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115-697: The term Midi derives from mi ('middle') and di ('day') in Old French , comparable to the term Mezzogiorno to indicate southern Italy, Miazăzi which is a synonym for south in Romanian , or meridional which is a synonym for the south direction in Spanish . The time of midday was synonymous with south because in France, as in the rest of the Northern Hemisphere north of

230-744: 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

345-826: A Gaulish substrate, although there is some debate. One of these is considered certain, because this fact is clearly attested in the Gaulish-language epigraphy on the pottery found at la Graufesenque ( A.D. 1st century). There, the Greek word paropsid-es (written in Latin) appears as paraxsid-i . The consonant clusters /ps/ and /pt/ shifted to /xs/ and /xt/, e.g. Lat capsa > *kaxsa > caisse ( ≠ Italian cassa ) or captīvus > *kaxtivus > OF chaitif (mod. chétif ; cf. Irish cacht 'servant'; ≠ Italian cattiv-ità , Portuguese cativo , Spanish cautivo ). This phonetic evolution

460-431: 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,

575-429: A cuisine that is different from those of northern France and other Mediterranean countries. The major difference from the rest of France is in the use of olive oil, instead of butter. Local agriculture supplies the olives for consumption as well as cooking, the ducks and geese to make foie gras , haricot beans that are used in cassoulet , the sheep whose milk produces Roquefort cheese, tomatoes and melons. To accompany

690-421: A definitive influence on the development of Old French, which partly explains why the earliest attested Old French documents are older than the earliest attestations in other Romance languages (e.g. Strasbourg Oaths , Sequence of Saint Eulalia ). It is the result of an earlier gap created between Classical Latin and its evolved forms, which slowly reduced and eventually severed the mutual intelligibility between

805-555: 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

920-420: A fraindre, Fors Sarragoce qu'est en une montaigne; Li reis Marsilies la tient, ki Deu nen aimet, Mahomet sert ed Apolin reclaimet: Ne·s poet guarder que mals ne l'i ataignet! ˈt͡ʃarləs li ˈre͜is, ˈnɔstr‿empəˈræðrə ˈmaɲəs ˈsɛt ˈant͡s ˈtot͡s ˈple͜ins ˈað esˈtæθ en esˈpaɲə ˈtræs k‿en la ˈmɛr konˈkist la ˈtɛr alˈta͜iɲə t͡ʃasˈtɛl ni ˈaθ ki dəˈvant ˈly͜i rəˈma͜iɲəθ ˈmyrs nə t͡siˈtæθ n‿i ˈɛst rəˈmæs

1035-474: A mountain. King Marsilie is its master, he who loves not God, He serves Mohammed and worships Apollo: [Still] he cannot prevent harm from reaching him. 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

1150-1242: A new orthography for the latter; among the earliest examples are parts of the Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia . Some Gaulish words influenced Vulgar Latin and, through this, other Romance languages. For example, classical Latin equus was uniformly replaced in Vulgar Latin by caballus 'nag, work horse', derived from Gaulish caballos (cf. Welsh ceffyl , Breton kefel ), yielding ModF cheval , Occitan caval ( chaval ), Catalan cavall , Spanish caballo , Portuguese cavalo , Italian cavallo , Romanian cal , and, by extension, English cavalry and chivalry (both via different forms of [Old] French: Old Norman and Francien ). An estimated 200 words of Gaulish etymology survive in Modern French, for example chêne , 'oak tree', and charrue , 'plough'. Within historical phonology and studies of language contact , various phonological changes have been posited as caused by

1265-652: 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

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1380-602: A radical change had the effect of rendering Latin sermons completely unintelligible to the general Romance-speaking public, which prompted officials a few years later, at the Third Council of Tours , to instruct priests to read sermons aloud in the old way, in rusticam romanam linguam or 'plain Roman[ce] speech'. As there was now no unambiguous way to indicate whether a given text was to be read aloud as Latin or Romance, various attempts were made in France to devise

