French language

French
Français
Pronunciation	[fʁɑ̃sɛ]
Spoken in
Region	Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania
Total speakers	200 million (2005) (native and first language speakers)[1][2] and by an estimated 500 million francophones worldwide, (2000)[3][4][5]
Ranking	14 (native), 4 (total)[6][7][8][9]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Western Romance Gallo-Iberian Gallo-Romance Gallo-Rhaetian Oïl French
Writing system	Latin alphabet (French variant)
Official status
Official language in	29 countries  Belgium  Benin  Burkina Faso  Burundi  Cameroon  Canada  Central African Republic  Chad  Comoros  Democratic Republic of the Congo  Côte d'Ivoire  Djibouti  Equatorial Guinea  France  Gabon  Guinea  Haiti  Lebanon  Luxembourg  Madagascar  Mali  Monaco  Niger  Republic of the Congo  Rwanda  Senegal  Seychelles  Switzerland  Togo  Vanuatu 13 Dependent entities  Aosta Valley Clipperton  French Southern and Antarctic Lands  French Polynesia  Guernsey  Jersey  Mayotte  New Caledonia Pondicherry  Saint-Barthélemy  Saint-Martin  Saint-Pierre and Miquelon  Wallis and Futuna Numerous international organisations
Regulated by	Académie française (French Academy)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	fr
ISO 639-2	fre (B)	fra (T)
ISO 639-3	fra
Linguasphere
Regions where it is mother tongue      Regions where it is official language      Regions where it is second language      Regions where it is a minority language
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

This article is part of the series on: French language

Langues d'Oïl Dialects Creoles Francophonie History Oaths of Strasbourg Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts Anglo-Norman Grammar Adverbs Articles and determiners Pronouns Personal pronouns Verbs Conjugation Verb morphology Orthography Alphabet Reforms Use of the circumflex Phonology Elision Liaison Aspirated h

French (français, French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃sɛ]) is a Romance language spoken as a first language by about 136 million people worldwide.^[1][3] Around 190 million people speak French as a second language,^[10] and an additional 200 million speak it as an acquired foreign language.^[11] French speaking communities are present in 57 countries and territories.^[4] Most native speakers of the language live in France, where the language originated. The rest live essentially in Canada, particularly Quebec, New Brunswick and Ontario, as well as Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and certain places in the U.S. states of Maine^[12] and Louisiana.^[13] Most second-language speakers of French live in Francophone Africa, arguably exceeding the number of native speakers.^[14]

French is a descendant of the Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are national languages such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian and Catalan, and minority languages ranging from Occitan to Neapolitan and many more. Its closest relatives however are the other langues d'oïl and French-based creole languages. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.

It is an official language in 29 countries, most of which form what is called, in French, La Francophonie, the community of French-speaking countries. It is an official language of all United Nations agencies and a large number of international organizations. According to the European Union, 129 million (or 26% of the Union's total population), in 27 member states speak French, of which 65 million are native speakers and 69 million claim to speak French either as a second language or as a foreign language, making it the third most spoken second language in the Union, after English and German. Twenty-percent of non-Francophone Europeans know how to speak French, totaling roughly 145.6 million people.^[15] In addition, prior to the mid 20th century, French served as the pre-eminent language of diplomacy among European and colonial powers as well as a lingua franca among the educated classes of Europe.

As a result of France's extensive colonial ambitions between the 17th and 20th centuries, French was introduced to America, Africa, Polynesia, East Asia, and the Caribbean.

Geographic distribution

Europe

Legal status in France

According to the Constitution of France, French has been the official language since 1992.^[16] (although previous legal texts have made it official since 1539, see ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts). France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases (though these dispositions are often ignored) and legal contracts; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words.

In addition to French, there are also a variety of regional languages and dialects. France has signed the European Charter for Regional Languages, but has not ratified it since that would go against the 1958 Constitution.

Switzerland

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 Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. The language divisions in Switzerland do not coincide with political subdivisions and some cantons enjoy bilingual status. French is the native language of about 20% of the Swiss population.

Most of Swiss French is mutually compatible with the standard French spoken in France, but it is often used with small differences, such as those involving some numbers.

