Of Europeans who speak other languages natively, approximately one-fifth are able to speak French as a second language. French is the second-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union. In 2015, approximately 40% of the francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) lived in Europe, 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. It is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France Canada (especially in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick, as well as other Francophone regions) Belgium ( Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region) western Switzerland (specifically the cantons forming the Romandy region) parts of Luxembourg parts of the United States (the states of Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont) Monaco the Aosta Valley region of Italy and various communities elsewhere. French is also one of six official languages used in the United Nations. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French.įrench 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.

Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the ( Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl-languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French ( Francien) largely supplanted. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French ( français or langue française ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family.

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