1495-494: 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

1610-683: 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 ,

1725-547: 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

1840-557: A very distinctive identity compared to the other future Romance languages. The first noticeable influence is the substitution of the Latin melodic accent with a Germanic stress and its result was diphthongization , differentiation between long and short vowels, the fall of the unaccented syllable and of the final vowels: Additionally, two phonemes that had long since died out in Vulgar Latin were reintroduced: [h] and [w] (> OF g(u)- , ONF w- cf. Picard w- ): In contrast,

1955-457: 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

2070-505: A ˈfra͜indrə ˈfɔrs saraˈgot͡sə k‿ˈɛst en ˈynə monˈtaɲə li ˈre͜is marˈsiʎəs la ˈti͜ɛnt, ki ˈdɛ͜u nən ˈa͜iməθ mahoˈmɛt ˈsɛrt eð apoˈlin rəˈkla͜iməθ nə‿s ˈpu͜ɛt gwarˈdær kə ˈmals nə l‿i aˈta͜iɲəθ Charles the king, our great emperor, Has been in Spain for seven full years: He has conquered the lofty land up to the sea. No castle remains standing before him; No wall or city is left to destroy Other than Saragossa, which lies atop

2185-437: 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

2300-472: 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

2415-489: 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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2530-490: Is called Vulgar Latin , the common spoken language of the Western Roman Empire . Vulgar Latin differed from Classical Latin in phonology and morphology as well as exhibiting lexical differences; however, they were mutually intelligible until the 7th century when Classical Latin 'died' as a daily spoken language, and had to be learned as a second language (though it was long thought of as the formal version of

2645-609: Is common in its later stages with the shift of the Latin cluster /kt/ in Old French ( Lat factum > fait , ≠ Italian fatto , Portuguese feito , Spanish hecho ; or lactem * > lait , ≠ Italian latte , Portuguese leite , Spanish leche ). This means that both /pt/ and /kt/ must have first merged into /kt/ in the history of Old French, after which this /kt/ shifted to /xt/. In parallel, /ps/ and /ks/ merged into /ks/ before shifting to /xs/, apparently under Gaulish influence. The Celtic Gaulish language

2760-652: 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

2875-563: 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

2990-404: 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

3105-469: 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

3220-828: 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

3335-1155: Is south of Continental France and just north of Sardinia , Italy , may also be included. Notable touristic landmarks include the Roman -era Pont du Gard and the Arena of Nîmes ; the Verdon Gorge , in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence ; the Canal du Midi , linking Toulouse by to the Mediterranean Sea ; and the natural regions of Larzac , Luberon and Camargue . The French Riviera is in southern France's southeastern quadrant. Several towns in southern France are renowned for their architecture and surroundings, such as Roussillon , Ménerbes , Cordes-sur-Ciel , Gordes , Rocamadour , Rennes-le-Château , Les Baux-de-Provence , Lourmarin , Gassin , Saint-Paul-de-Vence , L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue , Seillans , Crillon-le-Brave and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence . Southern France has

3450-639: 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 ,

3565-553: Is the language of business and communication, with French being an element of social distinction, chosen for its emotional value. French is an official language of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu , where 31% of the population was estimated to speak it in 2023. In the French special collectivity of New Caledonia , 97% of the population can speak, read and write French while in French Polynesia this figure

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3680-483: 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

3795-492: 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

3910-424: 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

4025-542: Is thought to have survived into the 6th century in France, despite considerable cultural Romanization. Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French, with effects including loanwords and calques (including oui , the word for "yes"), sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence, and influences in conjugation and word order. A computational study from 2003 suggests that early gender shifts may have been motivated by

4140-440: The langues d'oïl of northern France , was the predominant language. Despite being part of Occitania, the regions of Auvergne and Limousin are not normally considered part of southern France. The largest cities of southern France are Marseille , Toulouse , Bordeaux , Nice and Montpellier . The Pyrenees and French Alps are also located in the area, in respectively its southwestern and eastern parts. Corsica , which

