstrong, Robert Wilson and Otter Elliott. From that point, films to be shown in Ontario legally required review and approval by the board. The Board's censorship authority included newsreels, for example footage from a 1937 General Motors strike was banned "to avoid propaganda by either side." The Board of Censors began to provide basic film classifications from 1 June 1946, initially as

8736-451: 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

8832-465: Was introduced which allowed films to be classified so that children under 14 were restricted unless escorted by an adult. The classification was developed to open films of social significance to younger audiences which might otherwise have been restricted. In developing the new classification, provincial officials noted that the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was restricted to adults only, although

8928-708: 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

9024-505: Was postponed until at least 20 June because of an illness of Arthur Matheson who as Ontario's treasurer was responsible for appointing the new board. This led to the creation of the Ontario Board of Censors of Moving Pictures which began operations on 27 June 1911. Each film shown in the province was required to be reviewed and approved by the Board which would then apply a "stamp" which would be displayed on theatre screens prior to

9120-594: 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

9216-570: 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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