French

La langue française

Number of native speakers

77 million native speakers with many more speaking it as a second language (150-220 million)

Official language in

France, Belgium, Switzerland, Monaco, Luxemburg, EU, Canada, Haiti, Vanuatu and 21 countries in Africa.

Minority language in

Italy, USA

Language of diaspora

Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Tunisia, Uruguay

Alphabet
40 letters (26 Latin + diacritic letters)

Grammatical cases
0

Language code
fr, fra, fre

Linguistic typology
inflectional , polysynthetic features in spoken language , SVO

Language family
Indo-European, Romance

Number of dialects
Several in Europe (different varieties in France, Switzerland, Belgium), a few in Canada and Louisiana, Africa, New Caledonia...

Longest word

anticonstitutionnellement

(25 letters), 'anticonstitutionally'

Curious word or sentence

sans doute

The words mean "without" and "doubt", but the whole expression actually means "probably" and not "undoubtedly".

amour

The French word for "love" is masculine in the singular, but feminine in the plural.

Introduction

French is spoken in 29 countries that make up the Francophonie. Therefore there are several varieties of French in Europe, Africa, Canada, the United States and Asia. In Europe, the varieties in Switzerland and Belgium differ from the standard spoken in France.

The largest number of native and second language French speakers is found in Africa (about 115 million in 31 African countries). The countries of the former French Colonial Empire (Senegal, Algeria, Gabon, Tunisia, Mauritania, Côte d’Ivoire etc.) often use French as a compromise between the local languages after becoming independent.

Several creole languages, such as Haitian, are lexically based on French.

Several international organizations such as the UN, WTO, NATO, Council of Europe, Red Cross – use French as an official language as does Vatican City. The Alliance Française has the mission to promote French language and culture in the world.

A map showing the languages and dialects of France and the border regions.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

History

French as a Romance language grew from Vulgar Latin, influenced by the Celtic language spoken in Gaul (now Northern France). Occitan was spoken in the southern part of the country.

9 – 13th century
Old French

The earliest text is the Oaths of Strasbourg (Serments de Strasbourg 842).
14 – 15th century
Middle French
16 – 17th century
Classical French

Francis I made French the official language of administration in 1539 replacing Latin. Therefore, other languages in France were repressed or neglected.
from the 17th century
Modern French

French became an international language in Europe during the reign of Louis XIV (17th c.). It was the most important language of diplomacy from the 17th to the middle of the 20th century when English took over the role of international language.

Writing system and pronunciation

French is written with 26 Latin letters, 14 diacritic letters (à â ç é è ê ë î ï ô ù û ü ÿ) and 2 ligatures (æ, œ).

The pronunciation of sounds is made with muscle tension. The last letter of the words is often silent. There is no h sound. The h at the beginning of the word is not pronounced: hôtel [otel] (hotel). The French uvular r is characteristic of the language.

The orthography is quite complicated because much more is written than is pronounced. Verb conjugation exists in written form but the pronunciation distinguishes only three out of six forms in the present. In the conjugation table all the singular and the third person plural have the same pronunciation.

Real French speech sounds are more complicated than the language learner would suppose because some vowels are dropped and groups of words are pronounced together as one:

Je ne le sais pas (I don't know it)

Vowels

Standard French has up to 13 oral vowels and 4 nasal vowels. The so called schwa /ə/ whose pronunciation is similar to œ is often dropped (e muet). Normally, it is not pronounced at the end of the words as in porte, but it may be pronounced in poetry.

Letter	Example	Translation
a à	patte, là	paw, there
a â	image, pâté	image, block
ai, ei, è	chère, neige, faire	dear, snow, make
ê	rêve	dream
é	été	summer
i	livre	book
œ, eu	œil, jeune	eye, young
eu, eû	peu, jeûne	few, fasting
e [ə]	je	I
o, au, eau	mot, peau, beau	word, skin, beautiful
o	mort	death
ou	sous	under
u	but	goal
The vowels a, o, u and i are pronounced nasalized when followed by n.
an	dans	in
on	mon	my
un	brun	brown
in	vin	wine

French has also diphthongs: oui (‘yes’), huit (‘eight’), roi (‘king’), louer (‘rent’), ciel (‘sky’).