4255-594: The langue d'oïl as early as the 9th century and is attested as a distinct Gallo-Romance variety by the 12th century. Dialects or variants of Old French include: Some modern languages are derived from Old French dialects other than Classical French, which is based on the Île-de-France dialect. They include Angevin , Berrichon , Bourguignon-Morvandiau , Champenois , Franc-Comtois , Gallo, Lorrain, Norman , Picard, Poitevin , Saintongeais , and Walloon. Beginning with Plautus ' time (254–184 b.c. ), one can see phonological changes between Classical Latin and what

4370-531: The Bibliothèque bleue – that a standardized Classical French spread throughout France alongside the regional dialects. The material and cultural conditions in France and associated territories around the year 1100 triggered what Charles Homer Haskins termed the " Renaissance of the 12th century ", resulting in a profusion of creative works in a variety of genres. Old French gave way to Middle French in

4485-509: The Roman de Fauvel in 1310 and 1314, a satire on abuses in the medieval church, filled with medieval motets , lais , rondeaux and other new secular forms of poetry and music (mostly anonymous, but with several pieces by Philippe de Vitry , who would coin the expression ars nova to distinguish the new musical practice from the music of the immediately preceding age). The best-known poet and composer of ars nova secular music and chansons of

4600-764: 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

4715-609: 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

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4830-517: 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

4945-533: 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

5060-559: 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,

5175-877: 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

5290-606: The Kingdom of France and its vassals (including parts of the Angevin Empire ), and the duchies of Upper and Lower Lorraine to the east (corresponding to modern north-eastern France and Belgian Wallonia ), but the influence of Old French was much wider, as it was carried to England and the Crusader states as the language of a feudal elite and commerce. The area of Old French in contemporary terms corresponded to

5405-597: The Levant . As part of the emerging Gallo-Romance dialect continuum, the langues d'oïl were contrasted with the langues d'oc , at the time also called "Provençal", adjacent to the Old French area in the southwest, and with the Gallo-Italic group to the southeast. The Franco-Provençal group developed in Upper Burgundy, sharing features with both French and Provençal; it may have begun to diverge from

5520-521: 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

5635-588: The Tropic of Cancer , the sun is in the south at noon. The synonymy has existed since Middle French as well; meridien could refer to both midday and south . The Midi is considered to start at Valence , hence the saying à Valence le Midi commence ("At Valence the Midi starts"). The area corresponds in large part to Occitania ( Occitanie ) in southern Europe , the historical and cultural region in which Occitan ( French : langue d'oc ), as distinct from

5750-601: 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 was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by

5865-775: The World Trade Organization , the International Olympic Committee , the General Conference on Weights and Measures , and the International Committee of the Red Cross . French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin ) that evolved out of the Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in northern France. The language's early forms include Old French and Middle French . Due to Roman rule, Latin

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5980-424: The chansons de geste is The Song of Roland (earliest version composed in the late 11th century). Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube in his Girart de Vienne set out a grouping of the chansons de geste into three cycles : the Geste du roi centering on Charlemagne, the Geste de Garin de Monglane (whose central character was William of Orange ), and the Geste de Doon de Mayence or the "rebel vassal cycle",

6095-497: 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; 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

6210-427: 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 is an official language in 27 countries , as well as one of the most geographically widespread languages in

6325-455: The 1990s) but these varieties are severely endangered or presumed extinct. French is one of two official languages in Haiti alongside Haitian Creole . It is the principal language of education, administration, business, and public signage and is spoken by all educated Haitians. It is also used for ceremonial events such as weddings, graduations, and church masses. The vast majority of the population speaks Haitian Creole as their first language;

6440-474: The 20th century, when it was replaced by English as the United States became the dominant global power following the Second World War . Stanley Meisler of the Los Angeles Times said that the fact that the Treaty of Versailles was written in English as well as French was the "first diplomatic blow" against the language. During the Grand Siècle (17th century), France, under the rule of powerful leaders such as Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV , enjoyed