Belgium

Bilingual signs in Brussels.

In Belgium, French is the official language of Wallonia (excluding the East Cantons, which are German-speaking) and one of the two official languages—along with Dutch—of the Brussels-Capital Region where it is spoken by the majority of the population, though often not as their primary language.^[17] French and German are not official languages nor recognized minority languages in the Flemish Region, although along borders with the Walloon and Brussels-Capital regions, there are a dozen municipalities with language facilities for French speakers. A mirror situation exists for the Walloon Region with respect to the Dutch and German languages. In total, native French speakers make up about 40% of the country's population, while the remaining 60% speak Dutch as a first language. Of the latter, 59% claim to speak French as a second language, meaning that about three quarters of the Belgian population can speak French.^[18][19]

Monaco and Andorra

Although Monégasque is the national language of the Principality of Monaco, French is the only official language, and French nationals make up some 47% of the population.

Catalan is the only official language of Andorra; however, French is commonly used because of the proximity to France. French nationals make up 7% of the population.

Knowledge of French in the European Union and candidate countries^[20]

Italy

French is also an official language, along with Italian, in the small region of Aosta Valley, Italy,^[21] although most people speak the Franco-Provençal language, they use standard French to write. That is because the international recognition of Franco-Provençal as a separated language (as opposed to a dialect or patois of French) was quite recent.

Luxembourg

French is one of three official languages of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, alongside German and Luxembourgish, the natively spoken language of Luxembourg. Luxembourg's education system is trilingual: the first years of primary school are in Luxembourgish, before changing to German; while in secondary school, the language of instruction changes to French.

The United Kingdom and the Channel Islands

French is a large minority language and immigrant language in the UK, with over 300,000 French-born people in the UK. It is also the most popular foreign language. French is understood by 23% of the UK population.^[22]

A large portion of words of the English language (originating in Great Britain) are of French root or origin. This is mostly due to the Norman Conquest of 1066, which led to Norman French becoming the language of administration and the use of French by the aristocracy and upper classes for a 300 year period following the Conquest (while the peasants and lower classes spoke an Anglo-Saxon language).

French is an official language in Jersey and Guernsey, the two bailiwicks collectively referred to as the Channel Islands, although they are separate entities. Both use French to some degree, mostly in an administrative or ceremonial capacity. Jersey Legal French is the standardized variety used in Jersey. However, Norman (in its local forms, Guernésiais and Jèrriais) is the historical vernacular of the islands.

Americas

Canada

The "arrêt" signs (French for "stop") are used in Quebec while the international stop is used in the European French-speaking countries.

French is the second most common language in Canada, after English, and both are official languages at the federal level. French is the sole official language in the province of Quebec, being the mother tongue for some 6.8 million people, or almost 80.1 % (2006 Census) of the Province. About 95.0 % of the people of Quebec speak French as either their first or second language, and for some as their third language. Quebec is also home to the city of Montreal, which is the world's second largest French speaking city, by number of first language speakers. New Brunswick, where about a third of the population is francophone, is the only officially bilingual province. Portions of Eastern Ontario, Northeastern Ontario, Nova Scotia and Manitoba have sizable French minorities, but its prescription as an official language in those jurisdictions and the level of francophone services varies. Smaller pockets of French speakers exist in all other provinces. 10,170,000 Canadians can speak French as either a first or second language, or 30.6% of the country. Due to the increased bilingual school programs and French Immersion Classes in English Canada, the portion of Canadians proficient in French has risen significantly in the past two decades, and is still rising.

The difference between French spoken in Quebec and French spoken in France is similar to American and British English. In Quebec, where the majority of French-speaking Canadians live, the Office québécois de la langue française (English: Quebec Board of the French language) regulates Quebec French and ensures the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101) is respected. As Québécois live near to English-speaking regions, they are more sensitive about the language situation than the European French speakers are, and many object to the use of English words in French (anglicisms).

The Office québécois de la langue française determined that "stop" is a valid French word, however it is observed that stop signs reading "ARRÊT" predominate in French-speaking areas, and "STOP" can be found in majority English-speaking areas.

