Talk:French language/Archive 3

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Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Number of French Speakers

It just doesn't add up about 65 million (native), what are you counting as native? The Congo alone has more than 60 million french speakers! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.4.153.30 (talk) 09:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

INCONSISTENCY

Total speakers 175 million in total (2005 estimate of the Haut Conseil de la Francophonie)[1]

"spoken around the world by around 100 million people as a first language, by 190 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 54 countries."

One says 175 million, the other +- 490 million.

So what do we do about this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.237.159.61 (talk) 05:21, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Online course resources

Why do we support so big and not good resources like About.com as learning the French language ? We should list the popular sites and good resources even if they are not modern, the quality in the content should matter at most. For example the first language course on internet French Language Course is still very popular by Google, that was only one example of a site with no profit interest with popularity and age, there are probably plenty more that we should list here on the article page. Roxpace (talk) 15:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I too would like to add Online French Help to the resources. It's quality and very useful. --Adjwilli (talk) 23:52, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

What is special about this site except for the amount of ads? Nakor (talk) 22:40, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

My French Language Map

You may have noticed my new French Language map. See how TOTALLY INACCURATE it is when you follow a strict "country-by-country" basis? This how I have always criticised the English Language map. I believe the English Language map should be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alphador (talk • contribs) 12:01, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I changed it back since it was adopted without consensus. And I agree, it was inaccurate. Aaker (talk) 22:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Change the English map as well. Otherwise I change French map back.Alphador (talk) 10:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

There should be more countries shaded in light green, where small French-speaking communities and French descendants are at. South America is home to millions of persons able to speak some level of fluent French, but the main languages are Spanish and in Brazil, Portuguese. About 3 million Brazilians and 1 million Argentines are of ethnic French ancestry from the period when Frenchmen came to settle in the countries' interior. Many political families in Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela have French surnames like Bachelet and Benacourt. The small French community in Mexico dates back to the early 19th century, and let's mention Jean-Louis Campeon the leader of the Free French Resistance in the liberation of Paris is a Mexican of French parentage.+ 71.102.3.86 (talk) 05:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

French in Louisiana

After looking into the matter and recieving confermation emails from both a member of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana and from the current Secretary of state for the Great State of Louisiana I can say with some certainty that the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana does indeed have full authority to make any and all decisions about what is to be considered "correct" French in Louisiana. There are several spelling changes as well as a large number of English words that have the "official" stamp of the agency as being correct IN LOUISIANA. I was then refered to Louisiana revised statute RS 25:651 and informed that this Law passed in Louisiana should be the FINAL word on any discussion on the matter and as such should definatly be included as a regulator of the Language. However, I was also informed that as the several forms of French as it exist in Louisiana diverge from what others outside our state would call "Bon Francais" then the question must be asked as to whether or not the French that exist in Louisiana counts as still being French enough to be included in this particular article or if a new article specific to Louisiana French listing the council as the regulator should be created. I can tell you that as a native Louisiana French speaker that I can usually but not always understand other French speakers and when I speak it really is just a matter of tense and vocab adjustment to make make myself understood. I feel that it should be here on this article but I will await reply before adding the agency again.--Billiot 13:50, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

According to what you've said, it seems that you were correct in calling CODOFIL a language regulator. I don't think it should be called a regulator of Louisiana French, but of French (just as the Académie française is a regulator of French for France, and not of "French French"). I don't think e-mails qualify as sources though (see WP:ATT), so I think we need to cite RS 25:651. If you have access to the text of that statute, it would be helpful if you could reproduce the relevant portion here. Also, do you have the names of some of the publications giving the "official stamp" of CODOFIL? On the basis of what you've said, I do not have any objection to including CODOFIL as a regulator, but there is the matter of finding appropriate sources. I am very pleased to find that Louisiana has an agency in charge of that. Joeldl 20:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I do not myself have access to the publications released by the agency but I have sent an email asking for any materials they can give me. On their web site they make it seem like you need to be a "Member Institute" in order to recieve it but that may not be exclusive. I will here produce the statute that created the agency verbatum. Again, this is Louisiana Revised Statute 25 section 651, and I am informed that the word "do" in the statute also includes making decisions.

§651. Council authorized; membership; powers

The governor is hereby authorized to establish the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana, said agency to consist of no more than fifty members and including a chairman appointed by the governor from names recommended to him by legislators. Said council is empowered to do any and all things necessary to accomplish the development, utilization and preservation of the French language as found in the state of Louisiana for the cultural, economic and tourist benefit of the state.

Acts 1968, No. 409, §1. Amended by Acts 1968, Ex.Sess., No. 22, §1.

The verbatum of the text given above can be fact checked by going to http://www.legis.state.la.us/ or by going to any Law Library that carries Louisiana Law and referencing the number. The address http://www.legis.state.la.us/lss/lss.asp?doc=84519 will take you directly to the place in the statute that is relevant.--Billiot 08:42, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

According to the DOCOFIL-

The member institutions are: Centenary College, Delgado Community College , Dillard University, Grambling State, Louisiana State University at Alexandria, Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge , Louisiana State University at Eunice , Louisiana State University, Shreveport , Louisiana Tech, Loyola University , McNeese State University, Nicholls State University , Northwestern State University, Our Lady of Holy Cross College, Southeastern Louisiana University, Southern University, Southern University at New Orleans, Tulane University, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, University of Louisiana at Monroe, University of New Orleans, and Xavier University.

These institutions recieve documentation about French as it exist in Louisiana from the agency and are supposed to use them for the teaching of French. Of course I have no way of knowing at this time how closely it is followed. These institutions for a group that is supposed to advise one another and set up programs for teaching Louisiana French. One Document that is avaliable on the web site of the Council is the Stratagy Plan. In that document they talk about several publications but do not list names. The Stratagy Plan explicitly states that the Council considers itself in charge of not only Cajun and Creole French in Louisiana but any other type of French in Louisiana as well.

On a side note I did find in a Louisiana law that the official word for the "butter bean" in Louisiana is "feve platte". The law dealt with agriculture and taxation. It was originally passed before the creation of the CODOFIL but I did a search on the word and found it listed on the web sites of several of the "member institutions". Not sure how all of that is worked out but since all laws in Louisiana were upgraded and redone after we changed our constitution in 1972 I can only assume that if this word was in foul that some one would have discovered it. --Billiot 09:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I have to say I'm a bit confused because everything I've read about CODOFIL on the net seems to talk about things other than a role in standardization for the organization. It might be that somewhere they've published a list of "acceptable" departures from French French, and that would be a standardization role. You might be interested in this website: [1]. Although it doesn't deal with the regulation issue, it does deal with language policy in Louisiana (mostly when you use French rather than what French). There is also a website that has about 800 Louisiana French words, here: [2]. The same site has information on Quebec and Acadian French as well. Many of the words in use in Acadia are probably also used in Louisiana. I think the website probably only gives words for Acadia that are not used in Quebec, but Louisiana seems to be compared to France, since some of the Louisiana words listed are used in Quebec as well (e.g. avant-midi, although it's usually masculine in Quebec). The best dictionary of Acadian French is Yves Cormier's Dictionnaire du français acadien. Joeldl 10:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes I understand the confusion. That is why I myself backed off when you first sent a note to me as I felt I had to make sure. Indeed, making decisions and publishing dictionaries is not their main goal, far from it in fact. Their main goal and the one they spend the most time doing is trying to promote French by organizing French education and creating University environments so that Francophones can come to Louisiana to study. However, even though it is a small thing that they do they have been granted the authority by the Louisiana state legislature to make whatever decisions about what is "correct" French as well as perform any other actions in regartds to French as stated in the Statute. Personally I wish myself to get more information on the agancy and so I have requested it but as to the issue of regulation, though they don't do much, they can if they need to and I think that should be enough.--Billiot 13:33, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

One minor thing that I am waiting to get clarefication on is what the official name is. The emails I have recieved show the name in French but the statute, which has no French equivalent unlike most of our laws, only shows an English name. Which do you think I should list?--Billiot 13:42, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems then that they have the authority to regulate the language but don't do it. If that's true, I will remain neutral on whether they are a language regulator. I think you should use the English name. Joeldl 23:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I reworked the paragraph on French in Louisiana to read a little bit better and more accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrboire (talk • contribs) 06:23, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Canadian French sound examples (OGG)

This article is not correct! The guy who did the OGG voices for the french canadian accent was not correct, most of the OGG should be redone. It sounds really bad, sometimes he simply forgot a syllab!! Horrible! Example: He says BON JOURNEE instead of BONNE JOURNEE. Horrible! It has to be rebuild but I don't know how. I'm sure this guy is not a native french canadian, to me his voice sounds like a guy from asia or an arabian country. I'm sorry to say that but how could he make the samples correctly with the right accent if he's not born here.. If he was a good immitator I wouldn't complain, but he's not. I don't have a mic at home right now. I'm a native french canadian from Québec. 207.253.111.161 03:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC)Fred

To me the current Canadian French samples sound like a Canadian French second language speaker. Fred: Could you provide samples? --moyogo 09:17, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes I could, now I found my old mic and I think I'll do that.. I only need to understand how to make an ogg.. To me the samples are not just bad, they are worse than if they were replaced by the ones in French from France, because the guy miss some syllabs and cut some words. Also to me he sounds closer to the standard french. I can't believe it, he just not spelled the words completely, just cutting them in half.

