Overview
More than 330 million people worldwide speak the French language. It is the third most-spoken language in Europe, after German and English. People throughout the world speak French. In addition to France, French is the official language in many nations including Belgium, Rwanda, Switzerland, Cameroon, Madagascar, and Canada. Modern French is a conglomeration of influences; more than 120 languages contributed to the French language. About 2,500 words were borrowed from the English language.
Written French first appeared in 842 C.E. in the Oaths of Strasbourg that unified eastern and western France. Considered the first piece of French literature, La Chanson de Roland ( the Song of Roland ) appeared circa 1100. It described Charlemagne's knights' campaign as they fought a Muslim army. French writers and poets created romantic writings using the adventures of knights such as King Arthur and promoted the ideals of courtly love. Over the centuries, French novels, histories, and poems such as Voltaire's Candide , the works of Chrétien de Troyes, and Thomas Malory's Mort D'Arthur became popular throughout Europe and spread the French language.
History and Classification
The French language belongs to the Indo-European family of languages and is a Romance language, which means it descended from Latin, the language of the Romans. Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian are also Romance languages. In addition to Latin, languages such as Gaulish, Frankish, and Old Norse influenced the French language. Generally, the language is divided into eras: Old French (840-1400), Middle French (1300-1500), and Modern French (1600-present).
Gaulish was the language of the Celtic people who resided in the area that is now France prior to the Roman Empire. Gaulish contributed vocabulary to the French language along with a counting system.
The influence of Latin began with the occupation of Roman forces in southeastern France beginning in 124 BCE until the collapse of the Roman Empire during the fifth century Common Era. Latin contributed a vast amount of vocabulary to the French language as well as grammar, sentence structure, and inflections.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Germanic tribes such as the Franks moved into the territory, which led to dialects based on geographical regions: langue d'oil in the north and langue d'oc in the south and southwest; the difference between the two was the degree of Germanization. The various regions of France maintained these unique dialects, which were often unintelligible to outsiders. The feudal system contributed to the continued use of these dialects because it created close-knit communities in which villagers rarely left the protection of their lord's land.
Old Norse influenced the French language in the coastal regions and areas that were accessed by Vikings in northern France. Old Norse contributed place names and nautical terms relating to the Viking's heritage such as cingler (to sail) and ris (reef).
In 1510, the language moved away from Latin and into a common tongue when Louis XII decreed that judicial proceedings be conducted in the "common language of the country." In 1539, Francois I passed Villers-Cotterêts, which stated that all administrative documents be written in French. During the Renaissance, French borrowed vocabulary from other dialects as well as from foreign nations such as Italy. Distinguished grammarians such as Malherbe and Claude Fabre de Vaugelas worked to codify the French language. They added accents to eliminate ambiguity and redundant letters, such as the cedilla, apostrophe, and "e acute." Published dictionaries and guides laid out rules of spelling, grammar, and the vocabulary of the French language.
Problematically, although French was the official written language of France, many people could not understand or speak it. Even though French was the accepted language of the aristocracy, only about 5 percent of the French population spoke French. The leaders of the French Revolution ordered compulsory French-language schooling for all citizens and required the use of the language in all government proceedings. However, it was not until the twentieth century that French was fully established as the national language. A demand for purity and standards in the language led to laws and educational decrees restricting the presence of foreign languages in most official documents and on public medias such as radio and television.
Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage
The French language initially developed in the European region that eventually became France. When colonization efforts began in the seventeenth century, the language spread and replaced or combined with indigenous dialects in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. French served as an international form of communication beginning in the time of Louis XIV and through the twentieth century. Heads of state and aristocrats studied and spoke French as a means of fostering trade and diplomatic relationships through a common tongue. The rise of the United States led to a transition to English as the international lingua franca , but French remains an official language in major international organizations such as North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union (EU), and the United Nations (UN).
Although French is the official language of more than twenty nations, it is often used as a supplementary language, allowing people from different regions to communicate through a common medium. The wide range of French-speaking people has allowed variations to continue, such as Creole , which is spoken in areas such as Guadeloupe, Denmark, and southwestern Louisiana (Source: EBSCO, 2022).