French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin) that evolved out of the Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in northern France. Over time, French largely supplanted most regional Romance varieties across France, Belgium and Switzerland. Countries, regions, and territories where French is an administrative or cultural language but with no official status
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- Although there are many French regional accents, foreign learners normally use only one variety of the language.
- This has led to language and regional cultural variegation, but the extent to which this pattern of migrations showed up in population genetics studies was unclear until the publication of a study in 2019 that used genome wide data.
- There is increasing dissatisfaction with, and within, growing ethno-cultural enclaves (communautarisme).
- It has been noted that the French view of having Gallic origins has evolved over history.
- The Agency for French Education Abroad has 600 locations and 397,000 students as of 2025.
- France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, and legal contracts; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words.
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- The INSEE does not collect data about language, religion, or ethnicity – on the principle of the secular and unitary nature of the French Republic.
- Following the Roman conquest of Gaul, 90% of the population remained indigenous in origin.
- In France, the conception of citizenship teeters between universalism and multiculturalism.
- The study identified six different genetic clusters that could be distinguished across populations.
- Within the subjunctive mood, the passé composé and plus-que-parfait use auxiliary verbs in their forms.
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- The United States is home to an estimated 13 to 16 million people of French descent, or 4 to 5 percent of the US population, particularly in Louisiana, New England, Northern New York, and parts of the Midwest.
- After French rule ended, South Vietnam continued to use French in administration, education, and trade.
- Since in France, the state preceded the nation, voluntary policies have taken an important place in the creation of this common cultural identity.
- After Spain, this makes France the second largest European ethnicity in the country.
- Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French, with effects including loanwords and calques (including oui, the word for “yes”), sound changes, and influences in conjugation and word order.
- The Brazilian Imperial Family originates from the Portuguese House of Braganza and the last emperor’s heir and daughter, Isabella, married Prince Gaston d’Orleans, Comte d’Eu, a member of the House of Orléans, a cadet branch of the Bourbons, the French Royal Family.
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If the word was to be followed by a word starting with a vowel, then liaison would cause the ⟨t⟩ to be pronounced in both forms, resulting in identical pronunciation. Under the 1990 rectifications, the tréma is placed on the pronounced vowel in forms such as aigüe, ambigüe and cigüe, and is used in forms such as argüer to prevent a misleading pronunciation. Sequences of a vowel followed by ⟨n⟩ or ⟨m⟩ often represent a nasal vowel when the nasal consonant is word-final or followed by another consonant; before a following vowel or a doubled nasal consonant, the vowel is commonly oral and the nasal consonant is pronounced.
During the early nineteenth century, intellectuals began using the identification with Gaul instead as a unifying force to bridge divisions within French society with a common national origin myth. The modern French are the descendants of mixtures including Romans, Celts, Iberians, Ligurians and Greeks in southern France, Germanic peoples arriving at the end of the Roman Empire such as the Franks and the Burgundians, and some Vikings who mixed with the Normans and settled mostly in Normandy in the 9th century. Most of these originally settled in the Cape Colony, but have since been quickly absorbed into the Afrikaner population. Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French, with effects including loanwords and calques (including oui, the word for “yes”), sound changes, and influences in conjugation and word order. In the late Roman era, in addition to colonists from elsewhere in the Empire and Gaulish natives, Gallia also became home to some immigrant populations of Germanic and Scythian origin, such as the Alans. However they should not be interpreted as ethnic conflicts (as appeared before in other countries like the US and the UK) but as social conflicts born out of socioeconomic problems endangering proper integration.
Philosopher Giorgio Agamben has pointed out this fact that the 1915 French law which permitted denaturalization with regard to naturalized citizens of “enemy” origins was one of the first example of such legislation, which Nazi Germany later implemented with the 1935 Nuremberg Laws. The study identified six different genetic clusters that could be distinguished across populations. France sits at the edge of the European peninsula and has seen waves of migration of groups that often settled owing to the presence of physical barriers preventing onward migration. This classic French republican non-essentialist conception of nationality is officialized by the French Constitution, according to which “French” is a nationality, and not a specific ethnicity. The usage of ethnic and racial categorization is avoided to prevent any case of discrimination; the same regulations apply to religious membership data that cannot be compiled under the French Census. that France adheres to the ideal of a single, homogeneous national culture, supported by the absence of hyphenated identities and by avoidance of the very term “ethnicity” in French discourse.}
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The Brazilian Imperial Family originates from the Portuguese House of Braganza and the last emperor’s heir and daughter, Isabella, married Prince Gaston d’Orleans, Comte d’Eu, a member of the House of Orléans, a cadet branch of the Bourbons, the French Royal Family. It was estimated that 14,000 Frenchmen were living in Brazil in 1912, 9% of the 149,400 Frenchmen living in Latin America, the second largest community after Argentina (100,000). Most of them settled in the country between 1884 and 1925 (8,008 from 1819 to 1883, 25,727 from 1884 to 1925, 6,648 from 1926 to 1940).
