Talk:French language/Archive 5

Gabon's missing in African section
Someone should correctly add Gabon to the enumeration where the African francophone countries are listed with their national flags. 159.51.236.11 (talk) 07:35, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done. Rivertorch (talk) 15:52, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 2 January 2013
Most proficient (and probably also native) French speakers in Brazil are, and probably were in all periods after the start of the Great Migration, Swiss, BTW it is nothing uncommon to people in Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo to have significant ammounts of Romand ancestry (as my 6,25%) as they are the 6th most numerous European immigrant group, after the Polish and before the Dutch. The number of Belgians is also historically very low, but they are not so diminute compared to the comparatively little French community.

I would also like to add that historically French was the language of culture and education for the Lusophone countries for the greatest span of time (to the extent it significantly influenced Portuguese vocabulary and perhaps phonology, more than Arabic or Basque), so Brazil, as Portugal, has a tradition in the learning of French as a foreign language.

177.157.206.247 (talk) 11:24, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please make your request in a "change X to Y" format. And please provide reliable sources for any proposed additions or alterations. Rivertorch (talk) 19:33, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * This is not all that necessary, as the change can be perfectly infered by logic, but anyway, as you wish...


 * "Also, the language was used by the community of French immigrants and expatriates in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." -> "of Swiss, French and Belgian immigrants and expatriates".


 * The first paragraph does not need reliable sources at all (even because the entire section doesn't have any of them). Swiss Brazilian, French Brazilian, Belgian Brazilian, White Brazilian, Immigration to Brazil, European immigration to Brazil. It is an obvious fact that the Francophone presence in Brazil is mostly strong due to the Romand. See the French names in street plaques at cities such as Nova Friburgo.


 * About the influence of French as a foreign language in Brazil, just by inserting "língua francesa no brasil" at Google I found out www.gel.org.br/estudoslinguisticos/volumes/37/EL_V37N2_01.pdf http://w3.ufsm.br/revistaletras/artigos_r39/artigo39_001.pdf http://revistaescola.abril.com.br/historia/fundamentos/quais-influencias-pensamento-frances-ainda-podem-ser-vistas-brasil-471230.shtml http://www.cedep.ifch.ufrgs.br/oanodafrancanobrasilaimportanciadadiplomaciacultural.pdf


 * I wish to be inserted in a new paragraph "Brazil has a tradition in the learning of French as a foreign language due to its prominence as the main language of culture and education of the Western world for a relatively great span of time[, including the time of the formation of the identity of the country and its contemporary elite].[sources] [...]"


 * About the influence of French in Portuguese, well, http://oglobo.globo.com/boa-viagem/exposicao-no-museu-da-lingua-portuguesa-mostra-influencia-do-frances-na-nossa-lingua-3125512 (it says: "Neles, "trafegam", em todos os sentidos, palavras francesas incorporadas ao nosso vocabulário - são mais de cinco mil!", compared to a small ~1000 of Arabic in many more centuries of direct Moorish occupation), http://ressources-cla.univ-fcomte.fr/gerflint/Bresil_special2/couto.pdf http://www.filologia.org.br/revista/40/A%20INFLU%C3%8ANCIA%20DOS%20ESTRANGEIRISMOS.pdf, I know it is not a source but also http://br.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120131150414AAe5dGl (it is so well documented that the average person knows about it, a matter of knowing how to research).


 * In the same line, I wish "Portuguese also has a big deal of influence from French in vocabulary and phonology"; I know no source presented doesn't bother to go deep about phonology and all, but perhaps people from the Linguistics Project, WikiProjects of the Lusophone countries and the likes would help. It is already a good start. 177.157.206.247 (talk) 20:25, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm reopening your edit request in the hope that someone with more knowledge of the topic than I have will notice and evaluate it. If not, I'll take a stab at it, but in the meantime you might contact that WikiProject and ask for an assist. Rivertorch (talk) 07:19, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Padlock-silver-slash2.svg Not done: is not required for edits to semi-protected, unprotected pages, or pending changes protected pages. Article unprotected, and since nobody else has been able to you may want to make the change.  Vaca  tion  9  14:40, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I've unprotected the article as it's been protected for quite some time, so we can essentially consider this request for protection answered. Feel free to request reprotection if the vandalism kicks off again. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 14:44, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Consistency within wikipedia
List of countries where French is an official language has 153 millions french native speakers combined, 120.5 millions in the countries where French is an official language, and 32.5 millions in other countries. Figures are from 2005, but this article has a figure two years later of 75 million. Huh? 82.141.67.203 (talk) 20:33, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned references in French language
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of French language's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "bbc.co.uk": From Equatorial Guinea: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13317174 From Togo: BBC News – Togo country profile – Overview. Bbc.co.uk (2011-07-11). Retrieved on 2012-03-26. From Vlach language in Serbia: http://www.bbc.co.uk/romanian/news/story/2007/08/070817_vlahi_serbia_minoritate.shtml 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 09:07, 5 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Huh? Equatorial Guinea, Togo and Serbia identical? The only thing they have in common is the BBC site, nothing else. They are different pages so I think they can't be combined. I'd leave those as they are. 82.141.67.203 (talk) 04:26, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

List of locations in lead
The article says: French (le français [lə fʁɑ̃sɛ] ( listen) or la langue française [la lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛz]) is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick (Acadia region) in Canada, the U.S. state of Maine, the Acadiana region of the U.S. state of Louisiana, and by various communities elsewhere. I think some thought needs to be given to the criteria for inclusion in this list. Maine has 60,000 native French-speakers, Ontario over 500,000. So why has Ontario been left out? The truth is French is spoken to some extent throughout Canada. I propose "Canada, with concentrations especially in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick." 96.46.207.169 (talk) 09:07, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

French as native language in the EU
The section says that French is the native language of 4,5 million Belgians and 2,6 million Swiss. This information is INCORRECT. Even if you count the people that are raised bi-lingual, this number is not the case and invented (of a very bad estimate). I also noticed that this citation needed a quotation, well, there won't be any so I think it is best that this piece of wrong information is removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.235.199.238 (talk) 00:27, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Languages of
This article is placed in too many “Languages of __” categories. My suggestion is to instead have French be represented in said categories by articles on specific dialects/ varieties of French.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 12:13, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Brazil
Citing Yahoo Answers (a site frequented almost exclusively by 13-year olds) as a bona fide reference in an attempt to legitimize bizarre claims of Brazil as a francophone country is laughable. The whole section should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.139.146.243 (talk) 14:46, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Number of native speakers
The introductory paragraph says there are 110 million native speakers and the box on the right says there were 75 million in 2007. We need consistency here. One of those two needs to be changed. 108.254.160.23 (talk) 23:49, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

French as native language in Ontario
According to Wikipedia's Franco-Ontarian page, Ontario is inhabited by the largest francophone population (488 815 native francophones) outside of Quebec. Therefore, since New-Brunswick and other regions that contain fewer francophones (i.e. Maine) are listed in the introduction, would it be possible to add Ontario? Alekxzandre (talk) 01:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure, but I think proportion of population may be more relevant than total number of speakers in that context. Rivertorch (talk) 05:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Africa before America
I think the sequence in which geographical regions of francophonie are mentioned is unintelligent for an encyclopedic article. I agree with mentioning France first, but second should definitely be Africa, where most French is spoken on this planet, not (North and South) America.07:19, 12 January 2014 (UTC)Wuerzele (talk)

Don't you think that the current article looks much like an holdall?
Hi,

I find that the current article look like an holdall. It is not very good in my humble opinion and make this page a bit more "anarchical" than the English language article. Some informations, who are perhaps too specific should, in my opinion, have their own page (like numerals) while others are simply have not an encyclopaedic value (like the words section).