We should probably ask the author what his accent is ;-). It doesn't sound like standard french to me, definitely Canadian French but not the standard Quebec variant, at least not to my ears. --moyogo 09:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it says Canadian accent, so it is not wrong. It doesn't say it's Quebec accent. --moyogo 09:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

This "Canadian" speaker is clearly not a French mothertongue speaker. His accent and intonation are not at all "Canadian". He is an anglophone trying to speak French and making mistakes in the process. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.120.88.48 (talk)

The comparison would be highly more relevant it showed the differences between Quebec French and Metropolitan French, instead of comparing the language to an accent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deus911 (talk • contribs) 14:14, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Not trying to diss anyone, but imho as a native Quebec French speaker his "bonne nuit" sounded like [põnɥi], with devoicing of the first plosive. I'd place his accent to somewhere where the language doesn't distinguish voice, at least in plosives. Chinese is a good example of a language who doesn't distinguish voice. Or maybe it's just the guy's mic. Who knows?

Though at second glance, it does seems to be a French Canadian accent since I can hear common features...however it's certainly not one I've heard before. Valkari 03:16, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for not responding to this sooner. French is my second language. I think most of the problems with the recordings (dropped syllables come to mind as I'm normally very precise) were caused by the low quality microphone I was using. I had actually placed them there as placeholders, with the intent that someone else would come along and replace them with something better. I don't like them much either, so feel free to upload superior recordings. Azio 17:51, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

The IPA transcriptions for the Canadian French samples are incorrect, in fact, they are currently the same as the France French ones! The Canadian French IPA transcriptions should be removed until they are properly modified to reflect one of the accents in francophone Canada.

The current Canadian French samples are incorrect! Yes they are, they sound like someone who is not a native French speaker but an Anglophone, also it is important to note that pronunciation is not uniform throughout Canada, Québec seems to have a somewhat different set of pronunciation than what is generally accepted in "English" Canada. An example in English could be caramel, which is pronounced in the United States Mid-west as Car-Mel, and in other places as Ca-Ra-Mel. Even within Québec there are some regional inflections, which is to be expected, but the inflections are not to different as to prevent efficient communication which often happens when a Québec French speaker encounters a "France" French speaker. Some of the difficulty in this case also arises because of the differences between the two dialects, similar to American English compared to the Queens English. --Mrboire (talk) 14:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Phonetics Corrections: ɔ or o

In the Samples section, there is a sample for "Au revoir" where "Au" is transcribed "ɔ". I think this should be transcribed "o" as in the "Au secours" sample.

I believe the "ɔ" is correctly used in the "Bonne journee" and "Bonne nuit" samples.

Also I noticed that "comment" is transcribed [kɔmɑ̃] but the way I pronounce it sounds like [kɑ̃mɑ̃]. But even though I'm a native french speaker, I would not bet that it is the proper pronunciation, and actually think some people would pronounce as [komɑ̃].

I also noticed that all the words thats starts as /kɔmɑ̃/ (Commande, commencer, commentaire...), I pronounce then as /kɑ̃mɑ̃- (like if the second ɑ̃ leaks to the first sound) but for words starting as /kɔme/ (comedie, commemorer) or /kɔmɛ/ (commettre, commerce) I would probably not understand the word if /ɑ̃/ was substitued to /ɔ/

Hmm... I suppose it's a bit difficult to give one pronunciation in French, with all the accents we have. I pronunce "Au revoir" with a "o", unless I say it fast, like "Au r'voir", then it's a "ɔ". I say "ɔ" for "bonne" too, but all the "com-" words here I pronunce "kom" (maybe slightly "ɔ" sometimes... but never ever "ɑ̃"). Just out of curiosity, where are you from ? I'm from Vendée/Brittany. → SeeSchloß 10:13, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The notation given is phonological, /oʁvwaːʁ/, it should be with /o/. Now if you want the phonetic notation, then it depends on the utterance recorded [oʁvwaːʁ], [ɔʁvwaːʁ], or whatever is pronounced. --moyogo 09:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

nasal trema

A question of pronunciation I've never been able to find the answer to: How do you pronounce nasalized vowels with diaresis? E.g., Citroën. Saint-Saëns, of course, ~~does not contain a diphthong~~ Saëns has a simple vowel, but which pronunciation would we expect from the spelling if we didn't know that? kwami 21:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I would not be able to tell you using the phonetic alphabet, but to make it simple, Citroën is pronounced the way the fictional word citro-ène would. -- Mathieugp

Like citoyenne? That would be [si.tro.εn], or maybe [si.trɔ.εn].

I see now that it's an alteration of a Dutch family name. Do you know if there are any general pronunciation rules for nasal vowels with diaresis in French? Maybe something we could add to the article?

Thanks! kwami 01:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

There is no rule about the pronunciation of nasal vowels with diaresis, you have to know the pronunciation of each word wich contains it [anon]

Hi Kwami. One example of a word that has a dieresis over a nasalized vowel is coïncidence. The dieresis serves here to distinuish the pronunciation [kɔɛ̃] from the pronunciation [kwɛ̃] that you would use in a word like coincer. Another word is païen (pagan), which is pronounced [pajɛ̃]. I can't think of any special rule for nasal vowels with diereses, other than the fact that you pronounce the vowels separately (except in some proper names like Saint-Saëns and Madame de Staël). Lesgles 20:26, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Lesgles. (I just noticed your comment.) Coïncidence, of course, is not a single root, so we might expect it to be pronounced as co plus incidence. It does not parallel Citroën, which is pronounced citro-enne, not citro-en. That's what confused me. It seems that nasal vowels with trema (within roots) are not part of modern French orthography. The ë in Citroën is not actually nasal; the ë in Saint-Saëns is silent. (In païen of course we could argue that only the en is a nasal vowel; the ï acts like a consonant /j/.) Would you happen to know if Saint-Saëns is an old French name, or originally foreign like Citroën and de Staël? It's so odd that aë would be used for /a/. Thanks again, kwami 19:53, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi. According to this web site (http://www.maurice-abravanel.com/saint_saens.html), it appears that his name came from the town of St-Saëns in Normandy, which in turn comes from the name of the 7th century Saint Sidonius. I still don't know why this means that the s would be kept. It's possible that long ago, the a and the e were pronounced separately, and that the spelling hasn't caught up. Of course, proper names can be weird. For example, why is there a dieresis in the Paris metro station "Montparnasse-Bienvenüe"? I certainly don't know. Lesgles 00:45, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The explanation I found is that in the 17th century, /oe/ could be spelled 'eu' or 'ue', so the tréma is there to let you know to pronounce it bienvenu and not bienveneu. -Adjusting 19:01, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Just thought of another example: Caïn, as in Cain and Abel. Here it is part of the root, if you're willing to accept proper names. Lesgles (talk) 05:58, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

What do WE sound like to the French?.

I've often wondered what we foreigners sound like to native French-speakers, and how they can tell 'who' is mangling their language :-). I once got a French friend to speak French to me in a 'joke' English accent, and it came out as a dull, lazy flat monotone with no modulation, as though it was being read from a page. He then repeated the exercise in a joke German accent, which was loud, commanding, rude and funny once the sound of caterpillar tracks had subsided and I had wiped all the spit off myself.

Perhaps a native French speaker could entertain us with how a few other nationalities destroy French?.160.84.253.241 09:15, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

To me (I am French man), French as it's spoken with an English or an American accent sounds melodic and cute. Conversely, when an American girl speaks her tongue, it sounds twangy, too high-pitched, and quickly irritating to me. Bratta75 09:24, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

To Bratta75. Thanks for that. I am English, and when a Frenchman speaks English it sounds very pleasant, poetic and 'smooth' (especially to women). Conversely, when an American girl speaks her tongue, it sounds twangy, too high-pitched, and quickly irritating to me :-)160.84.253.241

To Bratta75. I'm a french canadian (quebec) and I know French people from france think the same about us.. we also have a bit too much high pitched voice sometimes, like americans. So it could be an European vision of america. Fred.

