French language
| French | |
|---|---|
| français | |
| Spoken in | Africa, Europe, Americas, PacificFrance, including French Overseas Departments, Communities and Territories; Canada especially in Quebec, New Brunswick and parts of Ontario; Belgium; Switzerland; Lebanon; Luxembourg; Monaco; Morocco; Algeria; Tunisia; many Western and Central African nations such as Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger and Senegal; Haiti; Mauritius; some Asian countries such as Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam; Mexico; and the U.S. states of Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Maine. |
| Total speakers | 270 million, of which 120 million are native or fluent[1] |
| Language family | Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Western Gallo-Iberian Gallo-Romance Gallo-Rhaetian Oïl |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | fr |
| ISO 639-3 | fra |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | |
French (français) is the third-largest of the Romance languages in terms of number of native speakers, after Spanish and Portuguese. It is spoken by about 175 million people as a mother tongue or fluently, mainly in Europe, Canada and Africa. It is an official language in 41 countries, most of which form what is called in French La Francophonie, the community of French-speaking nations.
Descended from the Latin of the Roman Empire, its development was influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul (particularly in pronunciation), and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. This is one of the reasons why certain French sounds and spellings are distinctly different from those of other Romance languages such as Spanish and Italian and why Spanish and Italian sound more similar to one another than French does to either one of them.
A lingua franca in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, its international role then declined to the benefit of English. It has kept some international recognition however, being one of the two official languages of NATO and IOC, and one of the two working languages of the UN Secretariat
History
French changed through the centuries. This section is not a systematic History of French, its only purpose is to mention some historical evolutions that account for the form of modern French.
By the middle of the first century BCE, the part of Gaul that was to become France was completely conquered by the Romans. Latin, and especially Vulgar Latin (i.e the popular language) progressively replaced the local Gaulish languages. The raimnants of Gaulish languages are to be found in some phonological features and in a few words mostly dealing with rural life.
Germanic tribes settled in Gaul during the Migration Period,. The most important, that of the Franks, gave its name to France. Germanic presence in France caused some changes in pronunciation and grammar, especially in the Nothern half of Gaul. It evolved into a number of mutually intelligible Oïl languages. Though a variety of dialects remained for long, a common juridical and literary languages arose during the High Middle Ages. By the late 13th century, this common language was called interlingua Gallica (French common language). It progressively extended to Occitan languages-speaking areas in the South of France. By the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts in 1539 King Francis I made French the official language of administration and court proceedings in France, ousting the Latin, that was still in use in official texts.
The 16th century was a period of intense reflection on language. It may partly be explained by the fact that linguistic unity was still very incomplete. Many dialects were still used even among the cultivated, Italian had a great cultural prestige and most scholars used latin that could be read throughout Europe. The situation largely changed in the the 17th century. In 1635, the Académie française was founnded. Its aim was to promote and refine a national model for the French language Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag. The vowel quality is identical to é /e/.
Some attempts have been made to reform French spelling, but few major changes have been made over the last two centuries.
Samples
| English | French | IPA pronunciation |
|---|---|---|
| French | français | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| English | anglais | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Yes | Oui | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| No | Non | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Hello! | Bonjour ! | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Good evening! | Bonsoir ! | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Good night! | Bonne nuit ! | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Goodbye! | Au revoir ! | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Have a good day! | Bonne journée ! | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Please | S'il vous plaît | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Thank you | Merci | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Sorry | Pardon / désolé (if male) / désolée (if female) | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp / Template:Audio-IPA |
| Who? | Qui ? | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| What? | Quoi ? | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| When? | Quand ? | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Where? | Où ? | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Why? | Pourquoi ? | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Because | Parce que | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| How? | Comment ? | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| How much? | Combien ? | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| I do not understand. | Je ne comprends pas. | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Yes, I understand. | Oui, je comprends. | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Help! | Au secours !! (à l'aide !) | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Where are the toilets? | Où sont les toilettes ? | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
| Do you speak English? | Parlez-vous anglais ? | Template:Audio-IPA-nohelp |
Note: In these example audio files, you will hear a Canadian French accent.
Notes
References
- Walter, Henriette and Gérard, Dictionnaire des mots d'origine étrangère, 1998.
- ↑ The French language in the world: an expanding community, Accessed June 14
See also
- Dialects of the French language
- Académie française
- Alliance française
- List of countries where French is an official language
- List of English words of French origin
- List of French phrases
- French in Canada
- French in the United States
- French Language Wikipedia
- French phrases used by English speakers
- French proverbs
- Francophone
- La Francophonie
- Reforms of French orthography
- Morphology of the French verb
- Louchebem
- Verlan
- French Creole languages
- Swadesh list of French words
- History of the French language
External links
Template:Wiktionarylang Template:InterWiki Template:Wikibookspar Template:Commonscat
- Template:Fr icon Académie française
- Free Audio base of French Words
- Ethnologue report for French
- French Language Course
- French language introduction and resource library
- Learn French at About
- Why study French
- French dictionary
- French german dictionary
- Great Terminologic Dictionnary (by the office of French language of Québec)
- Learn the basic rules of French
- French phrases for the phone
Template:Official UN languages Template:Official EU languages Template:Romance languages
- Pages with reference errors
- French language
- Languages of Belgium
- Languages of Canada
- Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Languages of France
- Languages of French Guiana
- Languages of French Polynesia
- Languages of Lebanon
- Languages of Luxembourg
- Languages of Morocco
- Languages of New Caledonia
- Languages of Switzerland
- Languages of Wallis and Futuna
- Languages of Tunisia
- Oïl languages
- Synthetic languages
- CZ Live
- Linguistics Workgroup