Would you agree reworking parts of this article's plan?

Regards, Captain frakas (talk) 14:39, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

"Je ne sais pas" or how to construct negations in French language.
Hi all,

I created this subject to avoid multiple reverses over the je ne sais pas entry of the Words section. I think that it's what should have been done by those who reverted my (very minor) contribution.

Kwamikagami seem to trust that ne is optional in negatives sentences. The negation is introduced by the use of ne adverb, without it you cannot create negative sentences while the pas adverb is totally optional and, as a negative adverb, can only be used in correlation with ne to qualify the value of a negation introduced by ne. Ne is the word who mean "not" in English or no in Spanish.
 * Je ne sais: there is no adverbs to qualify the negation. We do not know how much the speaker do not know. It can be translated as "I do not know".
 * Je ne sais pas and je ne sais point: pas and point qualifies ne as being a quasi-total negation. The speaker do not know at all as he have never made a "step" (pas) in his learning or as he do not even know something of the size of a dot (point). This last one is a stronger negation than pas. It can still be translated as "I do not know" because literal translation would not render the meaning.
 * Je ne sais plus: plus qualify ne as being something relatively "recent". The speaker did known in the past but do no longer today. It can be translated as "I do not know anymore".
 * Je ne sais guère: guère qualify ne as not being a total negation but of a low enough knowledge to use the negative form. The speaker know in fact a little bit but his knowledge is not good enough. It can be translated as "I do not know very much".
 * Je ne sais jamais and je ne sais oncques: jamais or oncques qualify ne as not being a negation specific to this moment. The speaker is never in situation to know. It can be translated as "I do never know".
 * etc. There is many more adverbs who can be correlated with ne. The previous ones are just few examples.
 * "Je sais pas", here is an affirmative sentence as there is no ne to introduce the negation but its syntax is faulty because the pas adverb is not correlated to anything. It may be translated as "I do know not".

There is a page from the Académie française who clearly and specifically state that the justification given by Kwamikagami to reverse my modification is erroneous and that "je sais pas" is a true fault of syntax (une véritable faute). Confer this web page: http://www.academie-francaise.fr/ne.

So, the way I see it: Either the examples in French in this page are wrote with a correct French syntax so the text have to be Je ne sais pas or Je ne sais (pas), or the entry may be erased as there is already a lot of examples, or there should be a comment to clearly indicate that "Je (ne) sais pas" very faulty formulation is considered as informal or over-familiar, pop[ulaire] ou très fam[ilier], as stated in this famous French dictionary: http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/pas.

In my humble opinion, the first option is the simpler and the best one, the second one have not much interest and the last one may be a compromise if one really want to keep a faulty syntax in this page. So, what do you think all?

EDIT: For whatever reason I though the reverse was on "I do not speak French" instead of "I do not know". I've corrected my post according to the "I do not know" sentence. I've just found also that Yoyo360 wisely did the modification suggested as my third option way before I suggested it :p (I should have verified it, my bad... sorry for that). If nobody see inconvenient, I'll source what he have done. However saying that "je sais pas" is only "familiar" is IMHO misleading as it is clearly faulty (in France's French at last) as my previous links explain.

Captain frakas (talk) 13:59, 24 May 2014 (UTC)


 * For once I was useful :) Yoyo360 (talk) 21:26, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Thousands between 1000 and 2000
Hi Yoyo,

The observations of the French Academy say, in the source you've put yourself, that counting by hundreds is more usual in informal language while adding hundreds to one thousand is more usual in written language (French language). If you think that the French Academy is incorrect for whatever reasons please add sources to support it in your edits. If you happen to not have any source to support your point, please elaborate here, in the talk page, why you think that the observation of the French Academy is not correct or why my understanding of the French Academy text that you've sourced is incorrect.

For the moment, you only argued that being French you know French language, however French académiciens are also Frenchmen and Frenchwomen so you have to accept that being French is not enough. I do not deny that in your circle most people may say mille cent instead of onze cents. It is even quite interesting as it may be an indication that this use may be a language marker (of generation, of education, of social class...) or a regional fashion.

Anyway, please either add sources to your modifications concerning this part, especially when they are contradicted by existing sources or please elaborate here so we can found sources together to support this.