I'm terribly sorry that you feel that way. Perhaps you have heard what we call the "valley girl" voice. That is when there is an infliction in the voice at the end of every statement or word as if asking a question. Please note that not all Americans speak that way.

We were only joking. If Europeans like you, they tell jokes about you and expect a good withering volley of 'stick' by return. If we don't like you we just ignore you. We know that The Gerry Springer Show is a freak show to you as well as us.160.84.253.241 07:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

To my humble French ears, I think French with an English accent is spoken as if the speaker had a hot potato in the mouth. Maybe that's because they swallowed too many vowels... French with a German accent has the funny mess of voicing of EVERY consonants, like in "Qu'est-ce que fous foulez?" or "Fous troufez ça gorrect, fous?" "Abzolument BAS!" (yes, both are lines from Astérix comics : )) French with a Polish/Russian accent is slow, glidey and vowels are all messed up, and do keep in mind none of these nationalties apply the correct French stress pattern (much like we French never apply the correct stress pattern while speaking another language :D). African French is spoken with r-vocalisation, and with much of the vowels kept open. And, ah well, a last one : French with a Spanish accent speak the "j" as a palatal glide and all the "e"s and "o"s are pronounced closed :D 24.203.155.119 05:09, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

What exactly does this have to do with anything?CharlesMartel 01:12, 30 November 2006 (UTC)CharlesMartel

Ummm, it's fun and interesting. Isn't that a good enough reason? KiwiBiggles 23:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

French is soo hard to learn sometimes!! like the way you pronounce things... what did anyone use that is a good/easy way to learn?? <Ana>

Canadian French speakers

How do native speakers of French from Canada sound to native speakers of French from France? I've heard that French-Canadians speaking French in France may be corrected by native French speakers there. (In other words, how do French speakers think Céline Dion sounds?)4.243.206.29 22:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

To answer your question:

1. celine dion does not use her "strong" accent when performing on scene. She just speak a rather standard french (the words are spelled correctly) with a really small french canadian sounding.. And when singing a French song she soften her voice because French from europe cannot support a high pitched voice. French canadians can, but sometimes they can find that irritating too.. but less than europeans. Oh yeah, this is the main reason why she does not make bilangual CDs.

2. the first thing french people need to do when listening to us for the first time is taking a coffee. They need to concentrate because we speak a bit faster than them, or we just miss some few words here and there because the french language use sometimes too much words like "le, la, les" (articles) between verbs or nouns and we simply cut them or shrink them like : sur la becomes "suaa" and sur le becomes "sul". Also we have our own vocabulary, a lot of local words and good old french words that the french themselves do not use today!! 207.253.111.161 03:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC) Fred

I had a prof who once told me his theory on the difference between Quebec and France French: the cold. He noted that the more southern a language (from a northen hemisphere perspective), the more apt a speaker was to open his mouth broadly and be more nasal in pronunciation. While this could only explain things partially, it did seem to make sense when looking at different languages and different dialects. Compare the northerly Germanic languages with the more southern Latin languages. Take the English of the deep South and compare it to New England or the upper Mid-west, and you will notice a somewhat similar phenomena. Likewise, if you take Parisian French and compare it to that of the Côte d'Azur...well, try it on for size.

So, wanna speak Canadian French...limit the nasality and try to open your mouth less (remember...you're sitting out in three feet of snow at -40F... ;-)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.56.160.208 (talk) 07:34, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

(no title)

The French are always exaggerating the number of speakers of their language. Looked at the government homepages of Laos, Vietnam, and Mauritius, listed as being francophone. Nothing in French. I live in Brussels and work for the EU where French is losing ground, to English of course. I would treat every claim about the French language with a large pinch of salt. Louisiana French speaking? Yeah right. Why not colour Paris imperial red as the number of anglophones there is statistically quite high. Dream on, froggies!

Laos and Vietnam were french 50-years ago, ever heard about history books? your english speaking friends here in the US have forbidden the use of French native language to the Louisiana population did you knew that? ever heard about the Great Upheaval ethnic cleansing? aren't your friends cool? Belgium will never be divided as want francophobe nationalists like you, so keep dreaming on, french fries! Shame On You 15:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I would add to the main page: the number of institutions where French is formally an official language is largely thanks to the obstinate lobbying efforts of the French, and in no way indicates that it is common use by non natives within those bodies. The translation and interpretation costs to these organisations so that the French can indulge in their nationalistic vanity is considerable. In reality, on a daily basis, French is spoken much less in these institutions than it seems on paper. The number of countries where French is officially spoken - according to a highly biased source, La Francophonie - might seem impressive, but bear in mind that these countries either are in Africa or have small populations; either way, with the exception of France, Quebec and Belgium they are all economically and culturally utterly insignificant. One guide to France's importance would be to look at books and scientific papers written in French, and citations to French science papers. The number is low. A ambitious martian wishing to embark on any career who came to planet Earth would be ill-advised to learn French, since he would cut himself off from the dialogue of the elite in business, science and the arts conducted between Asia, Europe and North America, and most of Africa and the Middle East. A better second language - after English of course - would be Spanish or Chinese, all of which have a far greater number of native speakers and are growing in importance. French on the other hand, is unquestionably in decline: in its last international bastion, the EU, it has been supplanted by English. It is a very nice-sounding language of course, and gives insight to a closed culture that doesn't engage with and is therefore ignored by the rest of the world - that of France. But its usefulness is strictly tertiary and is therefore best learnt at leisure. cheers PM (unsigned comment by 86.142.177.211 (talk) on August 12, 2006)

One guide to France's importance would be to look at books and scientific papers written in French, and citations to French science papers. The number is low. You are confusing French science and the French language; French scientists nowadays tend to write their scientific papers in English nowadays. Do you mean French science papers, or science papers written in French? In the latter case, indeed, current international science is in English. As for French science papers, I'm just hearing Wendelin Werner got the Fields medal...

Apart from that, a lot of ranting. By your own standards, most countries in the world are irrelevant anyway! David.Monniaux 18:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you need to use such abrasive language to prove a point I fail to see? 24.203.155.119 04:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The French are always exaggerating the number of speakers of their language. They are not alone with that, just look at Chinese, Russian, German, Vietnamese or whatever. Almost everyone wants to make their language look bigger than it really is. French does remain an important language in Africa though. Aaker 13:06, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

The usual boozy Francophobe nonsense. Even taken by numbers and economic importance, the future of French is looking pretty good. As a result of population growth, France's importance in the EU is likely to become even greater while French is spreading in Africa through education. And those who were insisting not long ago that France must reform its economy along Anglo-American lines are a lot quieter now. Of course, there is much more to language than numbers and wealth - the knowledge of languages with small numbers of speakers is both interesting and culturally important. But, to argue with 86.142.177.211, France is very far from being one of those. Incidentally, I am neither French nor from one of the major Anglophone countries and I find French culture to be more open to and interested in the world than those of countries in which one often finds the view that those who don't speak English don't exist 41.241.18.191 (talk) 23:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Œnologie

Please, take a look on those texts:

According to this article:

The ligature œ is a mandatory contraction of oe in certain words (sœur "sister" /sœʁ/, œuvre "work [of art]" /œvʁ/, cœur "heart" /kœʁ/, cœlacanthe "coelacanth" /selakɑ̃t/), sometimes in words of Greek origin, spelled with an οι /oj/ diphthong which became oe in Latin, pronounced /ø/ (formerly /e/) in French (and other Romance languages): œsophage /øzɔfaʒ/, œnologie /ønɔlɔʒi/. It may also appear in œu digraph (or œ alone in œil "eye"), in words that were once written with eu digraph (which could be read /y/ or /œ/, depending on the word): bœuf "ox" /bœf/, bœufs "oxen" /bø/ (Old French buef or beuf), mœurs /mœʁ/ "custom", œil "eye" /œj/, etc. In these cases, the Latin etymon must be spelled with an o where the French word has œu: bovem > bœuf, mores > mœurs, oculum > œil.

Acording to fr:Œnologie

L’œnologie (à prononcer [enɔlɔʒi] et non [ənɔlɔʒi]) est l'art du vin, de la culture à la consommation en passant par la récolte, la vinification, l'élevage, la conservation et la dégustation.

