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French is an official language in 27 independent nations. 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 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 ...
Today, more than half of all scientific journals are published in English; even in France almost one-third of all natural science research appears in English, [44] so that English can be seen as the lingua franca of science and technology. English is also the lingua franca of international air traffic control [45] and seafaring communications.
Bulgarian is the country's only official language. It is spoken by the vast majority of the Bulgarian population and used at all levels of society. It is a Slavic language, and its closest relative is Macedonian. Bulgarian is written with Cyrillic, which is also used by Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Serbian and Macedonian.
English is used as a second language in parts of southern Europe. As a primary language, however, English has only a small presence in southern Europe, only in Gibraltar (alongside Spanish) and Malta (secondary to Maltese). English is also widely spoken in Cyprus. [citation needed] There are other language groupings in southern Europe.
This is a list of the member states of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.These governments belong to an international organisation representing countries and regions where French is the first ("mother") or customary language, where a significant proportion of the population are francophones (French speakers) or where there is a notable affiliation with French culture.
The term francophonie was invented by Onésime Reclus in 1880: "We also put aside four large countries, Senegal, Gabon, Cochinchina and Cambodia, whose future from a "Francophone" point of view is still very doubtful, except perhaps for Senegal" (in French « Nous mettons aussi de côté quatre grands pays, le Sénégal, le Gabon, la Cochinchine, le Cambodge dont l’avenir au point de vue ...
In addition to French, several regional languages are also spoken to varying degrees, such as Alsatian, a German dialect (specifically Alemannic; spoken by 1.44% of the national population); Basque, a language isolate; Breton, a Celtic language (spoken by 0.61%); Corsican, an Italo-Dalmatian language; and various other Gallo-Romance languages ...