Best Regards, and thank you for taking the time to contribute to Wikipedia. Captain frakas (talk) 18:18, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * OK. So, what could I say ? First of all, I know it might be strange that I contradict myself. But I'm gonna try to explain everything (and I hope I won't fail...). Counting above mille can be done in two ways, as you know. L'Académie recommends mille cent; mille deux cents in written language and for scientific, administrative, etc. works. They also say that in oral French, the other way onze cents; douze cents is the more common but I don't really understand why they say that. Everybody would say mille six cents mètre and not seize cents mètres. When I'm talking about prices, I say mille deux cents euros. My friends say Il y a mille cinq cents élèves au lycée. But, contrary to what YOU said, from 1700, I sometimes change and say En dix-sept cents quatre-vingts or On en a pour dix-huit cents euros. Maybe the académiciens aren't well informed. Or, maybe, as you say, it is a regional thing... But I'm not sure. A part of my family live hundreds of kilometres away and they also speak like me. It's true that I've already met people saying seize cents or something else but 1. It's very rare 2. Either they were much older than me, either they were in a "high class". So maybe it's about social class or generation... I don't know. At school I've learnt to say mille cent; mille deux cents. I'm just trying to help. And if it's even worse, then I'm really really sorry. If we can work together to improve that, it will be great, and it will make the article be better.
 * EDIT : I think I got it. After reading the source I've put, I understood everything. The On dit plutôt of l'Académie Française is not an observation of use. It's also a recommendation, but in another form. It means on doit (devrait) dire.Yoyo360 (talk) 21:19, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 1. Firstly, I don't like the But, contrary to what YOU said, of your message with YOU in all capitals. It's not what "I" say because, I have sourced this with a book who is quite a reference ! A source that you've erased without justifying why and that I had to edit into the article again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language#cite_note-85
 * 2. I think we can all have specific way of speaking (like saying pain au chocolat/chocolatine or sac/poche) and I suspect that it may be a question of generations (and French old peoples are quite numerous). However our personal experiences do not have, IMHO, any real academic value. At school, I did learned mille deux cents, which is coherent with the French Academy who say that using douze cents is informal. In my family however I've heard douze cents. And dates were quasi always said by hundreds, like quinze cent quinze, Marignan. I don't think I should put that into the article. What we should do, IMHO, is to find a source either that report the number of occurrence or that contest what is said by the French Academy and the Imprimerie nationale. I'll try to find something.
 * 3. I am not sure that the Academy would have said on dit plutôt to mean on devrait dire, especially when they said that it is informal use. Perhaps that you could ask them a clarification?
 * I am sorry but I have to go in Southern England for few days, I'll not be able to help before my return.
 * Cheers! Captain frakas (talk) 10:46, 3 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I know that it seems strange, but in French, the present can have a tip value, especially with the plutôt. In On dit plutôt onze cents, I think it means On dit onze cents plutôt que mille cent but as a tip. I sent a mail to the Academy to be sure but I don't know how it will constitute a source. I'll post other messages if I receive the answer during your stay in England. If not, well, we'll talk when you'll be back.
 * Greetings (and apologises for the capital you. I guess I didn't think about what I was writing)Yoyo360 (talk) 16:50, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Number of Native Speakers
This side box of this article lists the number of native speakers at 75 million based on 2007 edition of Nationalencyklopedin whereas the List of languages by number of native speakers lists it at 74 million based on the same source. Which one is accurate as per that source? It should be consistent. GLG GLG (talk) 03:55, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree and I propose to keep the article at 73.8mio, as the source states, at least for now. I am happy to discuss this here. Morgengave (talk) 18:35, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
 * For who disagrees on the number, I am open to discuss any reliable and neutral sources. But we should always remain true to the source; we should not give another figure than the source does. A real rounding can be defended, like 73.8 can become 74, in case no decimals are provided. But moving from 73.8mio to 75mio based on own gut feel is indefensible. Plus we should remain consistent in sources in-between language articles. Like this article, other language articles use the Nationalencyklopedin for the speakers figure. The reason why there is a strong preference for one source for all the language articles is to avoid cherry-picking sources per article, which is often done to advance a certain position (about the importance of the language). Morgengave (talk) 20:18, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Changes to the lead
Just a quick note to explain the changes to the lead. In my view, the lead was too detailed, too focused on demographics and importance and contradicting the infobox. I still find it too focused on those areas, and not enough on the history/evolution, the dialects, the linguistic specificities, the standardization, etc. This is remarkably visible if one reads other language article leads, like as random examples: the English language, the Chinese language, the Turkish language, the Catalan language or the Dutch language. I also believe we need to be careful in using certain sources. It sometimes appears we are cherry-picking to get to the highest number possible. I believe we need to be extra careful here, and rely on the best and most reliable and neutral sources only, and preferably not on sources that are promoting the French language or have any other vested interest in the French language. Morgengave (talk) 06:44, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

UCL: reliable source?
Hi there,

We all know that the University College London is one of the most ancient and respected universities of the United Kingdom. So I may consider any page they display on their website to be reliable, and a good source for us to use, especially when it comes to a language (French), that they teach.

This links indicate that "French (français) is a Romance language globally spoken by about 110 million people (native speakers). Around 190 million people speak French as a second language, and an additional 200 million speak it as an acquired foreign language."

That makes the total number of French speakers up to 500 million, which is in my view kind of overestimated (even if it is one of the fastest growing world languages, because of Africa's demographics and education improvements over the past years/decades - it will reach that threshold, but not quite yet). The UCL states at the very end of its article that its source is Wikipedia, but that it has been "adapted".

So, what should be done? If it is adapted, and displayed on their own website, one could consider it to be their claim, not ours. And in that case, we could use that link as an appropriate link. However... I would however believe that we should stick with the best sources currently available, that is, those which are either:
 * 1) from academic papers (and not only links that this one);
 * 2) serious estimate by renowned governments (such at that of France, Switzerland or Canada);
 * 3) La Francophonie's reports (I think that they are regularly published, something like every three years or so).

What do you think? Kind regards, Huiva (talk) 23:34, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Francophonie's reports are published every 4 years, the current one was just published on November 15th 2014. The number mentioned above seem high but I think they estimate speakers while Francophonie's estimate literates (readers and writers of French).--Loup Solitaire 81 (talk) 07:54, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Loup Solitaire 81 : c'est une possibilité, je n'y avais pas pensé, mais ça semble bien possible ! Le plus sensé semble donc attendre le nouveau rapport, comme vous le suggérez. Cordialement, Huiva (talk) 16:06, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

The French language worldwide 2014
The updated reference book on the state of the French language worldwide in 2014 has just been published on November 15 2014, here is a small preview in English : http://www.francophonie.org/IMG/pdf/oif_synthese_anglais_001-024.pdf To my knowledge, the whole book is only available in French : http://www.amazon.fr/dp/2098826540 --Loup Solitaire 81 (talk) 16:53, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Egypt
How was the section [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=French_language&oldid=637752114&diff=prev better before my edit]? It wasn't even clear that French was the main second language in Egypt. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 09:59, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The wording was awkward. If you would like to mention that French used to be the second language (before English became the second language), please do so, but provide a source with an inline citation. Thanks in advance. Coldcreation (talk) 10:22, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Grammar section peculiarity
Quote: "a rising inflection is always used on both of them whenever asking a question, especially on the second one." I don´t have the knowledge of French grammar to correct this- i.e. I don´t know the correct proportion of use to indicate- but this makes no sense as is: both always, but especially the latter...  Perhaps someone who knows more could update? Suddener and more Plural (talk) 09:55, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Continent edit war
A user has repeatedly removed the fact that French is official on every continent by claiming that French is not official in Australia, and disputing the existence of Oceania as a continent. In a way, it's true. In the strictest definitions, only landmasses are continents. In other word, the British Isles are not European, Long Island (including a substantial part of New York City) is not American, Japan is not Asian and so on. However, this is contrary to virtually all usage of "Continent" on Wikipedia. Have a look at Continents and you'll see that the UK and Ireland are counted as European, Japan is counted as Asian and the islands of Oceania are counted as belonging to the Australian continent. Unless there is a reason we should use a much more restricted definition here than everywhere else, I'd suggest the phrase is restored. Also a bit surprised that the user keeps edit warring over it instead of starting a discussion as per WP:BRD.Jeppiz (talk) 14:40, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * So is there any argument against restoring the sentence?Jeppiz (talk) 12:58, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * None from me, but I'd wait another two or three days before doing so. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 6 Adar 5775 13:10, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure. It's been two days now, a bit weird how some users are very quick to revert but not willing to discuss. Anyhow, giving it yet another day, then reinserting it (given that it's perfectly factual based on the arguments above) unless there's a compelling argument against it.Jeppiz (talk) 15:43, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, still no counter argument so I'm restoring the version from before the latest disruptive edit warring.Jeppiz (talk) 23:10, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Jeppiz, where in Asia is French an official language? Savvyjack23 (talk) 23:43, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Savvyjack23, it's official in the Indian territory of Puducherry.Jeppiz (talk) 23:53, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Forgive me for arriving late to this discussion. I'm a bit of a newbie to Wikipedia but that does not make me any less knowledgable about the world. I guess my source -- the National Geographic Society -- was disregarded because it was not presented on this page. Funny how some users are so selective about when and where to accept a source. Oceania is not a continent, nor does it belong to any continental land mass. National Geographic does not give a 'restrictive' definition of continent whatsoever. Its definition is simple, succinct, and easy to follow:


 * "By convention there are seven continents: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and Antarctica. Some geographers list only six continents, combining Europe and Asia into Eurasia. In parts of the world, students learn that there are just five continents: Eurasia, Australia, Africa, Antarctica, and the Americas."


