Talk:French language

Infobox map
We have no criterion for what counts as a local minority, and coloring a whole state fluorescent green because there are expats in one city is misleading (plus why shouldn't, say, Mexico count?), so I removed the green. Vietnam isn't even 1% francophone. I'm happy to put it back if we can come to an agreement as to what should count as green. However, I did change Romania to light blue, as it's part of the francophonie, and added Andorra. (Though removed Syria.) And added the Channel Isles as official. From this map I rediscovered that French is an official language of Puducherry, so I added that to the infobox of this article.

Anyway, if there are other changes that need to be made to the map, could people list them here? Is the green worth restoring? Maybe as small squares the way it's done on e.g. the map for Italian? — kwami (talk) 21:38, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Surely being part of the Francophonie (Romania) is not enough on its own, since you excluded Vietnam (which is also a member)? Double sharp (talk) 07:41, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll remove Romania.
 * Romania's made a big deal about French, Vietnam not so much, and there are many more French speakers in Romania, percentage-wise, though all the talk might be part of separating itself from the Eastern Block and re-orientating to the West. By raw numbers, there aren't as many Francophones in Romania as in several other European countries which are left grey (Netherlands, Italy, Portugal). — kwami (talk) 07:52, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks!
 * When I read such language maps, honestly the questions I'm most interested in are: if I go there, (1) will the signs be in language X? (2) will a significant number of people generally understand me if I speak to them in language X? (3) do people naturally speak language X to each other, or do they just learn it for school and chatting up foreigners? (4) even if (1) and (3) aren't true in most regions, might they be true for a region where a linguistic minority is concentrated? I guess Romania might fit (2) but not (1), (3), and (4), based on the high percentage of French speakers. But I think (2) is a separate thing not on the map (it's more like the map under English language), though I'd be curious about it for de Swaan's 13 supercentral languages. (And for (2) as phrased, I guess it would become tricky for cases of mutual intelligibility, like going to Azerbaijan and speaking to the locals in Turkish.) Double sharp (talk) 08:32, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree Romania (and Syria) should be removed. French Polynesia and New Caledonia should be dark blue as French is the largest language spoken at home in those terrirories. It would be cool if there was some way to show the significant populations of native French speakers in Libreville, Yaoundé, and Abidjan even if the countries as a whole are not native francophone. Joiedevivre123321 (talk) 17:49, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * all but the last had already been done, but someone replaced the corrected map with an old one. I restored it -- is that better?
 * We could certainly add francophone communities in cities. The question for me would be consistency -- do we have a RS for which cities to include? E.g. London was once counted as one of them. — kwami (talk) 22:38, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! This map is much better. I feel like the overseas territories should all be dark blue though. Reunion, Guinee Française, Guadeloupe, and Martinique are all majority native Francophone. Mayotte is mostly French as a second language so I think the lighter color is appropriate for that one. That's just me being nitpicky though the map looks great! Joiedevivre123321 (talk) 19:25, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
 * According to Ethnologue, Reunion is 20% natively French-speaking, French Guiana 8%, Martinique 4% and Guadeloupe 2%. — kwami (talk) 20:30, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Good catch. I guess the creoles are often not fully intelligible with French from the Hexagon and are their own thing. Merci pour la carte! :) Joiedevivre123321 (talk) 14:14, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @Kwamikagami,
 * If there is a way we could show native proficiency of French in Gabon.
 * Based on this research, it is apparent French is natively spoken at an ever increasing rate across the entire country.
 * Paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267327159_From_foreign_to_national_a_review_of_the_status_of_French_in_Gabon
 * Key facts:
 * "It has been noted that French is increasingly be-coming the mother tongue and the initial language of the younger generations in urban Gabon (Pambou, 1998:147; Ndinga-Koumba-Binza, 2005a:72 & 2005b:141; Idiata, 2008:85; cf. Blanchon, 1994). In fact, studies by Ntong Amvame (1984), Bouché (1998), Mbondzi (1998), Ompoussa (1998), Itembo (1999) and Mouloungui Nguimbyt (2002) have shown that pupils of various ages and grades at schools learn French more efficiently than any other Gabonese language. Idiata (2008:200 & 2009:126) has also noted that some pupils do not speak any of the Gabonese native languages at all.
 * One of the reasons for this phenomenon (i.e. French being the mother tongue of younger generations) is cross-ethnic marriages.
 * In fact, many couples of mixed ethnicity prefer French rather than Gabonese native languages as the code for better communication within the family. Children from a family of this kind have no choice but to acquire French as their first language. The children learn the language at home from the parents before they even get to school, therefore lessening the chances of learning any of the Gabonese native languages.
 * This urbanisation is also to be considered as a cause for French being the initial language of Gabonese younger generations. In fact, “in certain urban contexts there is a large degree of learning by contact at an early age” (Lafage, 1993:216)."
 * 80% of the country speaks French. ( La Francophonie dans le monde 2006-2007 published by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Nathan, Paris, 2007)
 * French is spoken natively in the urban areas. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267327159_From_foreign_to_national_a_review_of_the_status_of_French_in_Gabon)
 * Urbanization rate of Gabon is at 90.42% in 2021. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/526989/urbanization-in-gabon/)
 * Almost every adult in Gabon can speak French. (https://www.britannica.com/place/Gabon/Economy)
 * It is clear this is more than just an official language.
 * It is similar to the Portuguese language in Angola, and the status should be reflected as such.
 * Thanks! IntelloFR (talk) 04:18, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
 * (sorry the link for point 4 should be this: https://www.britannica.com/place/Gabon ) IntelloFR (talk) 04:25, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I had no idea Gabon was so urban! Our map at 'urbanization' shows it as perhaps the highest in Africa.
 * I agree, if Gabon fits the criteria, it should be colored appropriately. Do you know of any actual figures? Because what you have basically just says "a lot", which while interesting isn't helpful. — kwami (talk) 04:38, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Ethnologue has the following:
 * 1,515,000 [French-speakers] in Gabon, all users. L1 users: 265,000 in Gabon (2021). L2 users: 1,250,000 (Marcoux et al 2022).
 * That's for a population of 2,233,000 [no date].
 * From that, it would seem that Gabon is 2∕3 French-speaking, but only 12% natively French-speaking. That's still a high number, and promises to only increase, but it's not high enough to warrant coloring Gabon as an L1 rather than L2 French-speaking country. — kwami (talk) 04:44, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
 * That is fair! Thanks for checking - I agree, it will only increase in the coming years IntelloFR (talk) 05:54, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Since the 2nd part of this discussion has been moved to Commons, should note here that we decided to add a dot for Libreville, Gabon. — kwami (talk) 08:23, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * How did Ethnologue come up with those numbers? Most of the people in the DOM (Mayotte excepted) speak both French and their local creole. 2600:1702:6D0:5160:4CB6:57CF:7727:27B1 (talk) 23:59, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Discussion picked up again, but per request and consent I moved it to Commons:File_talk:Map-Francophone_World.svg. Zorion provided a ref for Canada there. — kwami (talk) 08:21, 8 August 2023 (UTC)