Usien6 01:20, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks like you could fix that. ---moyogo 15:43, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm goingto fix it... – Usien6 20:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks like we need to fix the French wikipedia too, because although [enɔlɔʒi] is indeed the correct pronunciation, [ønɔlɔʒi] is the common pronunciation ([ənɔlɔʒi] is non-existent).

I fixed the french wikipedia ; cf Œ in French - Bratta75 (talk) 11:48, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Africa

I really think we should add more information about the French language in Africa, since most French- speakers live there. I think we should add information about; African-French dialect with phonology, grammer etc. the legal status of French and it's development, and also something about African-French native speakers. Aaker 21:03, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

German French

I removed "German French" because there was no indication of what that is supposed to be and because that does not exist according to other reference works i have. --Espoo 20:18, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Needs much more overview, fewer obscure detail in this main article

The article presently jumps into obscure facts about the legal status of French, before describing what French is as a language that developed from Latin, started out as the local language of Ile de France, spread to become the standard language of the whole of France, went through several historical periods, has this and that magnificent literary eras, was expanded around the world by colonialism, has these general linguistic characteristics and today has these specific legal statuses in various places.

Each in a readable one- or two-paragraph section, with links to more detailed articles.

Pretend a Martian is reading this. He's looked at a map and seen "France" -- tell him about the language spoken there.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.6.248.209 (talk • contribs) 12:18, 12 Nov 2006 (UTC)

Sound samples: IPA

Moved these posts to the Above discussion as they are the same discussion and go together.--Mrboire (talk) 14:42, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

difference with French article

the French article states there are 51 languages not 30, that makes the language upranks to 8 (instead of 9). the European Union is listed there as official language a basic info which is not featured here and is pretty suspicous to me isn't it? (i've red somewhere OTAN docs are published in both English and French, can someone confirm this?). why don't you use the French language article data? Shame On You 15:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikiversity

Hey all you native French speakers, French teachers, et al. The v:French Department at Wikiversity could use a hand! Come on over.--Elatanatari 22:37, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Decision time

It's fair to say that there are many sources on how many people speak French fluently around the world. We need to decide on which one we're going to use, or whether we're going to use several to give a range instead of one hardcore number. Right now there's a discrepancy between the lead (175 million) and the infobox (128 million). The lead figure comes from the Francophonie and the infobox one comes from Ethnologue, which makes me think the latter is more reliable. But anyway.....ideas? Opinions? We need decide something here and stick with it because these numbers in this article change very frequently...and they shouldn't.UberCryxic 16:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion is that we make table like the one in the article about the Russian language, there we use all sources. Aaker 22:46, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I come here about once a year, and thereäs the usual nationalist bullshit. The French lie through the teeth to exaggerate the influence of their language and downgrade that of English. Treat all figures with extreme scepticism. If you count non Europeans excolonials as native French speakers, make sure to count anglophones in these comtinents and add these to the English tally. That is, if the French insist on saying "all" congolese speak French, count all Indians in the English speaker tally.... Weäll win anyway, French bastards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.42.91.120 (talk) 23:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

History of French in Spanish in WikiArticle

I don't think anyone noticed that the part of the French article is in Spanish. This should be translated into English and it would be nice if someone has a reason for this. Is this vandalism? Bardock the Mexican—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.32.19 (talk • contribs) 04:11, 25 Dec 2006 (UTC)

Samples IPA

The placement of the IPA renderings between slashes indicates that they are phonemic rather than phonetic. If they are phonemic, I question the appearance of the colon in several of them to represent a long vowel. Vowel length isn't phonemic in French, so the colon is extraneous and should be omitted. If, on the other hand, these are intended to be phonetic renderings, then they should be between square brackets, not slashes, per standard linguistic conventions. —Largo Plazo 15:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Archiving

This talk page needs archiving. S .D. ¿п? § 01:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. I moved all sections without contributions after August 2006 to /Archive 1 and /Archive 2. —Largo Plazo 18:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

French-speaking countries

In the list of French-speaking countries, "Central Africa" goes to a page about Central Africa, but it seems like it should be renamed and relinked to "Central African Republic"—do you agree?

Yes, I changed it a few days ago. —Largo Plazo 17:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

former colonies

countries like lebanon and romania have a fair amount of francophone spokers too, why aren't they mentionned here? Louis R14 16:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Lebanon is mentioned. Romania wasn't a French colony, and Romanians don't communicate with each other in French or use it for official purposes. —Largo Plazo 17:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you're confusing french overseas territories and french overseas départements, which have totally different administrative status. The latter (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane & Reunion) are part of the French Republic, and all its laws apply, including those regarding official language, just as they apply to other départements such as Paris or the Loire. In other words, once you mention french is the official language of France, these four are covered. Specific mention of overseas territories, where various forms of local government exist outside the boundaries of the Republic, makes more sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.132.234.206 (talk) 21:35, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Eurocentric

The present article seems very Eurocentric to me especially since most French-speakers live in Africa. Aaker 21:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

No, they don't.CharlesMartel 17:50, 18 February 2007 (UTC)CharlesMartel

Actually, they do. But if you're just counting native speakers, you are probably right. Aaker 17:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Quebec English

I'm a native speaker of Quebec English, and I think that the influence of French on the way native speakers of English speak their language isn't strong enough to warrant the inclusion of Quebec English on ~~this list~~ a list of dialects of English influenced by French. Inclusion on this list is likely to make people think the influence is much stronger than it is. I think for every 10 French borrowings Anglos use, Britons and Americans probably use 9 . The handful of extra ones like dépanneur just stand out more because they're unknown to outsiders. The fact that there are people in Quebec who speak English as a second language in a way that's heavily influenced by French is beside the point. Belgian English might as well be included on the list. I think Quebec English should definitely be removed from the list. Joeldl 18:48, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Chiac

In my opinion, the characterization of Chiac as a language derived from French rather than a dialect of French is way off.

Do you have a better way of cattagorizing it or a reason for this opinion? If not, your faceless opinion doesn't matter.CharlesMartel 17:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)CharlesMartel

I would categorize it as a subdialect of Acadian French. Looking at the examples on the page Chiac, which were most likely specifically selected to illustrate differences between Standard French and Chiac, it appears to be French. I'm against its inclusion unless an academic source can be found referring to it as a language derived from French. Ethnologue doesn't list it as a language for example. Joeldl 18:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Number of speakers conflict of sources

One source, the one currently used in this article, seems to strongly contradict the numbers found in this source, although the age of the data is about the same. Could anyone reconcile these differences in number of speaker figures? Thanks. Deco 00:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Which numbers on that page are you referring to? Joeldl 00:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Specifically, that there are 265 million native or secondary speakers of French (rather than 175 million). Deco 00:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you follow the link from the reference at the bottom of the article, they give three numbers: 113 M who speak it natively or fluently, 61 M "whose use or mastery of French is limited by circumstances or opportunities for use", 100 to 110 M more "who studied French for several years and have retained variable ability, or who use it for their work". Sounds pretty vague if you asked me. Somebody made the decision on Nov. 17 to stop counting the third group, but it doesn't look like there was any discussion. My opinion is that all the language pages should just use native speaker figures, because otherwise every language page will have its own criteria for a cutoff in terms of ability.. The "1 billion" figure on the English page is ludicrous unless you count anybody who can count to ten. Joeldl 01:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Africa

I don't think "African French" and "Maghreb French" qualify as dialects, especially since there are so few native speakers. Are the native speakers known to speak in a markedly different way than European Francophones? Also, just because Africa has the most Francophones doesn't mean it's the continent where the language is most widely used. You can be capable of speaking French, but still use other languages most of the time. Joeldl 21:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

There are native speakers of both Maghreb- and especially African French which makes it correct to call them dialects. How many they are is not important for the definiton. And French is in deed widely used, especially in urban areas. There are even some of them here on wikipedia, for example; user:moyogo, user:Themalau. I asked Themalau about it and i got this answer;

"Non ce n'est pas frequent en Afrique. D'ailleurs j'ai moi meme un accent Congolais en Francais. Mais j'ai appris le Francais avant mes langues Congolaises (Lingala, Kikongo, etc), et je n'ai jamais reellement appris a ecrire dans ces langues jusqu'il y a de cela3 ou 4 ans seulement. Ainsi, le Francais est ma langue maternelle... par defaut. C'est la langue que je parle, et probablement ecris le mieux (quoique le fait de vivre aux USA me force a ecrire le plus souvent en anglais, donc les fautes de grammaire apparaissent maintenant dans les 2 langues :)). Mais pour la grande majorite des fricains, la langue dans laquelle ils sont le plus confortable, est une langue Africaine. Merci de la visite!Themalau 11:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)"

