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French is also the second most geographically widespread language in the world after English, with about 60 countries and territories having it as a de jure or de facto official, administrative, or cultural language. [1] The following is a list of sovereign states and territories where French is an official or de facto language.
The French language became an international language, the second international language alongside Latin, in the Middle Ages, "from the fourteenth century onwards".It was not by virtue of the power of the Kingdom of France: '"... until the end of the fifteenth century, the French of the chancellery spread as a political and literary language because the French court was the model of chivalric ...
His criteria were the numbers of native speakers, the number of secondary speakers (especially high for French among fellow world languages), the number of countries using the language and their respective populations, the economic power of the countries using the language, the number of major areas in which the language is used, and the ...
Manitoba has a particular French Language Services Policy [73] and bilingual in capital city Winnipeg, as well as a special law on recognition of seven indigenous languages. [74] Nova Scotia has a governmental agency for Scots Gaelic language and culture affairs. [75] French is regionally spoken, with a special law on French-language services. [76]
French is an administrative language and is commonly but unofficially used in the Maghreb states, Mauritania, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.As of 2023, an estimated 350 million African people spread across 34 African countries can speak French either as a first or second language, mostly as a secondary language, making Africa the continent with the most French speakers in the world. [2]
Number of official languages French name Headquarters Note Francophonie: 1 Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie Paris, France The community of French-speaking nations AU: 5 (Languages of the AU) Union africaine Addis Ababa, Ethiopia French is an official language in 21 member states and a commonly used language in four others.
The Francophonie or Francophone world is the whole body of people and organisations around the world who use the French language regularly for private or public purposes. The term was coined by Onésime Reclus [ 1 ] in 1880 and became important as part of the conceptual rethinking of cultures and geography in the late 20th century.
This is a list of countries by number of languages according to the 22nd edition of Ethnologue (2019). [ 1 ] Papua New Guinea has the largest number of languages in the world.