Interesting Facts about France - Week 4 - Language

• French used to be the language of the nobility and diplomacy all across Europe and in the Ottoman Empire, it was the world’s first real international language until English replaced it in the mid-20th century.

• Metropolitan France counts several native regional languages : Alsatian and Lorraine German, Occitan, Oïl, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican and Franco-Provençal.

• In spite of foreign stereotypes, many French people can speak at least one foreign language, and English is the most widely spoken at 34%.

• A survey in 1794 revealed that a mere 11% of the population of France were pure French speakers. As late as in 1880, only 20% of the population could actually speak French fluently. Nowadays, 86% of French people are native French speakers if this is defined by the language their parents spoke with them before the age of 5. Oc languages account for 3.65%, Oïl languages for 3.10%, German and German dialects for 3.15%, and Arabic for 2.55%.

• French was the official language of England for over 300 years (from 1066 until the early 15th century). It is still the official language of 30 countries worldwide.

• The French language is spoken by 270 million people worldwide (almost as much as the population of the USA), of which 120 million are native or fluent. There are less than 60 million of White Caucasian native speakers of standard French worldwide.

• The variety of French spoken in Quebec, Canada, is a distant dialect from the French spoken in Europe, and sometimes hard to understand for French people.