Aaker 17:39, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The reference given by the article that says that French spoken in the Central African Republic can be difficult to understand for francophones from other countries also says this in the preceding paragraph: Le français est la langue officielle de la République. Il n'est la langue maternelle qu'un d'un tout petit groupe d'Européens dont le nombre n'atteint pas les 10 000. The statement about "une autre variété de français" refers specifically to French spoken as a second language by "les classes non instruites". The fact that such people might speak French in a way that is difficult to understand for others is hardly noteworthy in my opinion, and in any case the current wording of the section on Africa needs to be changed to make this clear. Also, there is still no academic source for the existence of dialects called "African French" and "Maghreb French". The Ethnologue website does not list any, for example. If the above reference is to be believed, there is no such thing in the Central African Republic, at least as a mother tongue. And for the small number of Africans who speak French as a mother tongue, why would one expect Senegalese French to be any closer to Congolese French than to Algerian French? 15:54, 9 March 2007 Joeldl

Well, my original source about the dialects is actually my French-language professor. But according to the websites I've read there is no such a thing as an African French dialect, so maybe we should mention numerous African dialects instead. Read for example:

The Africa section says that most francophones live on that continent, but this is not true. Francophone means speaker of French as a first language, while most of the admittedly numerous African French speakers are second language speakers. This line needs to be changed.AnthroGael 09:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

"Sociolinguistique bioécologique du français

La langue française a été introduite en Afrique par le fait colonial. Ce qui caractérise ce français d’Afrique, c’est sa diversité, sa continuité, son constant changement, sa capacité à phagocyter les autres langues au point de provoquer leur extinction, sa conservation ou son habileté à se renouveler, à s’enrichir au contact des autres forces linguistiques.

En effet, la variabilité caractérise le français d’Afrique : il y a autant de langues françaises en Afrique que de milieu socioculturel où elle est employée. C’est ainsi qu’on parlera plutôt des français d’Afrique : français d’Afrique de l’Ouest, français d’Afrique centrale, français d’Afrique du Nord. Et même à l’intérieure de ces grandes divisions, on parle des français nationaux : français de Côte-d’Ivoire, du Cameroun, d’Algérie, etc" Source

The term African-French is however used often. Since I don't have my professors source available, I have to continue to search for other sources. Aaker 19:04, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem referring to "regional varieties" of French in Africa. "French in Africa" seems better than "African French". I think that most references you find to French in Africa in academic contexts will be about French as it is primarily spoken by Africans – a second language. I, too, have heard that there are a small number of native speakers (particularly in Gabon, I think), but lumping these people together with some who barely speak the language should be avoided, so careful distinctions will need to be drawn. The reference I mentioned on the CAR distinguishes "le français officiel" and "le français local", and undoubtedly there is a continuum between these two extremes. I think that analyzing the actual linguistic characteristics of Algerian French (heavily influenced by Algerian Arabic), Senegalese French (Wolof), CAR French (Sango), etc. will be a difficult task. In my opinion, the most important facts about French in Africa pertain to the circumstances in which it is used – courts, trade, etc. Here some generalizations can be made, but there are likely to be big differences between countries where there is no majority language (e.g. Benin), and those like the CAR, where everybody speaks Sango. Joeldl 05:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

The following sentence seems questionable: "French is considered to be a more sophisticated language by some elements of the Egyptian upper and upper-middle classes". I put in a citation request. Even if assuming there is a valid reference, the sentence itself still has a problem. Perhaps in an attempt to soften the tone, it says "by some elements of..."; however, this formulation makes the sentence almost meaningless since "some" can mean a tiny fraction of the group. It might be equally valid to say that some elements believe in UFOs, or that some elements are taller than 2.1 metres.

--AnthroGael 04:06, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Punctuation

Some other language pages have a section on punctuation and capitalization rules. See Romanian language for example. How about one here? There are a few things in French that are quite different from English in this regard:

- French quotation marks, and the use of dashes for written dialogues

- the use of non-breaking spaces before question marks, exclamation points, colons and semi-colons

- different usage of commas (actually, I'll have to look up the rule on this one)

- use of colons where English might use a dash (Il existe trois types de bla : le premier, le deuxième et le troisième.)

I'm sure there are some more. While I work on a draft for the section, any additions to this list are welcome.

Daniel 203.97.173.115 23:28, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, at least the dash-use would have to have a citation though, I think.--DorisH 12:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Easy. The académie française site is bound to be a good source. Daniel 203.97.173.115 04:33, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Protection

Isn't it time to protect this article? Just take a look at its history, the page is vandalised and reverted many times per day. Aaker 22:56, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Francophobia

There are just many francophobes...—Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.200.255.121 (talk)

And your point wouuld be? — AnnaKucsma (Talk to me!) 13:17, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Francophonie

It seems rather odd that countries like Bulgaria and Egypt, with no official representation of French e.g. official documents etc, are in La Francophonie. The executives should only let in nations who are mostly francophone.Sealpiano 23:00, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

If they want to be members why not allow them? Aaker 16:09, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

500?!?!?

500 million speakers? Ha Ha Ha Funny —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.10.244.186 (talk) 00:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

Unbelievable!! come one... if we count all the ppl in the world that knows how to says "hello" then at least 5 billion people should be listed on the English language page. Way to go for a GA+ rating :) Petrovsky18 08:01, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

The claim that French is an official language in 41 countries is also factually wrong. I believe the correct number is 29. The Wikipedia itself lists 31 countries where French is official, but the list includes the Channel Islands, which of course are not sovereign countries, but rather British Crown dependencies.200.177.193.129 01:27, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I am French, travelled to many places in the world and I do believe that the 500 million speakers is a very excessive number. I read the 3 reference pages and they're just propaganda with no real sources. Someone with more knowledge should edit this page, it's about quality not quantity. L'Écolier 14:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Half a billion is the number sometimes used to refer to the total population where French has an official status. This includes African countries where French is official in spite of being the native language of a small minority. This is a bloated number, as bloated as would be the number of those who "understand" some English or some Spanish on Earth. :-) -- Mathieugp 17:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

This figure "Knowledge of French in the European Union and candidate countries" is also really doubtful.. Can you believe that e.g. in the UK so many people (20%) speak French? British don't speak almost any language, come on! :/ PiusPeto 16:57, 16 May 2007

I've created that map. It is based on the data presented in the EU survey Source: [3], data for EU25, published before 2007 enlargement. I created two other maps as well, see Languages of the European Union. I don't find the survey or the map doubtfull at all. Aaker 23:30, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Aaker, the idea that the whole of the EU is "dark blue" or "light blue" suggesting a high degree of knowledge of French is ludicrous. Never mind what eurobarometer says. This kind of propaganda, is only harmful to French school children, who find that, having brainwashed by their elxders into thinking people speak French, are astonishied too find almsot No one in Europe does....Come. On. I hope someone tells the francophone wikipedians....god knows what lies flourish on their web pages. I work in the EU and reckon that 98% of conferences and committee meetings are in English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.42.91.120 (talk) 23:58, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Help with translation

I am curently working on a madagascar history article.I have come across the following,however do not speak french,so could someone PLEASE asist?Thanks. "Tsiomeko, petite nièce d’Andriantsoly, roi Boéni chassé par les Hova, fut élue reine en 1836 à l'âge de 8 ans à la mort de sa grand-tante Oantitsy qui avait succédé à son frère Andriantsoly. Elle dut se retirer à Nossi-Comba en juin 1837, pourchassé par les Hova. En effet, elle était la fille de Taratra, souer d’Andriantsoly, enlevée par Radama I qui l’avait fait à Manjakaray (Antananarivo). La princesse Soazara, reine actuelle d’Analalava est l’arrière, arrière petite fille de Tsiomeko. La royauté d’Analalava est issue des trois royautés du Nord de Madagascar : Sakalava bemihisatra, par Tsiomeko, Sakalava Zanifotsy, par Derimany, mari de Tsiomeko. Leur fils Tehimbola prit pour une femme Anjaka, fille de Tsiresy, Sakalava Bemazava. Cette dernière porte d’ailleurs, le nom à titre posthume d’Andriamanohiarivo (la princesse qui lie des milles), c’est à dire, Zaafinimena bemihisatra+ Zafinimena bemazava+ Zafinifotsy= royauté d’Analalava."

