The French language descended from the Latin of the Roman Empire and therefore is known as a Romance language. Its development was influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.
French is the official language in France, Belgium (official language in the Walloon Region), Luxembourg (one of three official languages: German, Luxembourgish, French), Switzerland (one of the four official languages along with German, Italian, and Romansch, and is spoken in the region called Romandie).
Today around 300 million people use French as their first or second language. In 1999, French was the 11th most common first language in the world, with 77 million first language speakers and other 51 million second language speakers. There are 33 French speaking-countries - French is the official language in 33 countries, second only to English (spoken officially in 45), most of which form what is called in French La Francophonie, the community of French-speaking nations. French and English are the only languages spoken as a native language on 5 continents and the only languages taught in every country in the world.
French is the official language of France and its overseas territories as well as Bénin; Burkina Faso; the Central African Republic; Congo (Democratic Republic of); Congo (Republic of); Côte d'Ivoire; Gabon; Guinea; Luxembourg; Mali; Monaco; Niger; Sénégal; Togo; the Canadian province of Québec; and the Swiss districts of Vaud, Neuchâtel, Genève, and Jura.
French is one of the two or more official languages in Belgium, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Channel Islands (Guernsey and Jersey), Comoros, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti (the two official languages are French and French Creole), Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles, Switzerland, and Vanuatu.
French plays an important role, either as an administrative, commercial, or international language or simply due to a significant French-speaking population in these countries: Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Dominica (French patois), Egypt, Greece, Grenada (French patois), Guinea-Bissau, India, Italy (Valle d'Aosta), Laos, Lebanon, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Poland, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, United Kingdom (Channel Islands), United States (Louisiana, New England), Vatican City, and Vietnam.
In Canada there are about 7 million native French-speakers, of whom 6 million live in Quebec, and French is one of Canada's two official languages (the other being English). By law, the federal government must operate and provide services in both English and French, proceedings of the Parliament of Canada must be translated into both these languages, and most products sold in Canada must have bilingual labels. Overall, about 13% of Canadians have knowledge of French only, while 18% have knowledge of both English and French. In contrast, over 80% of the population of Quebec speaks French natively, and 95% can speak it. It has been the sole official language of Quebec since 1974. The legal status of French was further strengthened with the 1977 adoption of the Charter of the French Language (popularly known as Bill 101), which guarantees that every person has a right to have the civil administration, the health and social services, corporations, and enterprises in Quebec communicate with him in French. While the Charter mandates that certain provincial government services, such as those relating to health and education, be offered to the English minority in its language, where numbers warrant, its primary purpose is to cement the role of French as the primary language used in the public sphere. Canada has the status of member state in the Francophonie, while the provinces of Québec and New Brunswick are recognized as participating governments.
In the USA French is the third or the forth most-spoken language after English, Spanish and possibly Chinese i.e. if Mandarin and Cantonese are grouped together. French was the most popular foreign language studied in the United States until the 1980s but since then Spanish has gained prominence due to the increasing number of Spanish speaking communities in the United States. Currently French is the second most studied language in the United States, behind Spanish and ahead of German.
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