Consonants

Letter	Example	Translation
b	beau	beautiful
c, s, ç	cent, sous, ça	hundred, under, this
c, k, q	cause, kilo, cinq	cause, kilo, five
ch	chaise	chair
d	dans	in
f, ph	fée, photo	fairy, photo
g, j	gens, journal	people, journal
g	garde	guard
l	lait	milk
m	mère	mother
n	non	no
gn	campagne	campaign
p	porte	door
r	rose	rose
t	triste	sad
v	ville	town
x	expansion	expansion
z	gazette	newspaper

The French accent falls on the last syllable of words, but words that are pronounced together and which form a rhythmic unit (such as un petit enfant = ‘a small child’) only have a single stress. Consonants that are normally not pronounced are sometimes pronounced when followed by a vowel (that is the final t of petit is pronounced in the example above). This is known as liaison.

Grammar

French has lost the complicated declensions and conjugations of Latin. There is a sign for plural nouns and adjectives, although it is often silent. Word order and prepositions are used to express syntactic relations. Auxiliary verbs are used in the expression of tenses and moods.

French has two genders (masculine article: le and feminine article: la), and the adjective which normally follows the noun (except some short and common ones), agrees with it in gender and number.

Singular

le livre vert
the green book
la fleur verte
the green flower

Plural

les livres verts
the green books
les fleurs vertes
the green flowers

Of these forms, only the article is pronounced differently in the singular and plural.

Some adjectives can have different meaning before and after the noun:

ta chambre propre
your clean room
ta propre chambre
your own room

The verbs have three groups of conjugations according the ending of the infinitive (-er, -ir, -re).

Present indicative
	parler speak	finir finish	mettre put
Singular
1st person	je parle	je finis	je mets
2nd person	tu parles	tu finis	tu mets
3rd person	il parle	elle finit	il met
Plural
1st person	nous parlons	nous finissons	nous mettons
2nd person	vous parlez	vous finissez	vous mettez
3rd person	ils parlent	elles finissent	ils mettent
Imperfect
Singular
1st person	je parlais	je finissais	je mettais
2nd person	tu parlais	tu finissais	tu mettais
3rd person	il parlait	elle finissait	il mettait
Plural
1st person	nous parlions	nous finissions	nous mettions
2nd person	vous parliez	vous finissiez	vous mettiez
3rd person	ils parlaient	elles finissaient	ils mettaient
Present perfect
Singular
1st person	j’ai parlé	j’ai fini	j’ai mis
2nd person	tu as parlé	tu as fini	tu as mis
3rd person	il a parlé	elle a fini	il a mis
Plural
1st person	nous avons parlé	nous avons fini	nous avons mis
2nd person	vous avez parlé	vous avez fini	vous avez mis
3rd person	ils ont parlé	elles ont fini	ils ont mis
Future
Singular
1st person	je parlerai	je finirai	je mettrai
2nd person	tu parleras	tu finiras	tu mettras
3rd person	il parlera	elle finira	il mettra
Plural
1st person	nous parlerons	nous finirons	nous mettrons
2nd person	vous parlerez	vous finirez	vous mettrez
3rd person	ils parleront	elles finiront	ils mettront
Present conditional
Singular
1st person	je parlerais	je finirais	je mettrais
2nd person	tu parlerais	tu finirais	tu mettrais
3rd person	il parlerait	elle finirait	il mettrait
Plural
1st person	nous parlerions	nous finirions	nous mettrions
2nd person	vous parleriez	vous finiriez	vous mettriez
3rd person	ils parleraient	elles finiraient	ils mettraient
Imperative
Singular
1st person
2nd person	parle	finis	mets
3rd person
Plural
1st person	parlons	finissons	mettons
2nd person	parlez	finissez	mettez
3rd person

Word formation and lexicon

French doesn’t use compound words, but rather compound expression as:

machine à laver
washing machine
prise de sang
blood test

The numbers are based on the old Celtic system which uses 20 as a base number. Therefore 80 is quatre-vingts ('four twenties') and 95 is quatre-vingt-quinze ('four twenties fifteen'). Belgian and Swiss French (as well as some other varieties) now use some base ten numbers so that 95 in them is nonante-cinq (ninety-five).

Lingvopedia

French

Number of native speakers

Official language in

Minority language in

Language of diaspora

Longest word

Curious word or sentence

Introduction

History

9 – 13th century

Old French

14 – 15th century

Middle French

16 – 17th century

Classical French

from the 17th century

Modern French

Writing system and pronunciation

Vowels

Consonants

Grammar

Word formation and lexicon

Thematic words

Funny or odd traditional proverbs and idioms