I read somewhere that French is the fastest growing language in the world because of Africa.

The de facto Spanish section caught my eye and just sent me down a mini rabbit hole. Did not expect that.

yeah isn't that why french and english are required at the olympics? they translate everything into those 2 languages. also if you look at stuff at the grocery store or any product really they will always have english and french on there. a lot of the time spanish too but i rarely see any product without a french translation

Wish they could add some blue polka dots down in South Louisiana.

Thought this might provide some motivation to keep on working on your French! Source.

Not that much countries have French as only and 1st global language, the most known is of course France, but if you look at other popular french speaking countries (where lot of members here are from) like Belgium, Switzerland, Canada (Québec), or Luxembourg french is often the 2nd language in these countries.  Maybe some countries with a similar situation as France would be some african countries, but even there they often have local languages wich are also popular.  Anyways, do not hesitate learning french it's definitely worth it! 

I am bilingual in speak English and Spanish, but you’re right I don’t know a lot about the French language. I do know that many people speak it as a second language, so maybe the numbers I was looking at are not factoring in people who are not native French speakers and just know it as a second language

I also think this is a confusing question because even if someone doesn’t speak French as their native language, if it’s the only language you have in common you might still speak with them. For example I was recently interacting with someone from Burundi and we found it easier to both speak French even though both of us are L2 speakers, because it was the language we both knew. That person would not have been counted in the kind of statistics you mention but actually it was very useful to know French.

Geographical distribution of French speakers

Not sure where you're getting 10% for Haiti, it's 42% according to the page.

Yeah but OP did not say 10% are fluent in French, he said 10% speak French. Not the same thing.

The thing about Haiti is that there’s no accurate information about the French language and 10% isn’t correct at all. I would guess that the number of Francophones in Haiti is about 50% or over that. In Haiti French and Haitian Creole co exist and it’s been growing amongst younger generations, And the country uses French everyday

And I’ve lived in here for 3 years and been all over the country and I only spoken French and I didn’t have much trouble at all.

In Haiti you’ll come across people Who can speak and operate in French

People who can only understand and read French

People who can only read French

10% of Haitians speaking French as a first language might be believable but 10% of Haitians being francophone that’s definitely NOT true.

Can’t believe the arrival left out France as a county that speaks French lol

Or phrased another way, Did you know that France invaded these 29 countries?

Yes, I knew.

TIL of the South Pacific archipelago nation of Vanuatu. In addition to English and French there are 113 indigenous languages. It has the highest density of languages per capita in the world "with an average of only 2000 speakers per language".

Christianity is the predominant religion but there still exists a number of "cargo cults" which developed from WW2. (Wikipedia)

The answer to this question is highly dependent on how to understand this distinction between Germanic and Romance : as a linguistic distinction or as an ethnic distinction (reminder: ethnic identity is the subjective experience of people who identify themselves and others around them as belonging to the same, or different ethnic group, it doesn't mean biological descendence).

From a linguistic point of view, the difference between "Western Franks" (speaking a Romance language) and "Eastern Franks" (speaking a Germanic language) is as early as the 9th century CE . The earliest example I know of of this linguistic distinction is the oaths of Strasbourg (842) between two of the Grand Sons of Charlemagne. Louis who controlled Eastern Francia had to swear in a Romance language (let's call it "old French") so that the soldiers of his brother, Charles, who controlled Western Francia, understand. So we can say that from a language point of view, Frankish soldiers who lived in Modern France, already spoke French. This is particularly significant as we are not talking about the civil administration, clergy, or local peasants, here (who most defined never stopped speaking a Romance language), we are talking about the Frankish army, the political backbone of the Frankish Empire, both in its Merovingnian and Carolingian versions. This is the same Frankish army (politically, I am not talking about ancestry per se) who won Clovis control over Gaule and Charlemagne control over Eastern Germany and Northern Italy.