New Babylon 2 15:07, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is my translation:

Tsiomeko, grand-niece of Andriantsoly, Boéni king driven out by Hova, was elected queen in 1836 at the age of 8 years old until the death of her grand-aunt Oantitsy who had succeeded her brother Andriantsoly. She had to flee in Nossi-Comba in June 1837, being pursued by Hova. Indeed, she was the daughter of Taratra, "souer" of Andriantsoly, kidnapped by Radama I who had abducted her in Manjakaray (Antananarivo). Princess Soazara, current queen of Analalava is the grand, grand, grand-daughter of Tsiomeko. The royalty of Analalava comes from the three Northern royalties of Madagascar: Sakalava bemihisatra, through Tsiomeko, Sakalava Zanifotsy, through Derimany, husband of Tsiomeko. Their son Tehimbola took for a Anjaka woman, daughter of Tsiresy, Sakalava Bemazava. The latter bears the name as a posthumous title of Andriamanohiarivo (the princess who binds miles), i.e., Zaafinimena bemihisatra+ Zafinimena bemazava+ Zafinifotsy = royalty of Analalava.

-- Mathieugp 21:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks .New Babylon 2 15:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Ive also come across the following "Reine OANTITSY (1832-1836) qui , elle-même, était la sœur du Prince ANDRIANTSOLY. (1832-1836), celui qui a été chassé d’abord par l’armée de RADAMA 1(probably 1er) ...." and this french wikipedia article: "Andriantsoly (Tsi Levalou) est parmi les derniers héritiers du roi sakalava de Madagascar. Vaincu par les troupes de Radama appuyées par les forces étrangères dont il fit des victimes dans les hauts rangs. Alors il partit se retrancher avec quelques membres de sa cour à Mayotte après l'insurrection de 1825, où, à Kani, à Tsangamoudzi, à Poroani, ils répandent la langue malgache parlée sur les côtes Nord Madagascar. JaoJoby dans son album musical intitulé Madagascar, au titre 5 "Mahore" énumère plus ces villages ou ces villes habités.

Andriantsoly a été assassiné sur Petite Terre, au croisement des chemins qui mènent vers les villes de Pamandzi, de Labatoire, de Dzaoudzi; après la remise de Mayotte sous protectorat français, en concertation étroite avec le régent mahorais Madi,son hôte,contre les envahisseurs 'sultans des rives de l'océan indien et du canal de Mozambique.

Son tombeau royal au modèle de ses origines malgaches se situe au sommet de la montagne sur la Grande Terre Mamoudzou, donnant une vue sur la mer, la route de la barge qui rallie les deux terres quotidiennement. Ce tombeau est sous la surveillance et l'entretien de fidèles."

.However,I only got it from a google search result page,because the source (http://www.edbm.gov.mg/sakatia/PCD_NB.pdf) doesnt show on my computer.Could someone please go there and see if its just me?Thanks.New Babylon 2 16:07, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Umm i clicked the link but it wont work either...

The map of Francophone Africa

The map of Francophone Africa lacks the island-states of Mauritius, the Seychelles and the Comoros, and the French DOM, TOM, Réunion and Mayotte. I don't know anything about svg-graphics so I cannot fix it myself. 192.121.234.101 10:24, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I think Mauricius and those countries are shown in the greater map below the infobox. In addition I don't know why all francophone regions outside France and QC are shown in a different coloration. Algeria is a purely bilingual country and has the same light blue colour as the english-speaking Canada, this doesn't make any sense. This map is also erroneous [4]. Belgium has been assigned correctly two colours but Switzerland only one, this can't be right. Also Corsica, Bretagne and countless other rural regions of France are not "native" in French in the way the map implies. Miskin 23:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The majority of the population in Corsica and Bretagne (Brittany) as well as all other regions of metropolitan France are native French speakers. Switzerland is not coloured because Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, thus Switzerland did not participate in the EU-survey. Aaker 16:28, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I didn't notice this was coming from an EU survey. In any case, a significant percentage of people in rural ares of metropolitan France were native only in their local Patois and had to learn French as a second language, and I'm talking about generations that are still alive. So, contrary to popular belief, it wasn't only the Corsicans and the Britons who had to give up their local dialects, but also farmers from the French heartland. Unfortunately all kinds of patois and regional dialects of France (with minor exceptions) have been given extremely little to no cultural value. Miskin 23:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Algeria is a purely biligual country, talking about Arabic and Berber.French has no official status. Apart from some intellectuals or immigrants, people who can understand french are relatively few, those who can speak it much fewer.Besides there is no Algerian french or Maghreb French as stated in some comments; there is no native speaker of french in the Maghreb- the last french families who remained after the independence left Algeria in the 90's- unless you are counting immigrants who live in france, if so their accent ought to be counted as a variety of french french , it's irrelevant to relate it to the Maghreb. Moreover, Algeria had never been a member in la frncophonie; bouteflika is the first president to attend its summit, but as a guest--Sayih 23:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Ever been to Algeria? If so, you know that French is as commonly used as Classic Arabic and in many fields French strongly predominates. People who understand French are not few (not relatively nor in total numbers) and the number is increasing. Algeria is not the only country in Maghreb and there are lots of Francophones in Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania. I know that this is a political question in Algeria and that the islamist movement wants to reduce the use of French. However, that alone is not a reason to change the article. Aaker (talk) 20:46, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Voice

I don't know who did that French Canadian voice, but it sounds totally wrong to me (I'm a Quebeker)...

The guy who did it said that French is his second language and that he's hoping someone with a good microphone will replace his work with something better. Maybe someone from New Hampshire? On y parle une sorte de francais. See the separate discussion way above. And make a recording, si vous pouvez parler bien. Snezzy (talk) 17:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Is Spanish more important than French in Morocco and Western Sahara?

I'm a little confused. According to the Spanish language map Spanish is spoken in Morocco and Western Sahara. If this is incorrect please let the Spanish language page know.

I don't know about Western Sahara but French is certainly more important in Morocco where it is used at least as much as the official language, standard Arabic. Spanish is however spoken by some 20,000 in the north of Morocco and Moroccans are the largest immigrant group in Spain. Aaker 09:35, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

About Moroccan emigrants in Spain see;[5] and in France;[6]. Aaker 09:46, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

A lot of people in Marocco speak spanish, but french is more tought and spoken. Much more. In western sahara spanish is almost dsappear.--Alessandro.pasi 18:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, you wrong, Alessandro. Nearly all Saharauis (especially people over 40s) speak Spanish. In fact, it is a symbol against the pressure of the Moroccan government looking for the whole control of the country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.148.204.222 (talk) 23:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Writing system unchanged?

This sentence appeared in the last line of the section entitled "Writing System": "Some attempts have been made to reform French spelling, but few major changes have been made over the last two centuries." I suppose it depends on what someone calls "major", but I feel this statement is false. The Académie française has produced four completely new editions in the last two hundred years - 1835, 1878, 1932-1935 and 1992 - and is currently in the process of producing the newest, ninth edition. (Please see: http://www.academie-francaise.fr/ ). These works include hundreds of important "reforms" to spelling. When the last one was introduced, in 1992, it was greeted acrimoniously by the French press and the public. (Please see this official site for specifics about this reform: http://www.orthographe-recommandee.info/ ) If these changes had been considered to be "minor" by professional writers and citizens, certainly there would have been no protests. - - I will delete this sentence and ask someone to replace it with something more appropriate. Respectfully Charvex 22:22, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

This is major. Dropping a few accents here and there, changing a few characters and changing a few rules is not major in comparison. --moyogo 11:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Official Language of the Olympic Committee

Isn't French one of the official languages of the olympic committee and of the international red cross? If so shouldn't this be added in to the page.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.5.198.62 (talk • contribs) 18:28, 25 Jul 2007 (UTC)

Interpol and Mauritius.

One of the official languages of Interpol is French. Shouldn't that be included? Also, English is the official language of Mauritius therefore that country should be stricken from the list of countries whose official language is French in the Africa section. French is spoken by a large proportion of the population however and is a de facto language.

Actually Mauritius does not have any official language according to the constitution. But English is the language used by the Mauritian government and the majority of the population speaks Mauritian creole as mother tongue. French is however commonly understood and used in media. Aaker 22:39, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Categorization

Please see Talk:Romance languages#Confusion in categories. Any input is appreciated. --Amir E. Aharoni 12:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Vietnam light blue????

Ha Ha Ha Ha... You've got to be kidding.

I have been in Vietnam and Laos. Noone speak french. Just a little in Cambodia—Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.234.181.230 (talk • contribs) 23:34, 13 Aug 2007 (UTC)

I've also been thinking about it and I think it would be better to just keep the green dots there. What do the others say? I would also to express that this is a quite large problem with all the "language maps" . Take a look at:

Vietnamese - as you can see, USA, Australia and France are Vietnamese speaking countries

,

Oh, almost every country is Turkish-speaking!

New map??

