96-515: Water Lilies ( French : Nymphéas [nɛ̃.fe.a] ) is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840–1926). The paintings depict his flower garden at his home in Giverny , and were the main focus of his artistic production during the last thirty years of his life. Many of the works were painted while Monet suffered from cataracts . Monet's long-standing preference for producing and exhibiting
192-740: A Sotheby's auction in London . On 24 June 2008 another of his Water Lily paintings, Le Bassin Aux Nymphéas , sold for almost £41 million at Christie's in London , almost double the estimate of £18 to £24 million. In May 2010, it was announced that the 1906 Nymphéas work would be auctioned in London in June 2010. The painting had an estimated sale price of between £30 and £40 million. Giovanna Bertazzoni, Christie's auction house director and head of impressionist and modern art, said, "Claude Monet's water-lily paintings are amongst
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
576-834: A number of controversies connected with the Nazi confiscation of art works during the Second World War, and with the nature of Georges Wildenstein's relationship with the German regime at that time. In May 2000 the Wildensteins lost a court case they had brought in Paris against the art historian Héctor Feliciano , whose book, The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art , suggested that although Georges Wildenstein had fled France for America in 1941,
672-705: A period of prosperity and prominence among European nations. Richelieu established the Académie française to protect the French language. By the early 1800s, Parisian French had become the primary language of the aristocracy in France. Near the beginning of the 19th century, the French government began to pursue policies with the end goal of eradicating the many minorities and regional languages ( patois ) spoken in France. This began in 1794 with Henri Grégoire 's "Report on
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
864-587: A second language. French is the second most taught foreign language in the EU. All institutions of the EU use French as a working language along with English and German ; in some institutions, French is the sole working language (e.g. at the Court of Justice of the European Union ). French is also the 16th most natively spoken language in the world, the sixth most spoken language by total number of speakers , and
960-526: A second language. However it has also become a native language in a number of urban areas, especially in regions like Ivory Coast , Cameroon , Gabon, Madagascar , and the Democratic Republic of the Congo . In some North African countries, though not having official status, it is also a first language among some upper classes of the population alongside indigenous languages, but only
1056-941: A second one among the general population. In 2015, approximately 40% of the Francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) lived in Europe, 36% in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas, and 1% in Asia and Oceania. French is the second most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union . Of Europeans who speak other languages natively, approximately one-fifth are able to speak French as
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#17327828412881152-575: A series of his interviews entitled Marchand d’Art . Wildenstein & Co reopened in Paris after the Second World War but they ended their operations there in the early 1960s after the French minister of culture, Andre Malraux , publicly accused Georges Wildenstein of bribing a ministry official to authorize the export and sale abroad of Georges de La Tour 's painting The Fortune Teller . The case never went to court and Daniel Wildenstein subsequently accused Malraux of being motivated by malice. More recently Wildenstein & Co has become embroiled in
1248-643: A series of paintings related by subject and perspective began in 1889, with at least ten paintings done at the Valley of the Creuse , which were shown at the Galerie Georges Petit. Among his other famous series are his Haystacks . During the 1920s, the state of France built a pair of oval rooms at the Musée de l'Orangerie as a permanent home for eight water lily murals by Monet. The exhibit opened to
1344-540: A total inventory of 10,000 paintings. The secrecy attached to these holdings led to a great deal of interest and speculation in the art world. In 1940 Daniel Wildenstein went to New York to work for the family firm. He had already acted as Group Secretary of the French Pavilion at the World's Fair in 1937 and as exhibitions director at the Chaalis museum and its related Jacquemart-Andre Museum . He took over
1440-547: 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
1536-437: 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
1632-779: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European family . Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . French evolved from Gallo-Romance , the Latin spoken in Gaul , and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl —languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French ( Francien ) largely supplanted. French
1728-472: 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
1824-489: 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
1920-430: Is among the top five most studied languages worldwide, with about 120 million learners as of 2017. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 16th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. French has a long history as an international language of literature and scientific standards and is a primary or second language of many international organisations including