 * "Islands located near a continent are generally considered, in a geographical sense, part of that continent. Greenland, for example, is politically part of Europe but belongs geographically to North America, as do the islands of the Caribbean and the western North Atlantic Ocean. There are some islands and island groups, however, that are not considered part of any continent, geographically speaking. New Zealand, Hawaii, and French Polynesia are among them."


 * "Oceania is the collective name for the lands of the Pacific Ocean, including Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Oceania is a convenient way to name these areas, which, with the exception of Australia, are not part of any continent. But Oceania itself is not a continent."


 * http://www.nationalgeographic.com/siteindex/geography-faqs/


 * By this definition, the British Isles are absolutely European, Japan is definitely Asian, and Long Island thoroughly American. Oceania, however, and its islands are not considered part of any continental landmass. Therefore, French cannot be considered official on every continent because Oceania is not a continent and French is not official in Australia. Claiming that French is official on every continent does not adhere to good encyclopaedic standards. I will give this discussion a week to transpire before making any edits to the page. NorthernFactoid (talk) 01:55, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Reverted again. The claim that the islands of Oceania are part of the continent of Australia shows that the editor hasn't a clue as to what Australia is. And, of course, French is not an official language in Antarctica.

Unless ... French is official in French research stations in Antarctica! Which implies that Japanese is also official in Antarctica, as well as in Japanese embassies, which are sovereign Japanese soil, in every other continent. Thus Dutch, German, Italian, Norse, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Mandarin, Hindi, Korean, Bulgarian, Czech, Finnish, Romanian, Swedish, maybe Spanish and Portuguese, and the 10 additional official languages of South Africa are all official in every continent.

BTW, English is not official in every continent either. It's not official in Australia: Australia has no official language. — kwami (talk) 02:43, 27 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Agree with everything you've said with the possible exception of the last statement. English is listed as an official language of Papua New Guinea, which is located on the island of New Guinea, which is considered part of the continent of Australia, as it lies on the continental shelf. -- Racer X11 Talk to me Stalk me  03:26, 27 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Yup, my bad. There's also the question of whether Zealandia and Madagascar are continents, but that's getting a bit pedantic.  — kwami (talk) 03:36, 27 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Oops, forgot Maori, Quechua, Aymara, Urdu, and New Zealand Sign Language. — kwami (talk) 03:42, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Kwami, respectfully, no one is ever going to consider Zealandia and Madagascar as continents for normal purposes. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 06:47, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * , is your argument that Japan and Indonesia are not Asian and will you correct the articles that make that claim. If not, would you care to explain the difference?
 * I guess I should say my piece. The continents thing is problematic because it is a magnet for conflict - there is no correct answer to the question of whether Oceania and Australia are the same continent (when I was learning continents in school in New Zealand the answer was no, perhaps if I'd been educated in Australia I'd've been taught the answer was yes).
 * But in my view it's more problematic because it doesn't give a proper idea of the way that French is actually widespread. It suggests uniform distribution, when actually French has clear regional patterns (so, presenting it as an Asian and South American language is true, but misleading). Just talking about major regions as in the adjusted version gives a much better idea of how the language is actually distributed.
 * And against that, what's the advantage of keeping the reference to continents in? Simply that it's a slightly satisfying piece of trivia. Furius (talk) 02:27, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Well the way Australia (continent) and Oceania are presented here on Wikipedia is that Australia (continent) is a continent and Oceania is a region that includes the Australian continent. This is consistent with the majority of English sources, and also happens to be consistent with my understanding before I started editing on WP. There may be no right or wrong answer, but that is the consensus. There is also no correct answer as to what is the definition of a continent. Geological considerations tend to take a back seat to cultural ones, and to what is just traditionally known to be a continent. And of course, what are the continents, and the number of them, vary among sources and points of view around the world.


 * Agree with your thoughts on the claim giving a misleading idea about the distribution of French across the globe. It is little more than a "fun fact" even if we were to all agree it is true. And we don't. I prefer omitting the statement. -- Racer X11 Talk to me Stalk me  03:11, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Number of native speakers in the E.U.
According to this source here under* french is the second most spoken language by natives in the E.U. after german and way before english.


 * http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy-1/francophony-1113/the-status-of-french-in-the-world/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luis.luisluis (talk • contribs) 18:38, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Population inflation
The French Ministry of Culture says 77M native speakers (2015). Ethnologue has 76M, based on the European Commission (2012). The Nationalencyklopedin, which we've chosen as our best overall RS, has 74M (2007). They're all in good agreement. Promotionalist websites claiming 110M are outliers and not RSs. — kwami (talk) 16:16, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

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Indochina
I have added a "dubious"-tag to the countries in Indochina since there is very little evidence that French would be extensively used there. Should the region be included in the country list? Aaker (talk) 11:04, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * French is still compulsory in secondary education in Laos, although most students also take English alongside nowadays. In higher education and diplomacy, French is still used and most educated persons have a grasp of French. Vietnam and Cambodia are definitely debatable. English is now the second language of choice in those countries but besides business and some education, it isn't as dominant in other sectors that have traditionally and may still French, such as the sciences and diplomacy (although the latter is changing). A number of secondary schools that rid French in favor of English as a foreign language have reinstalled them, and there seems to be a rise in French-language education again, with some schools even having a French-language medium of instruction. (source: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1121703274255/1439264-1153425508901/Education_Vietnam_Development.pdf) While I don't know the situation in Cambodia, French may still play a cultural or administrative factor, but English is most likely the preferred foreign language. Moalli (talk) 23:49, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Diplomcy? French is somewhat used in diplomacy worldwide. But take a look at the countries ministries of foreign affairs' website and you'll see no sign of French, ,. Moreover, it's only a very small part of the population who knows the language. It would probably make more sense to include countries like Germany and the UK, which have much higher amount of French speakers. I suspect that some people want to include Indochina just because it is a former French colony. Aaker (talk) 10:31, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Odd articles
The lead currently reads:
 * French (le français or la langue française )...

