|
|
The French LanguageThe French language has approximately 113,000,000 speakers and is the 11th most common first language in the world.
French is the official language in France, Luxembourg, Monaco, Bénin; Burkina Faso; Central African Republic; Congo (Democratic Republic of); Congo (Republic of); Côte d'Ivoire; Gabon; Guinea; Mali; Monaco; Niger; Sénégal; Togo; the Canadian Province of Québec; and the Swiss districts of Vaud, Neuchâtel, Genève, and Jura. It is also one of the official languages of the European Union. French is also a co-official language in Belgium, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Comoros Islands, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti (the two official languages are French and French Creole), Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles, Switzerland, and Vanuatu. The earliest French text in existence dates from the 9th century AD, a poem about the martyrdom of St Eulalia. After English, French is the second most commonly-taught second language in the world. |
|
|
|
||
French belongs
to the Gallo-Romance branch of the Indo-European family tree, descended
from the vernacular Latin of the Roman empire.