What do you think about this map? The following things have been changed:

Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are no longer coloured light blue since the French language is not used so much today.
Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia have been coloured dark blue because the French language is in deed massively used there and there are more Francophones in these countries than in many countries where French is an official language.
Western Sahara has been coloured light blue due to the increasing use of French during the Moroccan rule.
A green dot has been added in London to recognise the French-speaking minority there.

So what do you think?Aaker 14:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's much better.

I like the map a lot. There are, however, two things: inconsistency with other language maps and unclarity as to the significance of the green dots. In the case of the English language map, for example, all of Canada is a dark blue as is all of South Africa. The logic, I surmise, is to show that English is an official language in these countries and is natively spoken by a sizable population. In contrast, light blue shows countries where it is official but the native speaking population is tiny. Following this logic, all of Canada should be coloured dark blue for this French map. As concerns the green dots, I would like to know if they represent a large number of speakers or a significant percentage of speakers. I am originally from an island in Atlantic Canada where there is no green dot. The number of francophone speakers may only be a little more than 10,000...but that represents some 7 or 8% of the population. We certainly can't say that 8% of Toronto or London's population is francophone.AnthroGael 11:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

French is not official in Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, neither declared as an administrative language. What you are proposing is WP:SYNTH. The provided legend says: "French is identified as an official, administrative language". This is completely contradicting official status of the aforementioned countries and their respective articles on Wikipedia (which eventually broke consistency). I am gonna be bold and will update the map as per WP:NOR. For now I will fix the current map. I started working on a vector graphics version of it and will post as soon as possible. Bestofmed™⟨msg↵⟩ 22:38, 26 March 2009 (UTC).

The problem is just that these countries' official policies don't reflect reality. In Algeria for example, language is an important political issue and there are many people in favour of French as well as a lot of self-contradictory behaviour from the government. French is indeed much more used in Maghreb than in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, Anglophone Canada or Flanders although French is an official language in those countries (now the map tells the contrary). North Korea is officially declared a "democratic republic", does that really mean that it is democratic? Do you doubt the fact that the use of French is widespread in the Maghreb states? Thank you for being bold, I think there's a general lack of boldness here. However I think we should try to reach consensus before next time we change the map. (PS. we already have this map which reflects official policies) Aaker (talk) 21:36, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

False claim to be wary of

Apparently, a claim that French is an administrative language in Maine originated at some point on this article, then spread to Maine. I see it is no longer here, and I've pulled it from the Maine article. This is a false claim that apparently originated on Wikipedia - see Voulez-vous: How do you say Wikipedia in French, pp 16-17, July 2007 issue of Down East: The Magazine of Maine. GRBerry 20:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Er ...

Apologies for using this as a discussion forum, but just a quickie - Do you guys think one can learn French from the websites that purport to teach it, or does one need an actual teacher. Many tanks. Amit@Talk 15:15, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if you need an actual teacher, but it would probably be helpful to get one of those book/CD combos that let you practice both reading and speaking. 68.40.65.164 (talk) 22:00, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Probably a little late to be posting this, but I can advise you from personal experience that there is no replacement for an actual teacher. I've found with myself that it's very difficult to self-pace learning, determine how much progress you're making, or know if you're improving in pronunciation, vocabulary, etc. I would recommend using the online courses as a supplement to an actual French class. In three or four years, you can work yourself up to a good conversational level, and in my opinion (this is heavily debated and dependent on the person), you can be a fluent speaker in 8-10 years of learning. Crmadsen (talk) 14:01, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Translation?

Does anyone know how to say "Be yourself" in casual French? (Considering that the "be" is imperative, yet not aggresive.) Kikiluvscheese 03:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Reste toi-même, but please note that this is an encyclopedia and not a translation site. It would be best to use some other forum for further requests for translations, but do go on editing here! :) JdeJ 22:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Bonjour=Hello In English —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.7.9.211 (talk) 19:14, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

For anyone else asking for translations, Google "Babel Fish" for a somewhat effective translator (there's no such thing as perfect when it comes to these), or try http://www.wordreference.com for a relatively decent English-French dictionary complete with forums and popular sayings. Crmadsen (talk) 14:03, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

"French in Canada" size

Shouldn't we make the section about french in canada a little shorter. In my opinion it's way too long, while french in switzerland is 2 lines long. 201.79.46.184 01:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with this. There is too much detail on the specific legal framework in which the French language functions in Canada. IF the originally author could, it would be nice to limit comments to the official statements and laws while using separate entries to link them to the more detailed information given.AnthroGael 09:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

New geographical division?

The present article divides the French-speaking world in these regions:

Europe
The Americas
Africa
Asia
Oceania

This division is probably based on the usual division of the world in continents. I think this division is inadequate however because it doesn't reflect the reality of where French is spoken. Therefore I think a division like this would be better:

Europe
Canada (and Maine, Louisiana, Saint Pierre et Miquelon)
Caribbeans (and French Guyana)
Africa
- Maghreb
- West Africa
- Central Africa
- Indian ocean (and Djibouti)
Middle east (mostly Lebanon but also Israel and Egypt)
Indochina (and Pondicherry)
Oceania

I also think that the four first regions (in bold) should be prioritised since most French-speakers live there. Any opinions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaker (talk • contribs) 22:48, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I find that the existing division by continent, then more detailed sub-division, is clearer and more useful. It follows a logical pattern for the general user, and plainly states which areas use the French language. dbfirs 09:40, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

French Canada Section appears biased

When I read this section it left me the impression as being biased and written by someone with a purist/separatist agenda.

Any discussion regarding French in Canada may best be served by a larger article NOT on this page. This separate page would include a better representation of French outside of Quebec as well as French/English controversies (i.e. Bill 101 prohibiting English only or predominate English signs) within the province.

The neutrality of this article seems dubious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scottfurry (talk • contribs) 10:38, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

That article does probably already exist, see; Bilingualism in Canada, French in Canada, languages of Canada, Canadian French, Quebec French and probably some more articles. Aaker 20:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Please help!!!!!!

Hello my fellow wikipedians!

I am not a french speaker, but I am fluent in what we ballet dancers like to call "ballet-french" - all balletic terminology is in french, and since french was the official language of the imperial russian court (where ballet was cultivated), most important historical sources from Imperial Russia dealing with ballet contain many french passages, and so all libretti for the Imperial theatres was in this language. I have developed an interest in learning the language.

I recently posted the listing, in french, of the dances and mise en scène for Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty (ballet) (scroll down to the structure section) from the Imperial Russian ballet's program of 1890. Using my knowledge of "ballet-french", I "filled in the holes", so to speak, for passages which were not listed in my sources.

this user came in and corrected a few passages, mostly my awful typos (Im the worst with this when typing, even in english!), but in one passage the user changed du to de la, and in another he left du alone.

I always thought that du meant of the, just as de la means of the ... but what determines using one or the other? For example, the user left "Variation du Prince Désiré" alone, while he changed "L'arrivée du Fée des lilas" to "L'arrivée de la Fée des lilas".

Is du a contraction of de la? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrlopez2681 (talk • contribs) 06:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

du = masculine; de la = feminine. Man vyi 06:28, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

thank you Man vyi for your help. What if there is no distinction between masc. & fem.? What is the noun is generic? --Mrlopez2681 13:36, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

In principle all nouns are either masculine or feminine. Have a look at Wikibooks for a beginner's explanation. Man vyi 18:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

again, many thanks for your help Man vyi! MERCI!! --Mrlopez2681 08:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Another question, and proofreading?

My next question is with regard to the word Grand. I've noticed that, depending on which word follows it, the word Grand will be spelled with an e at the end, thus Grande. For example, Grande valse includes the e; but Grand adage does not. What would determine this??

Also,

I have entered in listings of the dances and mise en scène for a few of the ballets I written articles for here on wikipedia, using my knowledge of "ballet french" when my old Imperial-Russian-era libretti didn't include all of the titles of the dances, scenes, etc. in the list.

