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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]
It is closely related to other oïl dialects spoken in western France, especially Sarthois, Mayennois and Norman (south of ligne Joret) in what could be called Eastern Armorican (Angevin-Mayennois-Sarthois-South Norman). [2] Eastern Armorican, together with Gallo, forms the "zone armoricaine" of Langues d'oïl.
The langues d'oïl (/ d ɔɪ (l)/ doy(l), [3] US also / d ɔː ˈ iː l / daw-EEL, [4] [5] [Note 1] French: [lɑ̃ɡ dɔjl] [6]) are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest autochthonous relatives historically spoken in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands.
Although the name Franco-Provençal suggests it is a bridge dialect between French and the Provençal dialect of Occitan, it is a separate Gallo-Romance language that transitions into the Oïl languages Burgundian and Frainc-Comtou to the northwest, into Romansh to the east, into the Gallo-Italic Piemontese to the southeast, and finally into the Vivaro-Alpine dialect of Occitan to the southwest.
It is commonly used to teach the alphabet to children in English-speaking countries. "The ABC Song" was first copyrighted in 1835 by Boston music publisher Charles Bradlee. The melody is from a 1761 French music book and is also used in other nursery rhymes like "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", while the author of the lyrics is unknown. Songs ...
English. Read; Edit; View history; Tools. ... French language in France (4 P) M. Macaronic forms of French (5 P) N. National dialects of French (1 P)
While some dialects feature a long /ɛː/ distinct from /ɛ/ and a distinction between an open front /a/ and an open back /ɑ/, Parisian French features only /ɛ/ and just one open vowel /a/ realised as central [ä]. Some dialects also feature a rounded /œ̃/, which has merged with /ɛ̃/ in Paris.
The Common Walloon alphabet, developed through the 1990s, attempts to unify spellings across dialects, and revives some older graphemes (such as xh ) which were abandoned by Feller in favor of spellings which resembled standard French. [2] [3]