From an ethnic point of view, the evolution from Frankish to French happened on multiple stages, but most definitely later that the 9th Century. I can list here some stages of this evolution, but what you should keep in mind before is that the evolution Frankish/French is just an evolution in language. These words are technically the same word. They are just used a posteriori to distinguish two different stages, but there has never been someone who decided: "we embrace the Roman heritage now, so we shall no more be called the Franks, we shall be called the French from now on"

• one of the elements of evolution is the disappearance of the Carolingian dynasty in the tenth Century AD, and their replacement by dynasties who didn't have their unifying ambition that kept them trying (and frequently failing) to reunify the Romance and Germanic components of Charlemagne's Empire under one Frankish ruler. From the early 11th Century, the distinction between Francia (who inherited the name because the early heartland of Frankish empires was in Roman Gaule) and Germania followed more or less the linguistic line (this is very broad, there were of course many exceptions to this "rule"). So Frankish stopped describing a bilingual identity and started describing exclusively people speaking Romance languages

• an other element of evolution was the gradual change of the title of the kings of said Francia, from king of the franks (Rex Francorum) to king of Francia/France (Rex Franciae). This evolution was formalized by Philip II Auguste (1165-1223).

• From an ethnic point of view, it seams that the French ruling class and nobility kept seeing itself as in continuity with the Franks of Clovis and Charlemagne. At least this would explain the popularity of the myth of the Trojan origin of the Franks (a myth first mentioned in the 7th century CE but who kept reappearing in French historical texts in the Middle Ages and early Modern era): it would give the French nobility and ruling class the same prestigious ancestry as the Romans. This myth had an intresting modification starting in the 16th century: it mentions that Gauls also had Trojan ancestry, making them cousins with the Franks, and making the Frankish conquest of Gaul as a welcome return to origins rather than an invasion of foreign lands. This evolution may be an indicator of how starting from this period the French ruling class stopped identifying exclusively with the Franks, and started seeing themselves as descendants of a Gallo Frankish mix.

• one of the last evolutions was the state sponsored popularity of the thesis of the Gaulish (and exclusively Gaulish) ascendence of the French population, popularized in the late 19th century through the expression "Nos ancêtres les Gaulois". Through it, the French definitely reject their Frankish identity.

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It's a popular misconception that "France left NATO". In fact it never stopped being a member either of the alliance defined by the North Atlantic Treaty, or of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which implements that treaty.

France left the integrated command structure of NATO, which meant that French forces would operate independently of NATO and NATO forces would not be routinely stationed in France. France remained formally committed to the collective security agreements of the treaty and there were protocols in place to reintegrate French forces into NATO command in the event of a Warsaw Pact attack on western Europe.

Also as u/la_mine_de_plomb pointed out, France is not the only French-speaking nation in NATO, and in addition French has historically been the language of international diplomacy and many international organisations use at least English and French as their official languages (e.g., the UN, the International Olympic Committee and many others.

I thought NATO used English as the “common” language for a few reasons.

1. It is the agreed upon “international” language of civilian and military aviation.

2. if you add up the combined forces of the USA, UK and Canada, English would be the most common language by far of seamen, aviators, armored and infantry personnel on a battlefield. Same thing with the majority of the various defense industries.

3. English is the most common second language taught in the schools of non English speaking European nations, right?

For what it's worth, French is an official language in Canada and Belgium, both original NATO members.

French was the global common language before English, hence the term lingua franca. To some extent it still functions as the “second” international language. This is mostly due to how widely known it is in Europe, and it’s also one of the most spoken languages in Africa.

I would hazard an educated guess that in the former African colonies, French (as well as English or Portuguese in other areas of the continent) became the lingua franca for countries that combined together multiple different ethnic groups wirh their own languages. The European languages were the languages of governmenr, business and trade during colonization and they facilitated communication between the different grouos, helping them become established despite the relatively short colonial period.

Not sure this holds true completely in the Middle East either. In Lebanon, Arabic is definitely the first language followed by French with English in third depending on the community.

In the case of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge (note the name) put the kibosh on French as they were so virulently anti-foreign influence. The same happened in Vietnam, the South maintained French as a government language but after the fall, Ho Chi Minh wasn't having it.

I think you might be misinterpreting the data here, in francophone Africa for example many people have a working knowledge of French because it is the language of instruction and official business, but that doesn't mean it is their first or primary language. Something one might use at the bank but not the corner store.

In much of Africa in general multilingualism is extremely common.

For African nations, French is like English. It's their lingua franca. It's what they can use to bridge their language gap, and thus became massively dominant.