Haiti

French is one of the official languages of Haiti, in which it is spoken by the educated because of the school system, while Haitian Creole (a French-based creole language) is more widely spoken as the common language and about 75-85% have the ability to speak French.

French overseas departments and territories in the Americas

French is also the official language in France's overseas departments and territories of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy, St. Martin and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.

The United States

French language spread in the United States. Counties marked in yellow are those where 6–12% of the population speak French at home; brown, 12–18%; red, over 18%. French-based creole languages are not included.

French is the fourth^[23][24] most-spoken language in the United States, after English, Spanish and Chinese, and the second most-spoken in the states of Louisiana, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. Louisiana is home to many distinct dialects, of which Cajun French has the largest number of speakers. According to the 2000 US Census, there are over 194,000 people in Louisiana who speak French at home, the most of any state if Creole French is excluded.^[24]

Brazil

The French language in Brazil was spoken in brief period at the colonial attempts in France antarctique and France ecquinociale. Also, the language was used by the community of French immigrants and expatriates in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, and by the Brazilian public education system.

Today the Karipuna indigenous community (nearly 30,000 people) of Amapá in North Brazil speaks a French creole, the Lanc-Patuá, possibly related to the French Guiana Creole.

Africa

Supermarket sign in French in Dakar, Senegal.

     Countries usually considered as Francophone Africa. These countries had a population of 344 million in 2010.^[25] Their population is projected to reach between 684 million^[26] and 732 million^[25] in 2050.      Countries sometimes considered as Francophone Africa

A majority of the world's French-speaking population lives in Africa. According to the 2007 report by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, an estimated 115 million African people spread across 31 Francophone African countries can speak French as either a first or a second language.^[14] This number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learnt French as a foreign language.^[14]

French is mostly a second language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire^[27] and in Libreville, Gabon.^[28] It is not possible to speak of a single form of African French, but rather of diverse forms of African French which have developed because of the contact with many indigenous African languages.^[29]

In the territories of the Indian Ocean, the French language is often spoken alongside French-derived creole languages, the major exception being Madagascar. There, a Malayo-Polynesian language (Malagasy) is spoken alongside French.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid demographic growth.^[30] It is also where the language has evolved the most in recent years.^[31][32] Some vernacular forms of French in Africa can be difficult to understand for French speakers from other countries,^[33] but written forms of the language are very closely related to those of the rest of the French-speaking world.

French is an official language in many African countries, most of them former French or Belgian colonies:

In addition, French is an administrative language and commonly used, though not on an official basis, in Mauritius and in the Maghreb states:

• Algeria
• Mauritania
• Morocco
• Tunisia

Algeria

Most urban Algerians have some working knowledge of French, and a high (though unknown) percentage speak it fluently. In their everyday spoken language, they intermix French words and expressions with their native Arabic or Berber. Much of the educated intelligentsia in the capital speaks both French and Arabic in everyday life, a classic situation of diglossia. A small percentage of the urban elite speaks French as a first language.

However, because of the country's colonial past, the predominance of French has long been politically fraught. Numerous reforms have been implemented in recent decades to improve the status of Arabic in relation to French, especially in education. For this reason, although Algeria is certainly one of the most Francophone countries in the world outside of France, and has perhaps the largest number of French speakers, it does not participate in the Francophonie association.

Egypt

While the predominant European language in Egypt is English, French is learned by some elements of the Egyptian upper and upper-middle classes; for this reason, some highly educated Egyptians will learn French in addition to English at some point in his or her education. Egypt participates in La Francophonie.

French overseas departments and territories in Africa

French is also the official language of Mayotte and Réunion, two overseas territories of France located in the southwest Indian Ocean.

Asia

Lebanon

A Lebanese "mille livres" (thousand-pound) bank note

Arabic is the official language of Lebanon, while a special law shall regulate the use of French. French is considered a second language by the Lebanese people and is used on bank notes (along with Arabic) and on official buildings. French is widely used by the Lebanese, especially for administrative purposes, and is taught in many schools as a secondary language along with Arabic and English.

Syria

Like Lebanon, French was official in Syria until 1943. But in contrast to Lebanon, the language is not official, but still spoken by educated groups, both elite and middle-class.