2016-462: Is an official language in 27 countries , as well as one of the most geographically widespread languages in the world, with about 50 countries and territories having it as a de jure or de facto official, administrative, or cultural language. Most of these countries are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the community of 54 member states which share
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#17327828412882112-652: 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
2208-503: Is growing in the business and media environment. Out of about 900,000 students, about 500,000 are enrolled in Francophone schools, public or private, in which the teaching of mathematics and scientific subjects is provided in French. Actual usage of French varies depending on the region and social status. One-third of high school students educated in French go on to pursue higher education in English-speaking institutions. English
2304-404: 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
2400-469: 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
2496-828: 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
2592-555: Is reported to have maintained a close control over the running of the business. The number of Wildenstein galleries around the world shrank in his later years until it contained only two: Wildenstein & Co. and PaceWildenstein, both in New York. PaceWildenstein was established in 1993 as a joint venture with the Pace Gallery to deal in contemporary art. The collaboration came to an end in 2010. In 1999 Wildenstein published
2688-576: Is taught in universities around the world, and is one of the world's most influential languages because of its wide use in the worlds of journalism, jurisprudence , education, and diplomacy. In diplomacy, French is one of the six official languages of the United Nations (and one of the UN Secretariat 's only two working languages ), one of twenty official and three procedural languages of the European Union , an official language of NATO ,
2784-553: 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
2880-483: 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
2976-492: 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
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3072-424: 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
3168-711: 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
3264-462: The Aosta Valley region of Italy; and various communities elsewhere. French is estimated to have about 310 million speakers, of which about 80 million are native speakers. According to the OIF, approximately 321 million people worldwide are "able to speak the language" as of 2022, without specifying the criteria for this estimation or whom it encompasses. In Francophone Africa, it is spoken mainly as
3360-1213: The Art Institute of Chicago , the Saint Louis Art Museum , the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, the Carnegie Museum of Art , Princeton University Art Museum , the National Museum of Wales , the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes , The Toledo Museum of Art , the Cleveland Museum of Art , the Portland Art Museum , and the Legion of Honor . In 2020, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston celebrated its 150th anniversary with some of Monet's Water Lilies paintings. On 19 June 2007, one of Monet's Water Lily paintings sold for £18.5 million at
3456-539: The Democratic Republic of Congo . There is not a single African French , but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages . Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth. It is also where the language has evolved the most in recent years. Some vernacular forms of French in Africa can be difficult to understand for French speakers from other countries, but written forms of
3552-485: The European Union , French was the dominant language within all institutions until the 1990s. After several enlargements of the EU (1995, 2004), French significantly lost ground in favour of English, which is more widely spoken and taught in most EU countries. French currently remains one of the three working languages, or "procedural languages", of the EU, along with English and German. It is the second-most widely used language within EU institutions after English, but remains
3648-559: 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,
3744-877: 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
3840-796: The Kress , Rockefeller , and Mellon families. He opened a New York gallery in 1903 and one in London in 1925. The Wildensteins gained a reputation as shrewd businessmen, stockpiling works to maximise their profits when released onto the market. Nathan built a huge inventory of European Old Master paintings, sculpture, drawings, furniture and decorative objects, to which Daniel's father, Georges , added Impressionist and Postimpressionist works. In 1978 Wildenstein & Co's New York storeroom included 20 pictures by Renoir , 25 Courbets , 10 Van Goghs , 10 Cézannes , 10 Gauguins , 2 Botticellis , 8 Rembrandts , 8 Rubens , 9 El Grecos and 5 Tintorettos among
3936-626: 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
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4032-618: The Rue La Boétie in Paris after fleeing his native Alsace during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71. He first specialised in 18th-century French painting and sculpture, later expanding to Italian, Dutch, Flemish and Spanish art. Although he had been working in a tailor's shop when he began to trade in art he proved extremely successful, selling to European collectors such as Edmond James de Rothschild and later to Americans such as J. P. Morgan , Henry Clay Frick , and to
4128-1012: The United Nations , the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization , the World Trade Organization , the International Olympic Committee , the General Conference on Weights and Measures , and the International Committee of the Red Cross . French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin ) that evolved out of the Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in northern France. The language's early forms include Old French and Middle French . Due to Roman rule, Latin
