Skip to main content

French

A bit about the language

French (le français or la langue française) is a Romance language of the Indo-Européen family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages.

French is estimated to have about 76 million native speakers and about 235 million daily, fluent speakers[and another 77 to 110 million secondary speakers who speak it as a second language to varying degrees of proficiency, mainly in Africa. According to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), approximately 300 million people worldwide are "able to speak the language", without specifying the criteria for this estimation or whom it encompasses.[According to a demographic projection led by the University Laval and the Réseau Démographie de l'Agence universitaire de la francophonie, the total number of French speakers will reach approximately 500 million in 2025 and 650 million by 2050. OIF estimates 700 million by 2050, 80% of whom will be in Africa.

 

French Speaking Countries

map of French