Israel

There are a significant number of second-language French-speakers in Israel who trace their origins to the Jewish communities of North Africa and Romania. Also, there has been considerable immigration of native French speakers from France in recent years.

Southeast Asia

French is an administrative language in Laos and Cambodia, although its influence has waned in recent years.^[34] In colonial Vietnam, the elites spoke French, and many who worked for the French spoke a French creole known as "Tây Bồi" (now extinct). The language was also spoken by the elite in the leased territory Guangzhouwan in southern China. (See also: French Indochina) In Singapore, the language has no official status but students are given the option of taking French as a third language for the GCE Ordinary Level as well as the GCE Advanced Level examination.

India

French has de-jure official status in the Indian Union Territory of Puducherry, along with the regional languages Tamil and Telugu. Some students of Tamil Nadu opt for French as their second or third language (usually behind English and Tamil).

French is commonly taught as a third language in secondary schools in most cities of Maharashtra, including Mumbai (Bombay), as part of the preparation for secondary school (X-SSC) and higher secondary school (XII-HSC) certificate examinations. Certain high-profile schools affiliated with the CBSE in the NCR offer French as an option as early as grade 4.

French is also taught in schools in Chandannagar (a former French colony in West Bengal). Students also have the option for having French as an additional subject in the secondary school (WBBSE) and higher secondary school (WBCHSE) certificate examinations. Nevertheless, French is taught throughout India as an optional Foreign language and is very popular subject among students. See also: French India

Oceania

French is an official language of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu where 45% of the population can speak French.^[35] In the French territory of New Caledonia, 97% of the population can speak, read and write French, whereas only 1% have no knowledge of French.^[36] In French Polynesia, 95% of the population can speak, read and write French, whereas only 2% have no knowledge of French.^[37] In the French territory of Wallis and Futuna, 78% of the population can speak, read and write French, whereas 17% have no knowledge of French.^[38]

Dialects

History

Phonology

Although there are many French regional accents, foreign learners normally study only one version of the language, which has no commonly used special name.

• There are 16 vowels in French, not all of which are used in every dialect: /a/, /ɑ/, /e/, /ɛ/, /ə/, /i/, /o/, /ɔ/, /y/, /u/, /œ/, /ø/, plus the nasalized vowels /ɑ̃/, /ɛ̃/, /ɔ̃/ and /œ̃/. In France, the vowels /ɑ/ and /œ̃/ are tending to be replaced by /a/ and /ɛ̃/ in many people's speech.
• Voiced stops (i.e. /b d ɡ/) are typically produced fully voiced throughout.
• Voiceless stops (i.e. /p t k/) are unaspirated.
• Nasals: The velar nasal /ŋ/ can occur in final position in borrowed (usually English) words: parking, camping, swing but the palatal nasal often substitute it. The palatal nasal /ɲ/ can occur in word initial position (e.g. gnon), but it is most frequently found in intervocalic, onset position or word-finally (e.g. montagne).
• Fricatives: French has three pairs of homorganic fricatives distinguished by voicing, i.e. labiodental /f/–/v/, dental /s/–/z/, and palato-alveolar /ʃ/–/ʒ/. Notice that /s/–/z/ are dental, like the plosives /t/–/d/, and the nasal /n/.
• French has one rhotic whose pronunciation varies considerably among speakers and phonetic contexts. In general it is described as a voiced uvular fricative as in [ʁu] roue, "wheel" . Vowels are often lengthened before this segment. It can be reduced to an approximant, particularly in final position (e.g. fort) or reduced to zero in some word-final positions. For other speakers, a uvular trill is also common, and an apical trill [r] occurs in some dialects.
• Lateral and central approximants: The lateral approximant /l/ is unvelarised in both onset (lire) and coda position (il). In the onset, the central approximants [w], [ɥ], and [j] each correspond to a high vowel, /u/, /y/, and /i/ respectively. There are a few minimal pairs where the approximant and corresponding vowel contrast, but there are also many cases where they are in free variation. Contrasts between /j/ and /i/ occur in final position as in /pɛj/ paye, "pay", vs. /pɛi/ pays, "country".

