French (français, French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃sɛ]) is a Romance language Distribution of major language groups. Romance languages are in dark blue globally spoken by about 110 million people as a first language Sometimes the term first language is used for the language that the speaker speaks best (mother tongue), by 50 million as a second language A second language is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue (L1). Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language A second language is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue (L1). Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas, with significant speakers in 57 countries.^[1] Most native speakers of the language live in France France (pronounced /ˈfræns/ , French pronunciation (help·info) or /ˈfrɑːns/; French: [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends,^[17] where the language originated. The rest live essentially in Canada Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean. It is the world's second largest country by total area and shares the world's longest common border with the United States to the south and northwest (particularly Quebec Quebec (English pronunciation: /kwɨˈbɛk/ or /kəˈbɛk/; French Québec [kebɛk] ) is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking identity and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level), Belgium The Kingdom of Belgium /ˈbɛldʒəm/ is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO. Belgium covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres (11,787 sq mi) and has a population of about 10.7 million, Switzerland Switzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation (Confoederatio Helvetica in Latin, hence its ISO country codes CH and CHE), is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Central Europe where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy, French-speaking Africa African French is the generic name of the varieties of French spoken by an estimated 115 million African people spread across 31 francophone African countries. This includes those who speak French as a first or second language in these 31 francophone African countries , but it does not include French speakers living in non-francophone African, Luxembourg Luxembourg (pronounced /ˈlʌksəmbɜrɡ/ ), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (Luxembourgish: Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg, French: Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, German: Großherzogtum Luxemburg), is a small, landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. Luxembourg has a population of under half a million, and Monaco Monaco /ˈmɒnəkoʊ/ , officially the Principality of Monaco (French: Principauté de Monaco; Monégasque: Principatu de Múnegu; Italian: Principato di Monaco; Occitan: Principat de Mónegue), is a small sovereign city-state located in South Western Europe on the northern central coast of the Mediterranean Sea, having a land border on three. Most second-language speakers of French live in Francophonic Africa, arguably exceeding the number of native speakers.^[18] The Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a country located in Central Africa, with a small length of Atlantic coastline. It is the third largest country (by area) in Africa. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is, with a UN estimated population of 66,020,000, the nineteenth most populous nation in the world, and the fourth most populous nation in is the Francophone country with the largest population.

French is a descendant of the Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe. Romance languages such as Italian, French, Catalan, Romanian, Spanish, and Portuguese are descended from Latin, while many others, especially European languages, have inherited language of the Roman Empire The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus. The nearly 500-year-old Roman Republic,, as are national languages such as Portuguese Portuguese ( português or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (namely the Gallaeci, the Lusitanians, the Celtici and the Conii) around 2000 years ago. It spread worldwide in the 15th, Spanish Spanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula. It was taken most notably to the Americas, and also to Africa and Asia Pacific with the expansion of the, Italian Italian ( italiano , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City. Standard Italian, adopted by the and Romanian Romanian (obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: limba română [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə] ) or Daco-Romanian is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania, Republic of Moldova, and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia. In the Republic of, and minority languages ranging from Catalan Catalan is a Romance language, the national and official language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencià (Valencian), as well as in the city of Alghero on the Italian island of Sardinia. It is also spoken, although with and Occitan Occitan , known also as Lenga d'òc in Occitan or Langue d'oc in French (native name: occitan [utsiˈta], lenga d'òc [ˈleŋɡɔˈðɔ(k)]; native nickname: la lenga nòstra i.e. "our [own] language") is a Romance language spoken in Occitania, that is, Southern France, the Occitan Valleys of Italy, Monaco and in the Aran Valley of Spain to Neapolitan Neapolitan is the language of the city and region of Naples, Campania (Neapolitan: Nàpule; Italian: Napoli). On October 14, 2008 a law by the Region of Campania stated that the Neapolitan language had to be protected and many more. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, having much earlier been used by Greek and Roman writers to describe tribes in central Gaul. During the 1st of Roman Gaul Gaul is a historical name used in the context of the Roman Empire in references to the region of Western Europe approximating present day France and Belgium, but also sometimes including the Po Valley, western Switzerland, and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the River Rhine. In English, the word Gaul may also refer to and by the Germanic The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe. Proto-Germanic, along with all of its descendants, is characterized by a language of the post-Roman Frankish The Franks or Frankish people were a West Germanic tribal confederation first attested in the 3rd century as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a kingdom on Roman-held soil that was invaders.

It is an official language An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a language a legal status, even if that language is not in 29 countries The following is a list of the 29 countries where French is an official language. Note that in most of these countries, French is not the only language, and therefore the population does not indicate the number of French-speakers, most of which form what is called, in French, La Francophonie La Francophonie, or the Francophonie, is an international organization of polities and governments with French as the mother or customary language, wherein a significant proportion of people are francophones or where there is a notable affiliation with the French language or culture, the community of French-speaking nations. It is an official language of all United Nations The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries, and agencies and a large number of international organizations List of international organisations which have French as an official, administrative or working language. According to the European Union The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 member states, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community. With almost 500 million citizens, the EU combined generates an, 129 million (26% of the 497,198,740) people in 27 member states speak French, of which 65 million (12%) are native speakers and 69 million (14%) claim to speak it either as a second language or as a foreign language, which makes it the third most spoken second language in the Union, after English English is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries and of the United States since the mid 20th century, it has become the lingua franca in many parts of (2nd rank) and German German (Deutsch, [ˈdɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by about 80 million non-native (1st rank). In addition, prior to the mid 20th century, French served as the preeminent language of diplomacy among European and colonial powers as well as a lingua franca A lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues among the educated classes of Europe.

As a result of France's extensive colonial ambitions The French colonial empire is the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 1600s to the late 1960s . In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire extended over 12,347,000 km² (4,767,000 sq. miles) of between the 17th and 20th centuries, French was introduced to America, Africa, Polynesia, and the Caribbean. As a result, many creole A creole language is a language that originated from a mixture of various languages. The creole language consists of words inherited from the parent languages, except for phonetic and semantic shifts. On the other hand, the grammar and words often has original features and may differ substantially from those of the parent languages languages A French creole, or French-based creole language, is a creole language based on the French language, more specifically on a 17th century koiné French extent in Paris, the French Atlantic harbors, and the nascent French colonies. Descendants of the non-creole colonial koiné are still spoken in Canada , the Prairies, Louisiana, Saint-Barthélemy ( developed as a result of the mixture of French and native languages, including Yoruba Yoruba is a dialect continuum of West Africa with over 25 million speakers. The native tongue of the approximately 28 million Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and traces of it are found among communities in Brazil, Sierra Leone (where it is called Oku), northern Ghana (where it is spoken by urban, Spanish Spanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula. It was taken most notably to the Americas, and also to Africa and Asia Pacific with the expansion of the, Portuguese Portuguese ( português or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (namely the Gallaeci, the Lusitanians, the Celtici and the Conii) around 2000 years ago. It spread worldwide in the 15th, and English English is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries and of the United States since the mid 20th century, it has become the lingua franca in many parts of.

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