French belongs to the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family. Like all Romance languages, it developed from Vulgar Latin spoken by the Roman invaders. Before the Roman invasion of what is France today, the territory was inhabited by a Celtic people whom the Romans called Gauls. The language of the Gauls had little impact on French.

From the 3rd century on, Gaul was invaded by Germanic tribes whose languages had a profound effect on the Vulgar Latin of the region, especially on its vocabulary. In 1539, King Francis I made French the official language of administration and court proceedings in France, replacing Latin as the official written language of the country. Following a period of unification and standardization, the language spoken in the 17th-18th centuries became the basis of modern French. During the 17th-19th centuries, French was the lingua franca of the European elite. Monarchs such as Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia could speak and write in French. Russian nobility used French for everyday communication.

French is the official or co-official language of 26 countries. Four of them are in Europe: France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. Two are in the Americas: Canada and Haiti. There are also two overseas departments of France: Martinique and Guadeloupe. The rest are former French colonies in Africa and in the islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. French is a major second language in Arabic-speaking Algeria, Tunis, and Morocco. World-wide, it is spoken in 53 countries, making it one of the most wide-spread languages of the world.

Ethnologue estimates that there are 51 million first-language speakers of French in France. The worldwide population of first-language speakers of French is estimated at 77 million plus an additional 50 million second-language speakers.

Click here on the MLA Interactive Language Map to find out where French is spoken in the U.S.

Académie Française

Not everyone speaks the kind of French you may have learned in high school or college. There are many varieties spoken in France (e.g., in Paris, Marseille, Lyon), other European countries (Belgium, Switzerland), Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam), Africa (Morocco, Tunis, Algeria, Senegal), and in Canada. In addition, there are many French-based creoles. One of them, Haitian Creole is the official language of Haiti. Standard French is based on, but is not identical to the variety spoken in Paris.

The foundation of the Académie Française in 1634 created an official body whose goal ever since then has been the purification and preservation of the French language. This group of 40 members still exists today. It establishes norms for standard usage and wages a war agains the importation of English words into French.

Click on the name of the country to watch short videos of French varieties as spoken in France, Luxembourg, Morocco, Senegal, Canada, and Martinique.

Written French uses the standard 26-letter Roman alphabet with a few modifications:

There are three accent marks over vowels: acute over é; grave over á and é; cirumflex over â, ê, î, ô, û.
Diaeresis shows that two vowels are pronounced separately, e.g., Noël "Christmas."
A cedilla placed below the letter ç indicates that it is pronounced as [s].
There are two ligatures: œ and æ, e.g., . œil "eye,' bœuf "beef," et cætera "et cetera."
W and K are used exclusively in loan words or foreign names.

French spelling is based more on history than phonology. Llike English spelling, it tends to preserve obsolete pronunciation rules. This is mainly due to significant phonetic changes that have taken place over time without a corresponding change in spelling. French spelling, which has many silent letters, is not a reliable guide to pronunciation. For example, final consonants are generally mute. An -s or -x added to the end of a noun to form the plural are usually not pronounced. This makes the pronunciation of singular and plural forms of many nouns indistinguishable, e.g., le chat, "the cat" and les chats "the cats" are homonyms.

Some attempts have been made to reform French spelling, but few major changes have been made over the last two centuries.

Take a look at the text of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

French words in English
English has borrowed many words from French. They are too numerous to list. Below is a short sampling of French loan words related to cooking, and those that occur in common usage.

Click here for some fun with French.

Click here to find out where French is taught in the United States.
Click here to find learning materials for studying French.

Online resources for the study of German language and culture
Tennessee Bob's Famous French Links
Online Resources for the Study of French
Ethnologue report on French
Wikipedia article on French
Yamada Language Center guide for French
Languages-on-the-Web: French
Rosen's French Resources
LanguageLinks: French