This is a very minor point, but why all those articles in the French native names? While it is not grammatically incorrect, I feel quite odd as a native speaker to find them here, in what is sort of a quote or a title. It is quite true that French article are used in more contexts than English ones are, but there are still 1) places where they are omitted, e.g. in the phrases en français "in French" and en langue française "in the French language" 2) situations like here where adding them, while possible, would be stylistically unusual (in France, at least). It looks like an English learner's overgeneralization from having been told that articles are used more widely than in their mother tongue : they treat articles as it they were prefixes. BTW, using the same logics, why does the article Spanish language give español as the native name and not el español? Aucassin (talk) 17:56, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

French is NOT official in Andorra
I don't know who and why added it, but it is not. Catalan is the only official language. Please remove it. And read the Constitution of Andorra (Andorran government website) 176.85.215.192 (talk) 18:22, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Number of speaker, article full of contradictions
Hi, if we read the sources entirely, it is stated that the number of people having learned French at school is about 120 millions. The number of 70 put in the infobox is for Europe only "French is Europe’s second most widely spoken mother tongue with over 77 million speakers, after Germany (around 100 million) but ahead of English (around 61 million". The differents official sources (OIF or French diplomacy ) states that the number of French speakers worldwide is between 274 to 220 millions. So taking the lower number of 220, minus the amount of native speakers at 80 millions, that makes a total of 140 millions. So the numbers stated in the infobox is underestimating the reality. If we read the WP article we can see that the number of 274 millions speakers is stated. There are many contradictions, and one thing is for sure, the number of 70 millions is not in ad equations with the reality.--Gabriel HM (talk) 21:13, 17 October 2015 (UTC)


 * First of all, all users involved in the current edit war need to stop. I'm amazed that some experienced users have just kept edit warring with no discussion. As for the actual content, I think we need consistency. While not agreeing with the actions of Gabriel HM, I think the analogy with English is accurate. The infobox for English also lists L1, L2 and "foreign language". If that is acceptable practice there, it as acceptable here as well; if it's not acceptable here, it's not acceptable in other articles. This should probably be settled by a general discussion about language infoboxes. Jeppiz (talk) 22:51, 17 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Somebody please stop user (troll) Kwawikagami from further rampaging this article...Thanks! 2.242.116.136 (talk) 16:08, 24 November 2015 (UTC)


 * He does it for years on many language articles. He has been blocked many times for edit-warring, double accounts, etc. He even lost his sysop rights due to his behavior. He is really a pain, and hardly ever convinceable about views different from his POV. I gave up to argue with him a long time agao. It/he's just a waste of precious time. No wonder WP looses more and more editors. -- ZH8000 (talk) 16:33, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * When you fabricate nonsense like this, people aren't going to listen to you even if you have something honest to say. — kwami (talk) 00:06, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Kwami, at least you got some sense of irony it appears...2.243.34.82 (talk) 11:47, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I reverted the edit because L2 speakers were being double-counted as "foreign language" speakers. We did settle on an honest account of what the source said, but then someone needed to go and falsify the data in order to exaggerate the number of speakers, yet again. I'm sorry if some people here feel insecure about the French language, but we're supposed to reflect our best sources. I did the same with the English article when people exaggerated the numbers so it would appear to have more native speakers than Spanish. (It doesn't.)

Our source, per consensus, is the current one, OIF. OIF says there are 77M L1 speakers, 71M L2 speakers and 72M partial speakers. If you want to lump L2 and partial together, get consensus, but then we'll need to delete the number of L2 speakers to avoid double counting. — kwami (talk) 00:06, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Did it ever occure to you that "partial" and "foreign language" speakers -- as indicated for English (which, furthermore, ranges in 40 (!) million in its one-source-different-from-other-languages (i.e. Swedish National Encyclopedia) claim for natives) -- could in fact be the same?! "Foreign" language for English includes, and I would presume for the most part, people with (very) limited but not zero knowledge as well. You're totally biased and about your person/motivation everything has been correctly said by ZH8000 already. I pity you. 2.243.34.82 (talk) 11:47, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Regardless of what it means, 70 is not the same number as 140. I'm sorry if reality is "biased", but there's not much any of us can do about that. — kwami (talk) 15:56, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I put the infobox like its English or German article counterparts where there is a distinction between L2 and foreign speakers. As it has been already discussed here, I quote:"If that is acceptable practice there, it as acceptable here as well; if it's not acceptable here, it's not acceptable in other articles. " And about the previous change, it is my fault I thought that we were talking about the number of foreign language speakers, I did not see that someone reverted the info box with both L2 and foreign language speaker. My intend was by no mean to increase artificially the real number of speakers worldwide.--Gabriel HM (talk) 20:06, 29 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Reverted as your numbers are not supported by the ref. You changed 140 to 120, but 70 isn't 120 any more than it's 140. If you don't understand the ref, or can't be bothered to read it, then you shouldn't add figures from it. — kwami (talk) 19:47, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * You give lessons about the refs, but the one that does not read it entirely is you. The article states 70 millions for Europe ONLY. If you care reading the article further, it states that the total number of French as a second language is 120 millions worldwide. Your comment is not only misplaced, but full of irony. But I'm not the only one that seems to complain about your comments and edits.--Gabriel HM (talk) 17:52, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 December 2015
In the third paragraph the article states "French is the second most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union." But in the Geographic distribution section immediately afterwards states "French is the fourth most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union." The same sentence almost, they cannot both be correct. 94.9.66.144 (talk) 21:44, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
 * This is a bit wonky. Both statements are sourced, and the sources look fairly reliable - the one that places French fourth is the European Commission, and the one that places French second is the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Not entirely sure where to go with this, though I'm leaning toward using the Commission source as there is less chance of bias and they release data with their report. Cannolis (talk) 23:30, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with your assessment Cannolis; the Commission source is preferable. I've updated the article. Stickee (talk) 02:18, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
 * In others cases I would have agree with both of you, but the figures of the EC are the results of a poll, on a basis of about 28.000 European people, and it seems curious that so much people living outside Italy would have declared Italian as their mother tongue. (I don't really mind, but according their numbers, 93 % of 66 millions of French people plus 38 % of 11 millions of Belgium makes 64 millions of people stating French is one's mother tongue, more than the 60 millions of Italians inhabitants). [and please apologize for my broken English] --La femme de menage (talk) 01:02, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * This page is no longer protected, so there is no need for an edit request. If there is consensus, any editor may make the change.  RudolfRed (talk) 01:17, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * As Stickee and Cannolis had to make an editorial choice to fix the issue, and as there was an edit war about those numbers, I supposed the consensus is not still reached, et just gave an advice, without doing any change. But indeed, it is not an request for admins.--La femme de menage (talk) 06:46, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Pardon ? / What
About this revert and the following one without any comment : it is not wrong, "Pardon" is a formal form for "Quoi ?". Feel free to refer to this academic website : Pour faire répéter ce qu'on a mal entendu] Synon. vieilli plaît-il?Clotaire: Excusez-moi, je suis un peu en retard. Jeff: Pardon? Clotaire: Je dis: je suis un peu en retard, excusez-moi (Achard,J. de la Lune,1929, i, 2, p. 4). --La femme de menage (talk) 14:18, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Good catch. This has been corrected. Coldcreation (talk) 15:34, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Separation of 1000s
I understood that French separated thousands with a period (.) and for decimals started with a comma, the reverse of English. Scientific writing spread the idea that EVERYBODY should separate thousands with a space, and the decimal would be indicated by a period. Could this be checked? 66.241.130.86 (talk) 19:57, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * As it's written in French_language, I can assure that "1,000.05" in French should be written "1 000,05", and that there is no other tolerated way. JackPotte (talk) 22:48, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Malware
I commented out this reference. When I clicked the reference, it said I urgently needed to update Firefox. I don't believe legitimate Firefox updates are promoted that way. More conclusively, I got a malware warning from my Webroot antivirus. Not that I'm a malware expert, but you might want to find an alternative reference that won't infect people's computers. Art LaPella (talk) 02:56, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

je sais pas
"Je sais pas. (syntax mistake)"