4224-455: 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;
4320-474: 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
4416-414: The Atlantic, after a series of wins in America followed her victory in the Arc. Among Wildenstein's other successful horses were Pawneese , Madelia , and Flying Water . Wildenstein was a famously irascible owner. His criticism of Pat Eddery's riding of Buckskin in the Ascot Gold Cup of 1978 caused the trainer Peter Walwyn to ask Wildenstein to remove his horses from his yard. They were removed to
4512-510: 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
4608-614: 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,
4704-408: 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
4800-416: 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
4896-530: The Nazis in 1940. The Wildensteins asserted that the books were owned legitimately before the war, that they had been seized from their family safe in October 1940, and that they had then been recovered after the liberation of France. Daniel Wildenstein suggested that inventory markings on the manuscripts apparently connecting them to the Kann collection were of no significance and suggested that claims to ownership made after so long an interval of time had no validity. In June 2011 Daniel's son, Guy Wildenstein ,
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#17327828412884992-427: The Water Lilies, Nymphéas , sold for US$ 54 million at a Sotheby's auction in London. This piece was auctioned to an anonymous buyer, but the piece went on to be part of the exhibition "Painting the Modern Garden: From Monet to Matisse" at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, starting in 2015. The co-chairman of Sotheby's modern and impressionist art department, Helena Newman, claims that
5088-415: The business had continued to trade profitably with the Nazis. Daniel Wildenstein's sons sued for defamation but lost the case. In 1997 the Wildenstein family was sued in New York by the heirs of Alphonse Kann , a prominent Jewish art collector. They claimed that eight illuminated manuscripts, dating from the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries and now in the possession of Wildenstein & Co, had been looted by
5184-478: The care of Henry Cecil , forming a partnership that had considerable success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, only for that relationship to break down in 1985 over criticism of Cecil's then stable-jockey Lester Piggott . Piggott responded by describing the Wildensteins as "inveterate bad losers". In 1939, Daniel Wildenstein married Martine Julie Kapferer, the daughter of a wealthy French Jewish family; they had two sons, Alec and Guy Wildenstein . The marriage
5280-417: The country near French-speaking Quebec, however, it is the foreign language more commonly taught. Vowel phonemes in French Daniel Wildenstein Daniel Leopold Wildenstein (11 September 1917 – 23 October 2001) was a French art dealer , historian and owner-breeder of thoroughbred and standardbred race horses . He was the third member of the family to preside over Wildenstein & Co. , one of
5376-404: 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
5472-448: 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
5568-489: 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
5664-440: The estate of Reinach's daughter in 1972 and had been charged with responsibility for distributing the collection, which was held at the Wildenstein Institute, among the heirs. Wildenstein was a major figure in European horse racing , a four-time winner of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and six times France's leading owner. His horses, many of which he bred, raced under the name of the Allez France Stables and captured many 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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#17327828412885952-715: 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
6432-399: The most important races in France , the United Kingdom and the United States . His first win in the Arc came with the filly Allez France in 1974. He won again with All Along in 1983, with Sagace the following year and with the colt Peintre Celebre , who broke the course record when winning in 1997. The homebred filly All Along was named horse of the year in France and across
6528-453: The most recognised and celebrated works of the 20th Century and were hugely influential to many of the following generations of artists." The sale took place on 23 June 2010 at the auction house and the painting attracted bids of up to £29 million, but it ultimately failed to sell. On 6 May 2014, one of the Water Lilies , Le Bassin aux Nymphéas , was auctioned at Christie's, New York City for $ 27 million.[16] In June 2014, one of
6624-501: The most successful and influential art-dealerships of the 20th century. He was once described as "probably the richest and most powerful art dealer on earth." Wildenstein was born in Verrières-le-Buisson , Essonne to Jeanne "Jane" ( née Lévy) and Georges Wildenstein . He was educated at Cours Hattemer and at the University of Paris , graduating in 1938 and going on to study at the École du Louvre . Wildenstein's grandfather, Nathan Wildenstein, established an art dealership on
6720-420: 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
6816-460: The official use or teaching of French. It is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France; Canada (especially in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick); Belgium ( Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region ); western Switzerland (specifically the cantons forming the Romandy region); parts of Luxembourg; parts of the United States (the states of Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont); Monaco;