 * @Double sharp@Joiedevivre123321@Moalli@Kwamikagami
 * Hi all, Mali is now a different color entirely on the map, this should probably be updated. IntelloFR (talk) 14:44, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 May 2024
In the "Numerals" section under "Vocabulary", this part should be replaced : In the case of currencies, the currency markers are substituted for decimal point, i.e. "5$7" for "5 dollars and 7 cents". By : In the case of currencies, practices differ depending on the currency. For euro, the currency marker can be subsistuted for decimal point, i.e. "5€07" for "5 euros and 7 cents", or be simply placed after the decimal number, i.e. "5,07€". When using other currencies, the latter option is preferred, for example "5,07$". Snekye (talk) 19:38, 7 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Pictogram voting question.svg Question: So... what changes do you exactly request? ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 12:46, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 May 2024
change "Quebec Board of the French Language" to "Quebec Office of the French Language", "office" is in its french name as well 108.255.197.210 (talk) 04:33, 11 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 12:44, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Pronouncation
I am not sure if this is a good source, but I speak some French, I have listened to French speakers, and I tend to hear the pronunciation of the language being [lɑ̃ŋ fʁɑ̃sɛ] more times than not, I didn’t remove the other one, but I added this to show to readers pronouncatiion can vary ChauConlangs (talk) 01:21, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Math
I’m going back in a little while and I’ll let her out 2001:1A40:16F4:BF00:1D87:ECBA:3F91:ADA5 (talk) 15:47, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 June 2024
Under Grammar > Nouns > link to the grammatical genders article.