It's not a mistake it's a deliberately informal form like wikt:dunno. The Académie Française are just plain wrong in this instance. Renard Migrant (talk) 13:27, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

The syntax for informal speech is correct, but it is unlikely that the phonetic transcription is correct. As a French teacher with majors in French literature and linguistics, and a native speaker, a native speaker would not use [ʒø] in [ʒø sɛ pa], but [ʃ] and "Je sais pas." would be pronounced [ʃ sɛ pa].--Pierrejcd (talk) 02:33, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I disagree... As a native speaker myself, I would say that both "je sais pas" and "j'sais pas" can be used depending on the person/region/situation... As far as unformal speech is concerned, while both are grammatically incorrect, pretty much anything goes, even "ch'ais pas". And, no the Académie Française isn't wrong about that. Just like in english, even though a majority of writers use "it's" for "its", being in the majority doesn't make it right. Dhrm77 (talk) 13:03, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

"Nous avons besoin d'aide !" ≠ "(Comment) puis-je vous aider ?"
In § Words,
 * "We need help!" / "Nous avons besoin d'aide !"

is not a synonym for
 * "(How) may I help you?" / "(Comment) puis-je vous aider ?"

The pronunciations in that row of the table are for "(Comment) puis-je vous aider ?" I have deleted "We need help!" / "Nous avons besoin d'aide !" Someone properly competent should add a row, with the appropriate pronunciations.

--Thnidu (talk) 02:46, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

french native
French is a mother tongue in Ivory Coast, in Togo and in some african capitals. Why dont'we take this into account. At least 130 millions speak french as a mother tongue

--Diego Gakone (talk) 15:20, 17 November 2016 (UTC) We've written that it's a common native language in Abidjan and Libreville, but feel free to add more cities or countries if you have reliable sources supporting your claim. Aaker (talk) 08:35, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Indochina again.
In my opinion it is misleading to include Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the list of French-speaking countries. French is not an official language in any of those countries, there is no considerable minority of native French speakers, yes some people there know French (but they're actually fewer than in for example Germany or Spain and I hope you're not suggesting that we should include every country where you can find somebody who knows the language). At the moment the Indochinese countries are listed as countries where French is an important administrative or cultural language, together with the Maghreb states and Lebanon. But, the difference between Indochina and the other countries in this group is immense. In Maghreb, French is the primary business language and it is widely known and used by the population, also for domestic communication. French is by no means used in this way in Indochina (where English is the most important foreign language). Aaker (talk) 08:57, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

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Major Literary Works
Major political, business, and charity organizations that use French are mentioned and the idea that French is a useful language for these areas is addressed. Should major works written in French also be included to show its impact, if any and to what extent, on the academic sector? Ashleyhpace (talk) 20:35, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

External Link Added
I have just added an external link to Verbix,com that will allow readers to conjugate a French verb in full. Please review my change and leave any/all feedback. Ashleyhpace (talk) 19:39, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Edits via WikiEDU for HES Intro to Linguistics
Hello,

First off I have to say that you have made some wonderful grammatical changes!

I personally would suggest going over the article another time or two and making sure that all of the grammar is correct, as I spotted a few things that could be streamlined. However, so far it seems as though you've caught most of that!

Under Africa, the article reads "A plurality of the world's French-speaking population." Think about word choice here.

One gap seems to be under the Asia heading, which only (and briefly) mentions something about Southeast Asia, and does not elaborate either on French in other parts of Asia, or why other parts of Asia are not included. Perhaps here is a place in which you could elaborate? --Catearmi (talk) 13:27, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

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Post-Brexit
After Brexit becomes official, we will need to revise the figures on the percentage of EU citizens that speak French, and its ranking among native languages (as English will drop down the list). 2602:306:CFEA:170:C82D:A3E1:2D56:8C7C (talk) 16:03, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with you!--AlfaRocket (talk) 20:22, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Expanded Grammar Section
I thought I might expand the Grammar Section further. Many topics are mentioned but none are discussed in depth. Many other languages' pages have a decent overview and introduction of their grammar. Topics such as nouns, verbs, and word order need to be addressed to have a better understanding of basic French grammar. I have created this bibliography of possible sources:

Magill, Edward Hicks. A French Grammar ... To Which Is Added a French, English, and Latin Vocabulary, Containing the Most Common Words in French Which Are Derived from Latin. Boston: Crosby & Ainsworth, 1867. Print.

E., Coffman Crocker Mary. Schaum's Outline of French Grammar. New York: McGraw-Hill Contemporary Learning, 2014. Print.

Lahousse, Karen and Béatrice Lamiroy. "Word order in French, Spanish and Italian:A grammaticalization account", 46.2 (2012): 387-416. Retrieved 6 Jul. 2017, from doi:10.1515/flin.2012.014

Dekkers, Joost. "French Word Order: A Conspiracy Theory." Linguistics in the Netherlands 1997 Linguistics in the Netherlands Linguistics in the Netherlands. 14 (1997): 49-60. Retrieved 6 Jul. 2017, from doi:10.1075/avt.14.07dek Ashleyhpace (talk) 23:14, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Bonjour! Comment ça va? Je vais très bien et toi? French for: Hello! How are you? I'm very good and you? I've known this language for years. Bubba2018 (talk) 01:04, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I've been learning French for three years now!
Hello! I have been learning French for years now and I've been able to read pretty much a whole paragraph in this beautiful language! Subjects like learning about the house, to have and to be, your family and learning some about France! Bubba2018 (talk) 01:02, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

EQUATORIAL GUINEA, WESTERN SAHARA AND NORTHERN MOROCCO

Equatorial Guinea is not a traditional part of "Francophone Africa". As Wikipedia says, Spanish is the natinal language and 67% of the population uses it, while French is "not locally spoken".

Equatorial Guinea was an Spanish colony until 1968. Western Sahara was an Spanish colony until 1975. Northern Morocco (Riff) and Ifni (in the South) were Spanish colonies until 1957, so none of them is part of "Francophone Africa"--213.60.237.52 (talk) 09:50, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Langue d'oïl and Langue d'oc
Langues d'oïl were mentioned in the article, but not the langue d'oc ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occitan_language ). Though the second represents the half of France (the Southern one).