6555-510: The Canadian capital, is also effectively bilingual, as it has a large population of federal government workers, who are required to offer services in both French and English, and is just across the river from the Quebecois city of Gatineau . According to the United States Census Bureau (2011), French is the fourth most spoken language in the United States after English, Spanish, and Chinese, when all forms of French are considered together and all dialects of Chinese are similarly combined. French

6670-614: The Caribbean that are collectively referred to as the French West Indies , namely Guadeloupe , Saint Barthélemy , Saint Martin , and Martinique . French is the official language of both French Guiana on the South American continent, and of Saint Pierre and Miquelon , an archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland in North America. French was the official language of the colony of French Indochina , comprising modern-day Vietnam , Laos , and Cambodia . It continues to be an administrative language in Laos and Cambodia, although its influence has waned in recent decades. In colonial Vietnam,

6785-408: 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

6900-426: The Gallo-Romance that prefigures French – after the Reichenau and Kassel glosses (8th and 9th centuries) – are the Oaths of Strasbourg (treaties and charters into which King Charles the Bald entered in 842): Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di en avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa ... (For

7015-416: 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

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7130-410: 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

7245-639: The Italian, Portuguese and Spanish words of Germanic origin borrowed from French or directly from Germanic retain /gw/ ~ /g/ , e.g. Italian, Spanish guerra 'war', alongside /g/ in French guerre ). These examples show a clear consequence of bilingualism, that sometimes even changed the first syllable of the Latin words. One example of a Latin word influencing an OLF loan is framboise 'raspberry', from OF frambeise , from OLF *brāmbesi 'blackberry' (cf. Dutch braambes , braambezie ; akin to German Brombeere , English dial. bramberry ) blended with LL fraga or OF fraie 'strawberry', which explains

7360-402: 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

7475-450: The Old French dialects diverged into a number of distinct langues d'oïl , among which Middle French proper was the dialect of the Île-de-France region. During the Early Modern period , French was established as the official language of the Kingdom of France throughout the realm, including the langue d'oc -speaking territories in the south. It was only in the 17th to 18th centuries – with the development especially of popular literature of

7590-437: The Renaissance short story ( conte or nouvelle ). Among the earliest works of rhetoric and logic to appear in Old French were the translations of Rhetorica ad Herennium and Boethius ' De topicis differentiis by John of Antioch in 1282. In northern Italy, authors developed Franco-Italian , a mixed language of Old French and Venetian or Lombard used in literary works in the 13th and 14th centuries. Old French

7705-404: 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

7820-400: The development of northern French culture in and around Île-de-France , which slowly but firmly asserted its ascendency over the more southerly areas of Aquitaine and Tolosa ( Toulouse ); however, the Capetians ' langue d'oïl , the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of all of France until after the French Revolution . In the Late Middle Ages,

7935-448: 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

8050-489: 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

8165-406: 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

8280-754: The first such text. At the beginning of the 13th century, Jean Bodel , in his Chanson de Saisnes , divided medieval French narrative literature into three subject areas: the Matter of France or Matter of Charlemagne ; the Matter of Rome ( romances in an ancient setting); and the Matter of Britain ( Arthurian romances and Breton lais ). The first of these is the subject area of the chansons de geste ("songs of exploits" or "songs of (heroic) deeds"), epic poems typically composed in ten-syllable assonanced (occasionally rhymed ) laisses . More than one hundred chansons de geste have survived in around three hundred manuscripts. The oldest and most celebrated of

8395-915: 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 ,

8510-829: 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

8625-702: The gender of the corresponding word in Gaulish. The pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax of the Vulgar Latin spoken in Roman Gaul in late antiquity were modified by the Old Frankish language , spoken by the Franks who settled in Gaul from the 5th century and conquered the future Old French-speaking area by the 530s. The name français itself is derived from the name of the Franks. The Old Frankish language had

