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A man from Labé, Guinea, speaking Pular and West African French. African French (French: français africain) is the generic name of the varieties of the French language spoken by an estimated 320 million people in Africa in 2023 or 67% of the French-speaking population of the world [1] [2] [3] spread across 34 countries and territories.
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.
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]
According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2011), French is the fourth [101] most-spoken language in the United States after English, Spanish, and Chinese, when all forms of French are considered together and all languages of Chinese are similarly combined. French remains the second most-spoken language in the states of Louisiana and Maine.
[citation needed] Standard Arabic is spoken by around 615,000 speakers. [1] French is widely spoken in the main cities such as N'Djamena and by most men in the south of the country. Most schooling is in French. [2] The language with the most first-language speakers is probably Ngambay, with around one million speakers. [3]
The Democratic Republic of the Congo currently has the largest population of any country with French as its official language. [8] According to a 2021 survey, French was the most spoken language in the country: a total of 74% of Congolese (79% of men, and 68% of women) reported using French as a language of communication. [9]
Fulfulde, spoken throughout West Africa, is a member of the Senegambian branch. Other language families include Afro-Asiatic , represented by the Berber language Tamasheq and by Arabic, and the Songhay languages , which have traditionally been classified as Nilo-Saharan but may constitute an independent language family.
Senegal is a Francophone country, where, as of 2024, 5.13 million (27.73%) out of 18.50 million people speak French. [2] In terms of usage, Wolof is the lingua franca and the most widely spoken language in Senegal, as a first or second language (80%). [3] Mande languages spoken include Soninke, and Mandinka.