Meanwhile in Algeria where almost everyone spoke Arabic, French doesn't have as big of an influence.

French is spoken in Pondicherry, Yanam in India.

outdated, mali does not have french as thier offical language anymore

Surely Frencj is spoken in most countries in the world?

Indeed. And French is one of the official languages of Laos, along with Lao.

I mean...French is spoken everywhere.

Right you are!!! No real ‘Murcans dare speak the language of those cheese-eating surrender-monkeys!

There's also a minority in Louisiana USA no? Or maybe it's a dialect?

I remember one time I was on a website (don't remember which one) and their language options were:

- English (with a US flag)

- Spanish (with a Mexico flag)

- Portuguese (with a Brazil flag)

- French (with a Canada flag)

Because it wasn't spoken in the capital of France. And as France is as centralized a state as somehow possible to imagine...

Why didn't Toulouse become the capital? The answer I'm afraid is just the history of France, especially the 17th and 18th century history. Paris was already the largest city by the 13th century and the cultural, political and economic capital of the country. It became the capital of the republic which from the outset was culturally centralising, understanding 'egalite' as requiring a high degree of uniformity among citizens: bizarrely some of the most authoritarian aspects of French republicanism are inspired by democratic ideals (another example is the refusal to officially recognise diverse ethnicity among French citizens: they are all just French). Power was never really centralised in mediaeval Occitanie - the counties of Toulouse and Auvergne contested each other's power, Gascony/Acquitaine was a place apart culturally and linguistically. In a very real sense, the possibility of a distinct Occitan national identity became possible only in the centuries following the revolution and it had for the most part little traction against the republican hegemony. This is especially so when you consider that Occitan in itself had no special claim outside of its own domain and would have to compete with Picard, Poitevin, Arpitan, etc.

What I find really sad about France is that it doesn't try to protect their other cultures and languages. Dutch, Occitan, German, Italian, Catalan, Breton, Basque,... they are all (almost) in France

If you want a great read, I suggest The Story of French by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Bardow. It's a very detailed narrative on how French came to be the language it is today, and what historical events were instrumental to the process.

My French teach in high school bought one for me as a graduating gift years and years back. I loved it!

Probably since Occitan is not spoken in Paris which is the capital of France

IF I ASKED THIS QUESTION IN THE WRONG SUBREDDIT, PLEASE REDIRECT ME TO THE RIGHT ONE

None of them is really common to begin with, but I’d say Occitan has more speakers and more visibility. There are few medias, many publications in Occitan and solid institutions who defend it (especially standard lengadocian and bearnés gascon). As for franco-provençal I’ve never heard about such a thing (it can also be because I’m from a traditionally Occitan speaking region) but franco-provencal’s status is for sure way more endangered than Occitan and you might struggle to find sources about it.

I learned Occitan for a bit. There are handbooks and online materials. You can also find tutors. But it's almost all in French so if you want to learn it, you should first know French at some decent level, so you don't have to learn both languages at once.

As I understand, the situation with Franco-provençal is even more difficult. Less materials, fewer tutors, fewer reasons to do it.

Basque, Breton and Alsacien are the most known regional languages of France. Occitan a bit less, Arpitan (Franco-Provençal) even less. Every single regions of France have multiple regional languages in them, so there's around 20+ regional languages in France. Some of those languages area also spoken in neighbor countries. The reason they're all dying or even heavily endangered, is because the French government doesn't give a damn about regional languages and banned regional languages from being taught at school, even spoken at school, just a few generations ago, and that's all it took to cut down native speakers extremely rapidly.

There are efforts to save them, but only the biggest languages have the slightest chance of survival, others will probably die out our generation or the next.

Arpitan (Franco-Provençal) is in my region, but so is Frainc Comtou, and I'm learning Frainc Comtou instead as it's closer to my home. It only has 1000 speakers left, and those were numbers from 2000, not recent. Both of those languages are spoken in my region but also Switzerland and Italy.

No matter which regional language you pick, even if it's one of the very known 3 I said above, it'll be hard. Regardless of which one you pick, finding ressources will be scarce, but not impossible. It took me 7 years of searching to find ressources for Frainc Comtou.

Assimil publish an Occitan course in French, if you can read French well enough to follow it it could be a valuable resource