French – A Language spoken in 29 Countries

French is one of the most spoken languages across the globe. Just like Italian and Spanish, French is one of the romance languages derived from Latin, which was a language of the Romans.

Latin was widespread by the Roman colonists. However, after the dissolution of the western Roman empire, most of the conquered lands became linguistically isolated, and Latin evolved into various dialects, known as the Romance languages of today. Gaulish, a Celtic language spoken in ancient Gaul before the Roman invasion, and Old Frankish have also impacted the French language a lot.

Where is French spoken?

François replaced Latin with French as the state language of France in 1539. French is the official language of twenty-nine nations as of now, making it the second official language in the world, the first being English. The 29 countries include Belgium, Burkina Faso, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, the Ivory Coast, Djibouti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, France, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Monaco, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Switzerland, Togo, and Vanuatu.

How many people speak French?

Including the native speakers, partial French speakers, and numerous dialect speakers, around 300 million people use French in their day to day communication. Due to the colonization and diaspora, French is the sixth most spoken language used in the world. The first five are Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, and Arabic. French also happens to be the second most studied language in the world, with 120 million students learning it currently. 
There is an overwhelming majority of people speaking French across five continents, namely Europe, Africa, North America, Asia, and the Middle East. 

Interesting facts about French:

1. Around 45% of modern English words are of French origin. French became the language of the administration and aristocracy after the Norman conquest of England in 1066. That resulted in a significant number of French words and expressions incorporated into English. Over the centuries, French remained a primary language influencing modern English.
2. French has a significant number of homophones, which are words having the same pronunciation but different spellings and meanings. This makes it a lot easy to create tongue twisters. E.g., “Les chaussettes de l’archiduchesse, sont-Elles sèches? Archi-sèches.”
3. Canada is a country where Common Law is practiced in French. Lawyers from New Brunswick played an essential role in drafting the constitution of Mauritius. The New Quebec Civil Code was influential in the drafting of the new codes of law in Russia and China.
4. The longest word in their dictionary is anticonstitutionnellement, and it has 25 letters!

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