French pronunciation follows strict rules based on spelling, but French spelling is often based more on history than phonology. The rules for pronunciation vary between dialects, but the standard rules are:

• final consonants: Final single consonants, in particular s, x, z, t, d, n,f,g and m, are normally silent. A consonants is final when no vowel follow it even though one or more consonants follow it. (The final letters c,k,q and l, however, are normally pronounced.) For the r, usually it's silent when it follow an e in a word of two or more syllables and pronounced in other case. The t is pronounced when it follow a c.
  • When the following word begins with a vowel, however, a silent consonant may once again be pronounced, to provide a liaison or "link" between the two words. Some liaisons are mandatory, for example the s in les amants or vous avez; some are optional, depending on dialect and register, for example the first s in deux cents euros or euros irlandais; and some are forbidden, for example the s in beaucoup d'hommes aiment. The t of et is never pronounced and the silent final consonant of a noun is only pronounced in the plural and in set phrases like pied-à-terre.
  • Doubling a final n and adding a silent e at the end of a word (e.g. chien → chienne) makes it clearly pronounced. Doubling a final l and adding a silent e (e.g. gentil → gentille) adds a [j] sound if the l is preceded by the letter i.
• elision or vowel dropping: Some monosyllabic function words ending in a or e, such as je and que, drop their final vowel when placed before a word that begins with a vowel sound (thus avoiding a hiatus). The missing vowel is replaced by an apostrophe. (e.g. je ai is instead pronounced and spelled → j'ai). This gives, for example, the same pronunciation for l'homme qu'il a vu ("the man whom he saw") and l'homme qui l'a vu ("the man who saw him"). However, for Belgian French the sentences are pronounced differently; in the first sentence the syllable break is as "qu'il-a", while the second breaks as "qui-l'a". It can also be noted that, in Quebec French, the second example (l'homme qui l'a vu) is more emphasized on l'a vu.

Writing system

Alphabet

French is written with the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, with four diacritics appearing on vowels (circumflex accent, acute accent, grave accent, diaeresis) and the cedilla appearing in ‹ç›.

There are two ligatures, ‹œ› and ‹æ›.

Orthography

French spelling, like English spelling, tends to preserve obsolete pronunciation rules. This is mainly due to extreme phonetic changes since the Old French period, without a corresponding change in spelling (see Vocabulary below) . Moreover, some conscious changes were made to restore Latin orthography:

• Old French doit > French doigt "finger" (Latin digitus)
• Old French pie > French pied "foot" (Latin pes (stem: ped-))

As a result, it is difficult to predict the spelling based on the sound alone. Final consonants are generally silent, except when the following word begins with a vowel. For example, all of these words end in a vowel sound: pied, aller, les, finit, beaux. The same words followed by a vowel, however, may sound the consonants, as they do in these examples: beaux-arts, les amis, pied-à-terre.

On the other hand, a given spelling will usually lead to a predictable sound, and the Académie française works hard to enforce and update this correspondence. In particular, a given vowel combination or diacritic predictably leads to one phoneme.

French writing, as with any language, is affected by the spoken language. In Old French, the plural for animal was animals. The /als/ sequence was unstable and was turned into a diphthong /aus/. This change was then reflected in the orthography: animaus. The us ending, very common in Latin, was then abbreviated by copists monks by the letter x, resulting in a written form animax. As the French language further evolved, the pronunciation of au turned into /o/ so that the u was reestablished in orthography for consistency, resulting in modern French animaux (pronounced first /animos/ before the final /s/ was dropped in contemporary French). The same is true for cheval pluralized as chevaux and many others. In addition, castel pl. castels became château pl. châteaux.

