French is a Romance language, descended from Latin and closely related to Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Romanian. It is the native tongue of over 87 million people and has an additional 68 million non-native speakers.
History
In medieval times and until the 19th century, it was often the language used in diplomacy, culture, administration, royal courts across Europe and also in trade, thus appropriately becoming the lingua franca of its time.
French-speaking people have made incursions upon the British Isles many times in the past, most noticeably in the Norman Invasion of 1066. For this reason, although English is a Germanic language, at least a third of the English lexicon is derived from French.
Extent of the Language
French is spoken all around the world.
In modern terms, it is still significantly used as a diplomatic language, being an official language of the United Nations, the Olympic Games, and the European Union. It is the official language of 29 countries and is spoken in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, Haiti, the Ivory Coast, Madagascar, the Congo, Algeria, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Gabon, the Seychelles, Burundi, Chad, Rwanda, Djibouti, Cameroon, Mauritius, and Canada (mostly in the province of Québec, where it is the primary language, but it is also used in other parts of the country - notably New Brunswick, which is the only bilingual province. All consumer product packages in Canada are required by law to have both English and French labels).
Content is available under GNU Free Documentation License Source: Wikibooks
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