It would be great if my fellow wikipedians who speak french could proof read these! I would be most greatful! They are listed in the article under the headline "structure". BTW - please excuse me if I have butchered the french language and its grammar! I tried my best ... :)

--Thanks Mrlopez2681 08:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Again you want to look at wikibooks French adjectives. This talk page is really for discussing the article rather than general queries about French, but it's good that someone's trying to take the time to get things right! Man vyi 11:46, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

French Rank in the US

More than once in the past several months I have changed the listing of French to third most-spoken in the US from fourth position. The logic - mistaken in my view - of placing French as fourth most-spoken in the US is that behind English and Spanish there are more Chinese speakers. The two cited-references (very reliable Census Bureau figures) show that this is inaccurate. In the first case, Chinese is not a language, but a group of languages. Cantonese and Mandarin stand out, among many different Chinese languages, as the two most commonly spoken Chinese languages in the US. All combined, these languages do surpass French as a single language. However, if we are to combine closely related languages in one case, we must also do this in other cases. On a purely linguistic level, this would combine all the latin languages, but I recognize the combination of Chinese languages is more a politico-cultural continuity. As such, I would only add French Créole and Patois to the balance of French, which would, nevertheless, give French a clear numerical advantage over Chinese. So, whatever way you look at it, French is the third most-spoken language in the US. AnthroGael (talk) 16:12, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

History

The history section needs a clean up. Presently one can just read about the Celtic influences which ironically are almost non-existent. Aaker (talk) 13:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

And based on what do you make that claim? Opinions are divided on the matter, but apart from giving French some core vocabulary, Celtic languages also gave us our special way of counting, soixante-dix, quatre-vingt etc. JdeJ (talk) 13:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I've read it in a multitude of different sources, to cite one I can give you Henriette Walter Le français dans tout les sens "le français du gaulois? Certainement pas. Que les Gaulois soient nos aïeux et que la langue gauloise soit l'ancêtre du français, c'est une idée qui a fait beaux jours de l'école primaire mais qui mérite d'être examinée de plus près. En fait la Gaule conquise par les Romains, a adopté la langue de ses conquérants et, en dehors de quelques dizaines de mots d'origine gauloise conservés dans le français d'aujourd'hui le gaulois lui-même est peu et mal connu... ...Ce qui reste du gaulois dans le français d'aujourd'hui, ce sont environs soixante-dix mots, dont certains, comme bec, boue, chemin ou mouton, sont d'usage courant tandis que d'autres, comme saie , bièvre, ou mègue, n'évoque plus rien à nos contemporains." On the other hand, I cannot find a single source which claims that the Celtic influences are important. 70 words are not much in a language. The Celtic influences are in fact nothing compared to the Germanic or even the influences from other romance languages and we shouldn't forget that the classical/scientific Latin continued to influence the French language and still does. Aaker (talk) 23:54, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the quote, Henriette Walter is of course an excellent source. I'm a bit surprised to see her claim that it would be wrong to say that the Gauls would be our ancestors. Very surprised, to be honest :) Does she argue that all the Gauls jumped into the sea and an enormous exodus from Rome resettled France? Regardless of language, surely nobody can argue against the Gauls being our ancestors. However, that is outside the topic and she doesn't explicitly argue for it, just implicitly. The number of Celtic words in French are very limited, definitely. As Walter says, some of these are very common but the total number is still quite low. Notwithstanding that fact, I'm sure you agree that there are other influences that just vocabulary, there's also syntax, pronunciation and grammar. As I already said, the French way of counting is believed to be a Gaulish inheritance and is certainly of some importance. I remember reading an article arguing for Gaulish having had a much larger impact on the French pronunciation than on the French vocabulary. That's hardly surprising - anyone who learns a new language (as the Gauls did with Latin) will carry the pronunciation of their first language into it. That's what has given us the pronunciation of English in Ireland, to take a much more recent example of Celtic influence of a non-Celtic language. JdeJ (talk) 13:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Bias Maps

When it comes to maps that show where languages are spoken wikipedia is suffering from double standards. Why is it that the French map uses a number colours to show where French is spoken highlighting the fact that some countries may have French as an official language but not as their main lanugage while the Spanish language map just colours in any country where the language is official regardless of whether the majority of the population speaks Spanish or not. For example, Paraguay is predominantly a Guarani speaking country yet it is the same colour as Spain! For language maps to be useful they should all follow the same criteria!

Can't agree there. To begin with, the map on the Spanish languages does use different colours. As for Paraguay being predominantly Guaraní, can't agree there either. More or less everybody is bilingual and Spanish is used at least as much. It cannot be compared with, say, French in Morocco. JdeJ (talk) 08:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Please look at the Guarani article before posting comments. The Spanish language map only uses a different colour for US states. It has no official status in the US!

In Paraguay Guarani is spoken by 90% of the population while Spanish is spoken by 75% of the population —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.161.69.75 (talk) 12:44, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

French speakers and countries

The total speakers of the language are more or less 265 million people (115 native or similar level). The countries where is official is 29. Source: la Francophonie. So, it is disgusting all other figures. You need to change it very fast. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.198.58.24 (talk) 19:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Ignoring the tone of the previous comment, the poster has a point about the total countries where French is official. In the introduction it says there are 31 countries, in the info box it says 30 countries, and in the article List of countries where French is an official language is says 31 but only has 29 countries in the first list. Does anyone know which is the accurate number? Kman543210 (talk) 10:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

French is de jure official in 29 countries but de facto official / commonly used in some more countries. Aaker (talk) 13:52, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

French Canadian Examples

As far as I can see, there is no difference between the pronunciations shown for French and French Canadian, so I question why there are two columns shown.

Also, I was told by a French Canadian teacher that Si, in answer to a negatively posed question, is not common. A Québecois is more likely to say something like "Ben oui!". Comments? Jpaulm (talk) 22:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

There's not just the pronunciation that change. Here are some examples:

English	Quebec French	France French
weekend	fin de semaine	week-end
email	courriel	e-mail
spam	pourriel	spam
(to) chat	clavarder	chater
podcasting	baladodiffusion	podcasting
caribou	caribou	renne
beverage	breuvage	boisson
stop	arrêt	stop

Also, there ARE differences in the pronunciation. Like for Anglicisms, the Québécois pronounce it with an Anglo-Saxon accent. And there are also in French. If you can speak French, take a look at (in French) this website. Good bye! Jimmy Lavoie × Vive le Québec! ^talk 16:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Also many parts of an automobile are different - Quebecers tend to use the Anglo-Saxon word (e.g. tire vs. pneu). Jpaulm (talk) 01:45, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I don't know about Québec, but in France everybody will answer "Si" in that case, just like you thought. --AurelieM (talk) 23:53, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I know the France French usage - I was taught it in school! - I was asking about Quebec usage. Jpaulm (talk) 01:45, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

No one in Quebec uses "Si" as an affirmative. "Si" is used like "if" in English, never as "yes". Also, half of the audio example of "Canadian French" are English Canadian talking French. It's like asking an American who don't know French to talk French and record it as "American French"/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.203.7.116 (talk) 23:25, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Law French used in British legal documents

Im rather surprised that the fact that Law French is used whenever a new law is passed in Britain isn't in this article. Surely that is notable enough to be used here, at least in my opinion. Please reply. Ironman1503 11:07 14 June 2008 (GMT)

Be bold, add it, source it and wait for reaction! Aaker (talk) 14:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Voiceless stops "never glottalised"??

I question the statement, in the "Sounds" section, that French voiceless stops "are never glottalised". To my ear, at least, French speakers from France frequently pronounce /p/, /t/, and /k/ with a simultaneous glottal closure or narrowing. My observation is admittedly not a valid source — and I'm not proposing to change the existing text to say that voiceless stops are "always", "often", or even "sometimes" glottalized — but I don't think the text should say "never glottalised" in the absence of a reliable source to back up such a claim. Richwales (talk) 18:20, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

It seems like an odd thing to deny. They're also not uvularized, prenasalized, labialized, etc. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:38, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Number of French Speakers

INCONSISTENCY

Online course resources

My French Language Map

French in Louisiana

Canadian French sound examples (OGG)

Phonetics Corrections: ɔ or o

nasal trema

What do WE sound like to the French?.

Canadian French speakers

(no title)

Œnologie

Africa

German French

Needs much more overview, fewer obscure detail in this main article

Sound samples: IPA

difference with French article

Wikiversity

Decision time

History of French in Spanish in WikiArticle

Samples IPA

Categories

Archiving

French-speaking countries

former colonies

Eurocentric

Quebec English

Chiac

Number of speakers conflict of sources

Africa

Punctuation

Protection

Francophobia

Francophonie

500?!?!?

Help with translation

The map of Francophone Africa

Voice

Is Spanish more important than French in Morocco and Western Sahara?

Writing system unchanged?

Official Language of the Olympic Committee

Interpol and Mauritius.

Categorization

Vietnam light blue????

New map??

False claim to be wary of

Er ...

Translation?

"French in Canada" size

New geographical division?

French Canada Section appears biased

Please help!!!!!!

Another question, and proofreading?

French Rank in the US

History

Bias Maps

French speakers and countries

French Canadian Examples

Law French used in British legal documents

Voiceless stops "never glottalised"??