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French (le français, la langue française) is one of the most important Romance languages, outnumbered only by Spanish and Portuguese. French is the 11th most spoken language in the world, spoken by about 77 million people (called Francophones) as a mother tongue, and 128 million including second language speakers, in 1999. It is an official or administrative language in various communities and organizations (such as the European Union, IOC, United Nations and Universal Postal Union).
| French (Français) |
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| Spoken in: | France and 53 other countries. |
| Total speakers: | 128 million |
| Ranking: | 11 |
Genetic
classification: |
Indo-European
Italic
Romance
Italo-Western
Western
Gallo-Iberian
Gallo-Romance
Gallo-Rhaetian
Oïl
French
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| Official status |
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| Official language of: | France and 24 other countries |
| Regulated by: | Académie françaiseThe Academie francaise (French Academy) is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Academie, limited to forty members, has the task of acting as an official authority on the language, even though it has no enf |
| Language codes |
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| ISO 639ISO 639 is one of several international standards that lists short codes for language names. ISO 639 consists of different parts, of which two parts are currently published. The other parts are works in progress. Parts of ISO 639 There are two items for I-1: | fr |
| ISO 639-2(B): | fre |
| ISO 639-2(T): | fra |
| SIL: | FRN |
1 History
1.1 The Roman invasion of Gaul
The French language is a Romance dialect, meaning that it is descended from Latin. Before the Roman invasion of what is modern-day France by Julius CæsarAlternative meanings: Julius Caesar (disambiguation). Gaius Julius Caesar ( Latin: C·IVLIVS·C·F·C·N·CAESAR) ( July 13, 100 BC March 15, 44 BC) was a Roman military and political leader whose conquest of Gallia Comata extended the Roman world all the way t (58-52 B.C.), France was inhabited largely by a Celtic people that the Romans referred to as Gauls, although one also finds other linguistic/ethnic groups in France at this time, such as the Iberians (in southern France and Spain), the Ligurians (on the Mediterranean coast), Greek and Phoenician outposts (like Marseille) and the Vascons (on the Spanish/French border).
Although in the past many Frenchmen liked to refer to their descent from Gallic ancestors (nos ancêtres les Gaulois), perhaps fewer than 200 words with a Celtic etymology remain in French today (largely place and plant names and words dealing with rural life and the hearth). In the reverse direction, some words for Gallic objects which were new to the Romans (like clothing items) and for which there were no words in Latin were imported into Latin. Latin quickly became the lingua franca of the entire Gallic region for both mercantile, official and educational reasons, yet it should be remembered that this was Vulgar Latin, the colloquial dialect spoken by the Roman army and its agents and not the literary dialect of Cicero.