6912-499: The only one of that magnitude ever made in the art market." Like his father, Daniel Wildenstein established a reputation as a scholar and art historian. He revised and enlarged the catalogues published by his father and began work on his own projects, investing in the acquisition of archival material and establishing the Wildenstein Institute to issue catalogues raisonné which became the authority for authenticating
7008-534: 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
7104-522: The political party the UMP . Roth died in 2010, but the state pursued a criminal charges. The family was acquitted in 2017 and in 2018 in tax fraud and money-laundering cases brought by the government. In 2021, "France's attorney general and tax authorities brought concerns about the decision to acquit" to the Court of Cassation , with a trial pending in late 2023. In 2022, the IRS assessed taxes and penalties on
7200-471: 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
7296-654: The public on 16 May 1927, a few months after Monet's death. Sixty water lily paintings from around the globe were assembled for a special exhibition at the Musée de l'Orangerie in 1999. The paintings are on prominent display at museums all over the world, including the Musée Marmottan Monet , the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Tate , the Metropolitan Museum of Art , Museum of Modern Art in New York,
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
7488-544: The result is at the top of the original estimated selling price. This price was between 34 and 51 million USD. While many of Monet's masterpieces have sold, there are still an estimated 250 oil paintings from this series. The collection is widely popular, with many of these pieces residing in exhibits. The paintings have been catalogued by Daniel Wildenstein in his Monet: Catalogue Raisonné. French language French ( français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz] )
7584-526: The running of Wildenstein & Co.'s Paris and New York branches in 1959 and those in London and Buenos Aires in 1963, the year his father died. A gallery in Tokyo was added in the early 1970s. As an art dealer Wildenstein was phenomenally successful. A 1998 profile of the family in Vanity Fair magazine asserted that his wealth was estimated at more than $ 5 billion. "His fortune," the magazine stated, "was
7680-536: The subject of an extended legal dispute. In 2005 the Court of Appeal in Paris ruled that his widow Sylvia Wildenstein had been deceived into signing away her inheritance by her stepsons, who claimed that she would otherwise face huge tax bills and a possible criminal investigation. In fact Wildenstein had placed two paintings, a Fragonard and a Boucher , with the investment bank Lazard Frères to cover his estate's tax liabilities. The court ruled that Sylvia Wildenstein
7776-466: 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
7872-754: 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
7968-508: 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
8064-485: 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
8160-599: 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
8256-587: The works of major French artists. His five-volume catalogue raisonné of the work of Claude Monet was published between 1976 and 1992. His two-volumes on Édouard Manet appeared in 1976 and 1977, those on Gustave Courbet in 1977 and 1977, and a book on Paul Gauguin in 2001. He acted as editor-in-chief of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts from 1963 and in 1971 was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts . Although he officially retired in 1990, Wildenstein
8352-402: 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
8448-417: Was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the ( Germanic ) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to the French colonial empire , there are numerous French-based creole languages , most notably Haitian Creole . A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French
8544-585: Was charged by the French authorities with concealing art that had been reported as missing or stolen. The police seized 30 artworks from the vault of the Wildenstein Institute, at least 20 of which, including sculptures by the Italian artist Rembrandt Bugatti , two sketches by Edgar Degas and a pastel by Eugène Delacroix , were claimed to have been originally part of the collection of Joseph Reinach . Daniel Wildenstein had acted as executor of
8640-481: Was dissolved, and he subsequently married Sylvia Roth in 1978, whom he had first met in 1964. Wildenstein fell into a coma and died of cancer in 2001 at the age of 84 in a Paris hospital. He was survived by his second wife and his two sons from a first marriage. Guy Wildenstein assumed responsibility for the art dealership while Alec Wildenstein inherited control of the family's horse racing and breeding operations. After his death, Wildenstein's fortune became
8736-819: 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
8832-498: Was entitled to half of her late husband's personal estate, much of which she claimed had disappeared into foreign trusts, and ordered her stepsons to pay 20 million euros as an advance on a fortune described by The New York Times as having been "variously estimated from 43 million to 4 billion euros". In 2010 Sylvia Wildenstein pursued a criminal case alleging that this tax evasion had been ignored by French ministers connected to her stepson Guy Wildenstein through his involvement with
8928-451: 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
9024-708: 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
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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