Test Your Knowledge of the French Language

French: A Language with Global Reach

• French is a Romance language that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, specifically from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul.

• French is an official language in 29 countries across multiple continents, most of which are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the community of 84 countries which share the official use or teaching of French.

• French is spoken as a first language in France, Canada, Belgium, western Switzerland, parts of Luxembourg, parts of the United States, Monaco, the Aosta Valley region of Italy, and various communities elsewhere.

• Approximately 40% of the francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) lived in Europe in 2015, 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, and 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 certain institutions, French is the sole working language.

• French is also the 18th most natively spoken language in the world, fifth most spoken language by total number of speakers, and the second or third most studied language worldwide.

• French is estimated to have about 76 million native speakers, about 235 million daily, fluent speakers, and another 77–110 million secondary speakers who speak it as a second language to varying degrees of proficiency.

• According to the OIF, approximately 321 million people worldwide are "able to speak the language".

• The total number of French speakers will reach approximately 500 million in 2025 and 650 million by 2050.

• French has a long history as an international language of literature and scientific standards and is a primary or second language of many international organizations.

• French was replaced by English as the most important language of diplomacy and international relations (lingua franca) in the middle of the 20th century.

• The majority of the world's French-speaking population lives in Africa, and French is the fastest growing language on the continent.The Status and Importance of the French Language Worldwide

• French is spoken in numerous countries across the world, with significant populations in Europe, Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.

• French is the second-most common language in Canada, where it is the sole official language in Quebec, and is an official language in all territories.

• French is the fourth most spoken language in the United States and is spoken in Louisiana, New England, and other pockets across the country.

• French is one of the official languages in Haiti and is the sole official language in French West Indies territories.

• French was the official language of French Indochina and remains an administrative language in Laos and Cambodia.

• French is a secondary language in Lebanon, where it is widespread among the population and taught in many schools.

• French is an observer state in the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie for the United Arab Emirates and an associate state for Qatar.

• French is an official language in Vanuatu, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna in Oceania and Australasia.

• French is taught in universities around the world and is influential in journalism, jurisprudence, education, and diplomacy.

• French is one of the six official languages of the United Nations and is an official language of NATO, the International Olympic Committee, and the World Trade Organization.

• French is considered a useful skill for business owners in the UK and is the most sought-after foreign language in the country.

• French pronunciation follows strict rules based on spelling, but French spelling is often based more on history than phonology.

• The French alphabet consists of 26 letters, with additional diacritics and ligatures used in the written language.Overview of French Language

• French language has 26 letters of the basic Latin script, with four diacritics appearing on vowels, and the cedilla appearing in "ç".

• French spelling tends to preserve obsolete pronunciation rules, and some conscious changes were made to restore Latin orthography.

• French orthography is morphophonemic, and while it contains 130 graphemes that denote only 36 phonemes, many of its spelling rules are due to consistency in morphemic patterns.

• French is a moderately inflected language, and nouns and most pronouns are inflected for number, adjectives for number and gender, and verbs for tense, aspect, mood, and person and number of their subjects.

• French grammar shares several notable features with most other Romance languages.

• Every French noun is either masculine or feminine, and for nouns regarding the living, their grammatical genders often correspond to that which they refer to.

• The French language consists of both finite and non-finite moods, and the finite moods include the indicative, the subjunctive, the imperative, and the conditional mood.

• French declarative word order is subject–verb–object, while some types of sentences allow for or require different word orders.

• The majority of French words derive from Vulgar Latin or were constructed from Latin or Greek roots.

• The numeral system used in the majority of Francophone countries employs both decimal and vigesimal counting.

• French, like most European languages, uses a space to separate thousands, and the comma is used in French numbers as a decimal point.

• French is one of the official languages of the United Nations, and it is estimated that French is spoken by 300 million people worldwide.