Do you really confirm that French language derivates only from the Northern half (langue d'oïl) and not from the Southern one ? Magnon86 (talk) 03:56, 9 March 2018 (UTC)magnon86


 * This article is not about the languages of France, but about the French language. French is related to Occitan as both are Romance languages, but it is not derived from it, no. The two languages developed separately. (Now, some people in the south of France may use some Occitan words and expressions in their French speech (in what is called "Francitan") but that is a different phenomenon.) Funnyhat (talk) 20:34, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Number of Native Speakers
The article mentions 150 million native speakers in the infobox, and 190 million speakers in the introduction of the article. The sources used, however, say roughly 77 million native speakers (ethnologue, 2014) 110 million native speakers (ulaval) and 150 million true francophones (diplomatie). As much as I would want these higher numbers to be true, I do not see where they have been pulled from. Or is there some new reports from ethnologue in 2017 that was not linked in this article? Regards.

Intuslegere (talk) 11:14, 16 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I don't know what the precise number is, but there seems to be a tendency on the part of some organizations to assume that native speakers only come from France, Canada, Belgium and Switzerland (which would explain the figures in the 75-80 million range). But there are some native speakers in Africa nowadays, particularly in the younger generations. Exactly how many there are seem to be difficult to quantify. Funnyhat (talk) 20:46, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Differences between Canadian-French and French-French (however I should say it) for “Deux” and “Bleu”.
As someone who’s been trying to learn French for at least for years, I’ve noticed that the way the Canadians and the French pronounce some words differently. I know this because I have a friend who is from Québec, and he pronounces words differently than my French teacher who teaches the French version of French does! If you want an example than words like “Deux” (two) and “bleu” (blue) in Canadian-French are pronounced like “Der” and “Bler”. Yes, I know that words in English just like any other language are pronounced and spelled differenly, like in American-English we spell “favourite” as “favorite” than other countries do. I can tell the differences the way my friend says it than my teacher, but for the spelling part is something I don’t know! So, can you French speakers tell me difference between the two? Thanks! Bubba2018 (talk) 20:18, 10 June 2018 (UTC)Bubba2018 Bubba2018 (talk) 20:18, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

300 millions of french speakers in 2018
Hi eveybody, There are now 300 millions of french speakers. Not 274. And some 90 millions native speakers. That is said in Erevan, in Armenia, last week. At the close day of the summit for the francophony — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yazoulillo (talk • contribs) 06:43, 17 October 2018 (UTC)



--Yazoulillo (talk) 06:55, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * , Francophonie's numbers are often rounded-up, fanciful and exaggerated estimations with little to no backing or regard to classification of speakers and so should be taken with a grain of salt. The organization's main goal has always been preservation and promotion of French worldwide, aside from establishing and maintaining close relations between the French-speaking countries. It's never been a go-to institution for data, which is why its figures are often given in passing and should be scrutinized. In the source, they merely give the "300 million" figure, without any clarification whom that encompasses; how many of those are native speakers, how many learners, do these include creoles or not, what passes for a speaker? It's all vague. Ethnologue corroborates it's figures with censuses, polls, linguistic fieldwork and UNESCO data.

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:38, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
 * New-Map-Francophone World.PNG

Citation for Indian french
, can I use an official Govt. of India site as a ref for French being present in India officially? Since Pondicherry is so small, there is barely any literature on French dialect, but I can assure you many Pondicherians use words not present in french, sometimes borrowed from Tamil and Indian English. ✘ anonymousвهii 11:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

"French (langauge)" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect French (langauge). Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 18:27, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

"International language of love" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect International language of love. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes (talk) 19:40, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

"Future of French" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Future of French. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. signed,Rosguill talk 01:33, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

"France language" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect France language. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 9 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 11:58, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

"French l" listed at Redirects for discussion
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"French gaelic" listed at Redirects for discussion
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"Franska" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Franska. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 9 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 12:03, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Infobox - Region - Francophonie
In the Infobox, the term Francophonie as the description of the region where French is spoken, while accurate, has to go. You can't describe the region where English is spoken as, "the English-speaking world", because it's a tautology, and doesn't define anything. Same problem here. Mathglot (talk) 09:53, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Good point, I nixed it. No need for us to state that French is spoken everywhere French is spoken. Eric talk 13:24, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

"French Words and Phrases" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect French Words and Phrases. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 6 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 12:47, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 December 2020
"Francophone" does not redirect here. 2604:3D08:627D:A00:4CF5:458C:CCCB:F447 (talk) 23:38, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done removed the hat note and put on the article it really redirects to. RudolfRed (talk) 00:44, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

French Proverbs
In the See Also section, there is a link to a "French Proverbs" page. This page does not exist. I'm relatively new to Wikipedia so I don't know whether I should delete that link, create a page called "French proverbs" or do something else - could someone provide assistance? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.90.19.218 (talk) 13:45, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

"Francien" dialect
From the article: Within Old French many dialects emerged but the Francien dialect is one that not only continued but also thrived during the Middle French period (14th–17th centuries).[35] Modern French grew out of this Francien dialect'

This is the traditional view but it is disputed by many today. Evidence for the existence of "Francien" prior to the emergence is French is lacking. A growing viewpoint is that French was not simply a local dialect that was adopted by the court, but was a koiné form of the langue d'oïl that developed at the court, not from any one particular dialect but drawing influences from those of the surrounding regions (Norman, Picard, Champenois, Orléanais). 2600:1702:6D0:5160:7C6D:1501:8A95:2852 (talk) 17:14, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Do you have any reliable sources for that claim? OhNo itsJamie Talk 21:22, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 January 2022
Change the Language Family listing of Langues d'oïl from Oïl to d'oïl. 69.165.229.162 (talk) 05:41, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * ❌ In the article Langues d'oïl, languages derivated from this dialect continuum are often called Oïl languages. The Glottolog database uses "Oil". ObserveOwl (talk) 20:49, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Msracheldixon, Kadiatou Keita, Ashleyhpace. Peer reviewers: Catearmi, Umbereenbmirza, Esotericbubbba.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:52, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Chelseaslee.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 January 2022
The second example of the French passive voice, "La voiture était conduite par Marc.", should be changed to "La voiture a été conduite par Marc." It is implied that this example of the passive voice has been formed from the example of the active voice written above: "Marc a conduit la voiture." However, these two sentences are not in the same tense and, therefore, do not correspond to each other. The active one is in the passé composé, while the passive is in the imparfait. The passive, passé composé form of the verb should be "a été conduite", because the passive voice is always formed from the auxiliary "être", conjugated to the tense of the verb in the active voice, and the participe passé of that same verb. Therefore, since the verb "a conduit" is in the passé composé in the active voice, the auxiliary in the passive voice should also be passé composé, so "a été". Source: https://grammar.collinsdictionary.com/french-easy-learning/the-passive WikiFouf (talk) 05:14, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅. Thank you! ObserveOwl (talk) 21:33, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Native to: Canada
In the info box, section "native to", Canada is missing (whereas it's disputable whether Luxembourg should be mentioned there) 2A06:4944:10FE:4D00:7845:3462:E860:64DF (talk) 20:26, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Just a thought
Maybe for the alphebet section, we can speak on how it is similar to English's sounds and actually show the 26 French Language letters with the sounds --Dyaj (talk) 11:00, 6 October 2022 (UTC) Dyaj (talk) 10:58, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Syria on the map
French is not a minority or secondary language in Syria. The color on that country should be removed from the map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Somuchknowledge (talk • contribs) 01:54, 6 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Addressed below. — kwami (talk) 21:39, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Lenlo's intervention - Ethnologue
If you use Ethnologue for the total native speakers of the french language, you should use Ethnologue for the german language in order to have equal treatment... German native speakers are only 77 millions according to Ethnologue https://www.ethnologue.com/language/deu --In vino vinitas (talk) 10:56, 16 November 2016 (fr)


