Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Spoken by 12% of the EU population, French is the second most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, after German; it is also the third most widely known language of the Union, after English and German (33% of the EU population report to know how to speak English, whilst 22% of Europeans understand German and 20% French). [18] [117]
Most spoken languages, Ethnologue, 2024 [6] Language Family Branch First-language (L1) speakers Second-language (L2) speakers Total speakers (L1+L2) English (excl. creole languages) Indo-European: Germanic: 380 million 1.135 billion 1.515 billion Mandarin Chinese (incl. Standard Chinese, but excl. other varieties) Sino-Tibetan: Sinitic: 941 ...
The spoken languages of nationalities that are a part of China belong to at least nine families: Ethnolinguistic map of China. The Sino-Tibetan family: 19 official ethnicities (including the Han and Tibetans) The Tai–Kadai family: several languages spoken by the Zhuang, the Bouyei, the Dai, the Dong, and the Hlai (Li people); 9 official ...
While spoken mainly as a second language, French is increasingly being spoken as a native language in Francophone Africa among some communities in urban areas or the elite class, especially in regions like Ivory Coast, [9] [10] Cameroon, [15] [16] Gabon, [17] [18] Madagascar, [19] and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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 most spoken language families on the continent include Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Japonic, Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Turkic, Sino-Tibetan, Kra–Dai and Koreanic. Many languages of Asia , such as Chinese , Persian , Sanskrit , Arabic , Tamil or Telugu , have a long history as a written language.
French is still seen on documents ranging from passports to airmail letters. [citation needed] French is spoken by educated people in cosmopolitan cities of the Middle East and North Africa and remains so in the former French colonies of the Maghreb, where French is particularly important in economic capitals such as Algiers, Casablanca and Tunis.
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]