'For nouns regarding the living, their "grammatical genders" often correspond to that which they refer to.' Rumboehe (talk) 02:34, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅   [[User:CanonNi ]]  (talk • contribs) 03:45, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Where's french in France? Possible imperialist biased view in the article
In the section "Geographic distribution" I see no map or text about the geographic distribution of this language in France.

I think this is not appropriate, not only because the lack of important information such as dialects and geographical variations, but also because it's giving indirectly the idea that France is linguistically homogeneous. That's false, and most of its other languages are in vulnerable or endangered status, such as the occitan dialects or Franco-provençal, so this monolingual vision of france can be dangerous for the respect and the health of these other languages.

The article does only show national borders in the maps and focus on them in the text, and that could be appropriate if we were talking about french language diaspora or french language in the world, but this doesn't make sense, because french usage can (and it actually does) vary by region, independently of national borders. It also talks about the prestige of the language in many fields, and its supposed historical influence.

This makes me wonder the possibility that this was written with some imperialist view or bias that seems to prioritize geopolitical and global influence over geographical realism; some kind of an imperialist view. Please, take my observation into account, I could be misunderstanding.Politonno (talk) 03:38, 6 July 2024 (UTC)


 * "Supposed" historical influence? French has had a huge historical influence, globally second only to English, and not so long ago more influential than English.
 * Agreed that the distribution in France should be shown. That's an egregious oversight. But it's going to have to be by percentages, as I doubt there are many areas in France where the majority isn't Francophone. Even Basque is only spoken by 10% of ethnic Basques.
 * And yes, this is a result of imperialism. But that doesn't mean it isn't real. — kwami (talk) 06:16, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, french language has had an impact in the world, mostly thanks to imperialism and political influence, but I think this article centers too much attention in the "prestige" and not the "global presence", because this article is not about history of the french language nor the french diaspora.
 * The fact that peripheric french languages are most of them minorities (not all of them, breton language is more spoken in its own territory than french), it doesn't mean that french has local varieties. French dialects are centerd in northern France, which is the native region of the language. Most francophone population in the rest of the country comes from families from the north that migtated away between the 18th and 20th centuries. This migrations were heterogeneous, so there's no regional dialects native from those regions.
 * I don't know if I'm expressing myself correctly. Demographically, there's francophone population in all France, but this information is not descriptive of the language's dialectal diversity and does not give linguistical information; only political and demographical. Culturally, french is not native away from northern france, and that's not shown in this article. That's why I think it could be biased. Politonno (talk) 19:10, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It's now native in southern France due to language shift, not immigration. Occitan and especially Arpitan are moribund, spoken by probably less than 1% of the population. Is there any language transmission at all any longer? AFAICT, even elderly speakers are natively bilingual in french. — kwami (talk) 00:17, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Native language in southern France includes Occitan, not exclusively French. The fact that some local languages (not all, breton is not endangered everywhere and has a lot of presence in western Brittany) suffer endangered or vulnerable status doesn't mean that the region is exclusively French.

It's been after several processes of language assimilation and substitution that the majority speaks French, but there's no local French dialectal characteristics yet, because the process included relatively recent migration of northern families to the south heterogeneously. I haven't checked local demographics of peripherical languages, but it's still important to point out that those regions are not exclusively francophone, and there's is a possible negative impact in the health of those minority languages in not doing it so.Politonno (talk) 15:42, 7 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Agreed. — kwami (talk) 21:16, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Don't are up
Don't are up 41.138.89.234 (talk) 07:58, 9 July 2024 (UTC)