8740-539: The incipient Middle French period was Guillaume de Machaut . Discussions about the origins of non-religious theater ( théâtre profane )—both drama and farce—in the Middle Ages remain controversial, but the idea of a continuous popular tradition stemming from Latin comedy and tragedy to the 9th century seems unlikely. Most historians place the origin of medieval drama in the church's liturgical dialogues and "tropes". Mystery plays were eventually transferred from

8855-519: 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

8970-467: The language of the French Renaissance in the Île-de-France region; this dialect was a predecessor to Modern French . Other dialects of Old French evolved themselves into modern forms ( Poitevin-Saintongeais , Gallo , Norman , Picard , Walloon , etc.), each with its linguistic features and history. The region where Old French was spoken natively roughly extended to the northern half of

9085-479: 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

9200-612: 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 ,

9315-428: 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

9430-426: The late 8th and the mid-14th century. Rather than a unified language , Old French was a group of Romance dialects , mutually intelligible yet diverse . These dialects came to be collectively known as the langues d'oïl , contrasting with the langues d'oc , the emerging Occitano-Romance languages of Occitania , now the south of France. The mid-14th century witnessed the emergence of Middle French ,

9545-639: The loss of an intervening consonant. Manuscripts generally do not distinguish hiatus from true diphthongs, but modern scholarly transcription indicates it with a diaeresis , as in Modern French: Presented below is the first laisse of The Song of Roland along with a broad transcription reflecting reconstructed pronunciation c.  1050 . Charles li reis, nostre emperedre magnes, Set anz toz pleins at estét en Espaigne. Tres qu'en la mer conquist la tere altaigne, Chastel n'i at ki devant lui remaignet. Murs ne citét n'i est remés

9660-570: The love of God and for the Christian people, and our common salvation, from this day forward, as God will give me the knowledge and the power, I will defend my brother Karlo with my help in everything ...) The second-oldest document in Old French is the Eulalia sequence , which is important for linguistic reconstruction of Old French pronunciation due to its consistent spelling. The royal House of Capet , founded by Hugh Capet in 987, inaugurated

9775-406: The mid-14th century, paving the way for early French Renaissance literature of the 15th century. The earliest extant French literary texts date from the ninth century, but very few texts before the 11th century have survived. The first literary works written in Old French were saints' lives . The Canticle of Saint Eulalie , written in the second half of the 9th century, is generally accepted as

9890-528: The monastery church to the chapter house or refectory hall and finally to the open air, and the vernacular was substituted for Latin. In the 12th century one finds the earliest extant passages in French appearing as refrains inserted into liturgical dramas in Latin, such as a Saint Nicholas (patron saint of the student clercs) play and a Saint Stephen play. An early French dramatic play is Le Jeu d'Adam ( c.  1150 ) written in octosyllabic rhymed couplets with Latin stage directions (implying that it

10005-555: The most famous characters of which were Renaud de Montauban and Girart de Roussillon . A fourth grouping, not listed by Bertrand, is the Crusade cycle , dealing with the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath. Jean Bodel 's other two categories—the "Matter of Rome" and the "Matter of Britain"—concern the French romance or roman . Around a hundred verse romances survive from the period 1150–1220. From around 1200 on,

10120-420: 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

10235-646: The northern parts of the Kingdom of France (including Anjou and Normandy , which in the 12th century were ruled by the Plantagenet kings of England ), Upper Burgundy and the Duchy of Lorraine . The Norman dialect was also spread to England and Ireland , and during the Crusades , Old French was also spoken in the Kingdom of Sicily , and in the Principality of Antioch and the Kingdom of Jerusalem in

10350-534: 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

10465-471: 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

10580-504: The replacement [b] > [f] and in turn the final -se of framboise added to OF fraie to make freise , modern fraise (≠ Wallon frève , Occitan fraga , Romanian fragă , Italian fragola , fravola 'strawberry'). Mildred Pope estimated that perhaps still 15% of the vocabulary of Modern French derives from Germanic sources. This proportion was larger in Old French, because Middle French borrowed heavily from Latin and Italian. The earliest documents said to be written in