• Nasal: n and m. When n or m follows a vowel or diphthong, the n or m becomes silent and causes the preceding vowel to become nasalized (i.e. pronounced with the soft palate extended downward so as to allow part of the air to leave through the nostrils). Exceptions are when the n or m is doubled, or immediately followed by a vowel. The prefixes en- and em- are always nasalized. The rules are more complex than this but may vary between dialects.
• Digraphs: French uses not only diacritics to specify its large range of vowel sounds and diphthongs, but also specific combinations of vowels, sometimes with following consonants, to show which sound is intended.
• Gemination: Within words, double consonants are generally not pronounced as geminates in modern French (but geminates can be heard in the cinema or TV news from as recently as the 1970s, and in very refined elocution they may still occur). For example, illusion is pronounced [ilyzjɔ̃] and not [ilːyzjɔ̃]. But gemination does occur between words. For example, une info ("a news item" or "a piece of information") is pronounced [ynɛ̃fo], whereas une nympho ("a nymphomaniac") is pronounced [ynːɛ̃fo].
• Accents are used sometimes for pronunciation, sometimes to distinguish similar words, and sometimes for etymology alone.
  • Accents that affect pronunciation
    • The acute accent (l'accent aigu), é (e.g. école—school), means that the vowel is pronounced /e/ instead of the default /ə/.
    • The grave accent (l'accent grave), è (e.g. élève—pupil) means that the vowel is pronounced /ɛ/ instead of the default /ə/.
    • The circumflex (l'accent circonflexe) ê (e.g. forêt—forest) shows that an e is pronounced /ɛ/ and that an ô is pronounced /o/. In standard French, it also signifies a pronunciation of /ɑ/ for the letter â, but this differentiation is disappearing. In the late 19th century, the circumflex was used in place of s after a vowel, where that letter s was not to be pronounced. Thus, forest became forêt and hospital became hôpital.
    • The diaeresis (le tréma) (e.g. naïf—naive, Noël—Christmas) as in English, specifies that this vowel is pronounced separately from the preceding one, not combined, and is not a schwa.
    • The cedilla (la cédille) ç (e.g. garçon—boy) means that the letter ç is pronounced /s/ in front of the hard vowels a, o and u (c is otherwise /k/ before a hard vowel). C is always pronounced /s/ in front of the soft vowels e, i, and y, thus ç is never found in front of soft vowels.
  • Accents with no pronunciation effect
    • The circumflex does not affect the pronunciation of the letters i or u, and in most dialects, a as well. It usually indicates that an s came after it long ago, as in île (island, compare with English isle). The explanation is that some words share the same orthograph, and the circumflex is put here to spot the difference between the two words. For example, dites (you say) / dîtes (you said), or even du (of the) / dû (past for the verb devoir = must, have to, owe; in this case, the circumflex splits at the plural and the feminine)
    • All other accents are used only to distinguish similar words, as in the case of distinguishing the adverbs là and où ("there", "where") from the article la ("the" fem. sing.) and the conjunction ou ("or") respectively.

Some proposals exist to simplify the existing writing system, but they still fail to gather interest. ^{[39] [40] [41]}

Grammar

French grammar shares several notable features with most other Romance languages, including:

• the loss of Latin's declensions
• only two grammatical genders
• the development of grammatical articles from Latin demonstratives
• new tenses formed from auxiliaries

French declarative word order is Subject Verb Object, although if the object is a pronoun, it precedes the verb. Some types of sentences allow for or require different word orders, in particular inversion of the subject and verb.

Vocabulary

The majority of French words derive from Vulgar Latin or were constructed from Latin or Greek roots. In many cases a single etymological root appears in French in a "popular" or native form, inherited from Vulgar Latin, and a learned form, borrowed later from Classical Latin. The following pairs consist of a native noun and a learned adjective:

• brother: frère / fraternel < from Latin frater
• finger: doigt / digital < from Latin digitum
• faith: foi / fidèle < from Latin fidem
• eye: œil / oculaire < from Latin oculum

There are also noun-noun and adjective-adjective pairs:

• thing/cause: chose / cause < from Latin causa
• cold: froid / frigide < from Latin frigidum

It can be difficult to identify the Latin source of native French words, because in the evolution from Vulgar Latin, unstressed syllables were severely reduced and the remaining vowels and consonants underwent significant modifications.