- As of 2025,update the total population in France was estimated about 68.6 million.
- During the early nineteenth century, intellectuals began using the identification with Gaul instead as a unifying force to bridge divisions within French society with a common national origin myth.
- Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth.
- Philosopher Giorgio Agamben has pointed out this fact that the 1915 French law which permitted denaturalization with regard to naturalized citizens of “enemy” origins was one of the first example of such legislation, which Nazi Germany later implemented with the 1935 Nuremberg Laws.
- With the 7 February 1851 law, voted during the Second Republic (1848–1852), “double jus soli” was introduced in French legislation, combining birth origin with paternity.
The INSEE does not collect data about language, religion, or ethnicity – on the principle of the secular and unitary nature of the French Republic. The second Pasqua law on “immigration control” makes regularisation of illegal aliens more difficult and, in general, residence conditions for foreigners much harder. With the 7 February 1851 law, voted during the Second Republic (1848–1852), “double jus soli” was introduced in French legislation, combining birth origin with paternity. However, according to Patrick Weil, it was not “ethnically motivated” but “only meant that family links transmitted by the pater familias had become more important than subjecthood”.
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In New England, the vast majority of French immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries came not from France, but from over the border in Quebec, the Quebec diaspora. The United States is home to an estimated 13 to 16 million people of French descent, or 4 to 5 percent of the US population, particularly in Louisiana, New England, Northern New York, wizebets casino login and parts of the Midwest. Among them, about 5.5 million are of European origin and 4 million of North African origin. As of 2008, the French national institute of statistics INSEE estimated that 5.3 million foreign-born immigrants and 6.5 million direct descendants of immigrants (born in France with at least one immigrant parent) lived in France representing a total of 11.8 million and 19% of the total population in metropolitan France (62.1 million in 2008).
Discover how this common masculine noun means “cliché” or “stereotype” and learn its pronunciation, usage, and differences from English. Large numbers of Huguenots are known to have settled in the United Kingdom (from 50,000), Ireland (10,000), in Protestant areas of Germany (especially the city of Berlin) (from ), in the Netherlands (from ), in South Africa and in North America. Later, when the Central American Federation was divided in 7 countries, Some of them settled to Costa Rica, others to Nicaragua, although the majority still remained in Guatemala.
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After French rule ended, South Vietnam continued to use French in administration, education, and trade. Out of about 900,000 students, about 500,000 are enrolled in Francophone schools, public or private, in which the teaching of mathematics and scientific subjects is provided in French. Approximately 75,000 students are learning French as a second language and 3,000 students are in bilingual courses. Other organizations include the Institut Français du Cambodge an Alliance Française, and The French Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia Cambodia has French media including L’Echo du Cambodge and Le Toque. In 2025, 400,000 students were learning French and around 3,000 schoolchildren were enrolled in bilingual courses across the country and between 7,000 and 8,000 graduate students take French classes as part of training in specialized fields such as medicine or law.
It is the principal language of education, administration, business, and public signage and is spoken by all educated Haitians. Although French is spoken throughout Canada, it is mostly present in Quebec, with significant Francophone populations also being found in New Brunswick, especially the region of Acadia, and parts of Northern and Eastern Ontario. French is the second most commonly spoken language in Canada and one of two federal official languages alongside English.
One study analyzing the similarity of seven Romance languages to Vulgar Latin in terms of accent vocalization estimated that among the languages analyzed, French was the most differentiated language from Vulgar Latin in this respect. Within the subjunctive mood, the passé composé and plus-que-parfait use auxiliary verbs in their forms. Within the indicative mood, the passé composé, plus-que-parfait, futur antérieur, and passé antérieur all use auxiliary verbs in their forms. French grammar shares several notable features with most other Romance languages, including Scribes commonly represented the final sequence ⟨us⟩ by an abbreviation resembling ⟨x⟩; the abbreviation was later interpreted as the letter ⟨x⟩, while ⟨u⟩ was restored in writing, producing the modern spelling chevaux. In medieval French, ⟨l⟩ before plural ⟨s⟩ was vocalized, so forms such as chevals developed into chevaus.