10695-471: 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

10810-421: The richer food, the area also supplies much stronger wines, from Bordeaux , Cahors , Madiran , and Languedoc , all of which are washed down with brandy from Armagnac . The following films are set in southern France: Old French Old French ( franceis , françois , romanz ; French : ancien français ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between

10925-547: The spoken language). Vulgar Latin was the ancestor of the Romance languages , including Old French. By the late 8th century, when the Carolingian Renaissance began, native speakers of Romance idioms continued to use Romance orthoepy rules while speaking and reading Latin. When the most prominent scholar of Western Europe at the time, English deacon Alcuin , was tasked by Charlemagne with improving

11040-404: The standards of Latin writing in France, not being a native Romance speaker himself, he prescribed a pronunciation based on a fairly literal interpretation of Latin spelling. For example, in a radical break from the traditional system, a word such as ⟨viridiarium⟩ ' orchard ' now had to be read aloud precisely as it was spelled rather than */verdʒjær/ (later spelled as OF 'vergier' ). Such

11155-514: The tendency was increasingly to write the romances in prose (many of the earlier verse romances were adapted into prose versions), although new verse romances continued to be written to the end of the 14th century. The most important romance of the 13th century is the Romance of the Rose , which breaks considerably from the conventions of the chivalric adventure story. Medieval French lyric poetry

11270-466: 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

11385-754: 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

11500-434: The two. The Old Low Franconian influence is also believed to be responsible for the differences between the langue d'oïl and the langue d'oc (Occitan), being that various parts of Northern France remained bilingual between Latin and Germanic for some time, and these areas correspond precisely to where the first documents in Old French were written. This Germanic language shaped the popular Latin spoken here and gave it

11615-508: 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

11730-485: 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

11845-412: The verb trobar "to find, to invent"). By the late 13th century, the poetic tradition in France had begun to develop in ways that differed significantly from the troubadour poets, both in content and in the use of certain fixed forms. The new poetic (as well as musical: some of the earliest medieval music has lyrics composed in Old French by the earliest composers known by name) tendencies are apparent in

11960-599: 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

12075-402: 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

12190-503: 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 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

12305-414: Was constantly changing and evolving; however, the form in the late 12th century, as attested in a great deal of mostly poetic writings, can be considered standard. The writing system at this time was more phonetic than that used in most subsequent centuries. In particular, all written consonants (including final ones) were pronounced, except for s preceding non- stop consonants and t in et , and final e

12420-638: 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

12535-400: 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

12650-680: Was indebted to the poetic and cultural traditions in Southern France and Provence —including Toulouse and the Aquitaine region—where langue d'oc was spoken ( Occitan language ); in their turn, the Provençal poets were greatly influenced by poetic traditions from the Hispano-Arab world . Lyric poets in Old French are called trouvères – etymologically the same word as the troubadours of Provençal or langue d'oc (from

12765-708: 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

12880-590: Was pronounced [ ə ] . The phonological system can be summarised as follows: Notes: In Old French, the nasal vowels were not separate phonemes but only allophones of the oral vowels before a nasal consonant. The nasal consonant was fully pronounced; bon was pronounced [bõn] ( ModF [bɔ̃] ). Nasal vowels were present even in open syllables before nasals where Modern French has oral vowels, as in bone [bõnə] ( ModF bonne [bɔn] ). Notes: Notes: In addition to diphthongs, Old French had many instances of hiatus between adjacent vowels because of

12995-594: 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

13110-570: 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 ,

13225-617: Was written by Latin-speaking clerics for a lay public). A large body of fables survive in Old French; these include (mostly anonymous) literature dealing with the recurring trickster character of Reynard the Fox . Marie de France was also active in this genre, producing the Ysopet (Little Aesop ) series of fables in verse. Related to the fable was the more bawdy fabliau , which covered topics such as cuckolding and corrupt clergy. These fabliaux would be an important source for Chaucer and for

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