It is estimated that 12% (4,200) of common French words found in a typical dictionary such as the Petit Larousse or Micro-Robert Plus (35,000 words) are of foreign origin (where Greek and Latin learned words are not seen as foreign). About 25% (1,054) of these foreign words come from English and are fairly recent borrowings. The others are some 707 words from Italian, 550 from ancient Germanic languages, 481 from other Gallo-Romance languages, 215 from Arabic, 164 from German, 160 from Celtic languages, 159 from Spanish, 153 from Dutch, 112 from Persian and Sanskrit, 101 from Native American languages, 89 from other Asian languages, 56 from other Afro-Asiatic languages, 55 from Slavic languages and Baltic languages, 10 from Basque and 144 (about 3%) from other languages.^[42]

Numerals

The French counting system is partially vigesimal: twenty (vingt) is used as a base number in the names of numbers from 60 to 99. The French word for 80 is quatre-vingt, literally "four twenty", and the word for 75 is soixante-quinze, literally "sixty-fifteen". This reform arose after the French Revolution to unify the different counting systems (mostly vigesimal near the coast, because of Celtic (via Breton) and Viking influences). This system is comparable to the archaic English use of score, as in "fourscore and seven" (87), or "threescore and ten" (70). In Old French (during the Middle Ages), all numbers from 30 to 99 could be said in either base 10 or base 20, e.g. vint et doze (twenty and twelve) for 32, dous vinz et diz (two twenties and ten) for 50, uitante for 80, or nonante for 90.^[43]

Belgian French, Swiss French and the French used in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi are different in this respect. In Belgium and Switzerland 70 and 90 are septante and nonante. In Switzerland, depending on the local dialect, 80 can be quatre-vingts (Geneva, Neuchâtel, Jura) or huitante (Vaud, Valais, Fribourg). Octante had been used in Switzerland in the past, but is now considered archaic.^[44] In Belgium and in its former African colonies, however, quatre-vingts is universally used.

It should also be noted that French uses a period (also called a full stop) or a space to separate thousands where English uses a comma or (more recently) a space. The comma is used in French numbers as a decimal point: 2,5 = deux virgule cinq.

Cardinal numbers in French from 1 to 20 are as follows:

• One: un/une /œ̃/ - /yn/
• Two: deux /dø/
• Three: trois /tʁwa/
• Four: quatre /katʁ/
• Five: cinq /sɛ̃k/
• Six: six /sis/
• Seven: sept /sɛt/
• Eight: huit /ɥit/
• Nine: neuf /nœf/
• Ten: dix /dis/
• Eleven: onze /ɔ̃z/
• Twelve: douze /duz/
• Thirteen: treize /tʁɛz/
• Fourteen: quatorze /katɔʁz/
• Fifteen: quinze /kɛ̃z/
• Sixteen: seize /sɛz/
• Seventeen: dix-sept /dis.sɛt/
• Eighteen: dix-huit /di.z‿ɥit/
• Nineteen: dix-neuf /diz.nœf/
• Twenty: vingt /vɛ̃/

Examples

This section includes inline links to audio files. If you have trouble playing the files, see Wikipedia Media help.

The "Canadian" audio samples here are not necessarily from speakers of Quebec French, which has distinct regional pronunciations of certain words.^{references needed}

See also

• Académie française
• Alliance française
• Francophonie
• French language in Canada
• French language in the United States
• French proverbs
• French-based creole languages
• History of French
• List of countries where French is an official language
• List of English words of French origin
• List of French loanwords in Persian
• List of French words and phrases used by English speakers
• List of pseudo-French words adapted to English
• Louchébem
• Office québécois de la langue française
• Quebec French
• Reforms of French orthography
• Varieties of French
• Verlan

References

External links

French language edition of Wikisource, the free-content library

• French is spreading, especially in Africa Radio France Internationale in English

Courses and tutorials

• A non-free online French course provided by an Indian company with support of the French embassy in India (culture, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation)
• Learn French BBC
• français interactif University of Texas at Austin
• Tex's French Grammar University of Texas at Austin
• Learn French at About (including French gestures)
• Learn French at Target Language (Ab initio)

Online dictionaries

• Comprehensive list of the best French dictionaries

Vocabulary

• Swadesh list in English and French
• A Two-Page PDF Reference Guide of the 681 Most Common French/English Verbs

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