Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
French is still a lingua franca in most Western and Central African countries and an official language of many, a remnant of French and Belgian colonialism. These African countries and others are members of the Francophonie. French is the official language of the Universal Postal Union, with English added as a working language in 1994. [46
This article should specify the language of its non-English content, using {}, {{transliteration}} for transliterated languages, and {} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriate ISO 639 code. Wikipedia's multilingual support templates may also be used.
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 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.
Other major languages are Russian (23%), Turkish (9.1%), and Romani (4.2%) [3] (the two main varieties being Balkan Romani and Vlax Romani). There are smaller numbers of speakers of Armenian, Aromanian, Romanian, Crimean Tatar, Gagauz and Balkan Gagauz, Macedonian and English. Bulgarian Sign Language has an estimated 37,000 signers. [4]
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.
Grenadian French Creole – Patwa Spoken in: Grenada; Guaraní – Avañe'αΊ½ or Javy ju Official language in: the Argentinian province of Corrientes, Bolivia, and Paraguay; Guernésiais – Guernésiais Spoken in: the British crown dependency of Guernsey; Guianan Creole French – Kriyòl gwiyannen Official language in: French Guiana, France
At a regional level, French is acknowledged as an official language in the Aosta Valley region of Italy (the first government authority to adopt Modern French as the official language in 1536, three years before France itself), [60] in which is spoken as a first language by 1.25% of the population and as a second one by approximately 50%. [61]