 * That's actually a very valid observation. Yet nobody adressed it for almost 6 years now. Intuslegere (talk) 22:23, 9 February 2022 (UTC)


 * But according to Enthologue, German isn't spoken in Austria. But we count it, so that country alone would add 9M to the total. The difference is because the para-French languages have all been driven nearly to extinction, while many of the para-German languages like Bavarian are doing well. — kwami (talk) 21:46, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Language proportions within the EU
The text about language proportions within the EU (and the associated map) evidently pre-dates Brexit and needs some update. 2A01:CB15:8068:9B00:35D3:50DE:59E2:ACC9 (talk) 20:10, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

States field in infobox
Hi and, came across this page and saw

Native to France, now worldwide

"now worldwide" seemed very ambiguous and not exactly accurate, the template gives this field the descriptor:

"countries in which it is mainly spoken. You do not have to define both this and region. Do not use flag icons except for national or official status (WP:INFOBOXFLAG). Direct links to country articles are generally not useful, and distract from useful links. Consider 'Languages of [country]' or '[ethnicity] in [country]' links instead."

The edit appears to have originated from Special:Diff/1115324987 by since around half a year ago. "France, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg" was listed prior. Similar pages appear to do similar things. "now worldwide" was removed a week ago by DeSant05134 and reverted by Blaze Wolf.

Not exactly what to change it to, just "France" fits the Template descriptor, doing something like Chinese language linking to Francophonie seems good as well. The one prior might work as well.  Just ' i ' yaya  04:28, 1 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I changed it to "France, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, and other locations in the Francophonie", as those are the main countries where it's native, but there are also e.g. cities in francophone Africa with large populations of native speakers. Do you think that's missing anything critical? We can't give all the details, of course; the info box is just an overview. (Also, for Spanish I removed Eq. Guinea and added the US.) — kwami (talk) 01:02, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Note that for English language we don't use that parameter at all. Another option would be just a note such as "see Francophone world". — kwami (talk) 02:06, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Don't think anything huge is missing, thanks Kwamikagami :D think the note would work as well but not a lot more different.  Just ' i ' yaya  07:38, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

French is official language of Vatican City
Hello. I'm going to explain my modification so that my changes are justified and I'm not accused of editorial warfare. The Papal State (the Vatican 🇻🇦) has several official languages, including Italian and Latin, of course, but also French, as shown by these various sources (https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_au_Vatican#:~:text=Les%20langues%20officielles%20du%20Vatican,des%20organisations%20internationales)%20et%20l'; https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/dossiers-pays/vatican-saint-siege/presentation-du-vatican/article/presentation-du-vatican; https://www.vaticannews.va/fr/vatican/news/2019-03/vatican-saint-siege-francophonie-langue-francais.html) . In addition, international institutions recognize the Vatican as a French-speaking state, and the Vatican State is even a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. France-Pt9301 (talk) 17:09, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * As I already mentioned on your talk page, other Wikipedias (or Wikipedia itself) do not qualify as reliable sources, as they are user generated. I'm relying on Google translate here, but your source says "French is among the official languages ​​of Vatican City, alongside Italian, the official language of the Vatican City State; from Latin, the official language of the Roman Catholic Church and the legal language of the Vatican; and German, the official language of the Vatican army, the Pontifical Swiss Guard." Languages of Vatican City already discuss the use of other languages for diplomacy and the army, but only Italian is the official language of the city-state, which is the criteria in this article. Every other source I've reviewed says that only Italian is the official language of the state entity. OhNo itsJamie Talk 17:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

I did put French Wikipedia as a source to illustrate my point but I understood that you didn't consider Wikipedia of other languages as sources and that's why I also put two other sources (an article from Vatican News and a page from diplomatie.gouv.fr which is a channel of the French government) and these two 3 sources mention that French is one of the official languages of the Vatican 🇻🇦 in the same way as Latin or Italian (specifying that if the 4 languages are official, they have different uses). The Vatican is also recognized by international institutions as a French-speaking country, and the Papal State is a member of the international organization of the Francophonie. France-Pt9301 (talk) 16:03, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @France-Pt9301, the sources you listed are not from official Vatican sources that are used to confirm official status of French. As far as a quick Google search goes, only Italian and Latin show up as official languages. You can't cite Wikipedia articles as a source per WP:CIRCULAR. The France Diplomatie website cites French as a diplomatic language and German as a working language of the Swiss Guard. This does *not* reference to their usage as an official language for state or internal communications which is what an official language is. Algeria and Morocco use French as a diplomatic language as well (plus in a lot more areas), you wouldn't list them as official would you? You are twisting meaning and quite frankly, pushing WP:POV. The Vatican most certainly is not considered Francophone nor is it on the list of members or observers of La Francophonie.
 * Until consensus is reached or a reliable source from the Vatican is found, the Vatican is to be left off the infobox. I also see you're involved in multiple edit wars. Please refrain from these disruptive edits before a consensus is reached. - Moalli (talk) 20:59, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Good morning @Moalli . One of the sources is Vatican News, a service provided by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, in collaboration with the media offices of the Holy See according to what is said in the Wikipedia article dedicated to it. Therefore, I think it is a reliable source which confirms my point, namely that French is one of the official languages ​​of the Vatican. I agree with you on the fact that it is not the most spoken or used language within the Papacy (French being an official language used mainly for diplomacy) but French remains an official language within the Vatican. A language can be official and be little spoken within the population (this is the case for example in Vanuatu where French is only spoken by 37% of the population and yet French is one of the official languages ​​of by France's colonial past but also for diplomacy). The examples of Morocco and Algeria are different cases because they do not currently recognize French as an official language.

France-Pt9301 (talk) 21:44, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The article appears to conflate official language with working language and contradicts itself regarding official status. French is specifically outlined as being used in diplomacy only. Italian appears to be the only official state language ("l’italien, langue officielle de l'État de la Cité du Vatican") with Latin used in internal governance ("langue juridique du Vatican"). This means that Italian would be the only official language of the Vatican City state and Latin used in administration. French does not figure into any official status but is a working language of diplomacy, which once again does *not* equal official language. In the case of Vanuatu, the country's constitution specifically outlines French as an official language. This is not the case with Vatican City, nor is there a law or ordinance proving this.
 * You violated the WP:3RR rule by reverting my edit when there's a consensus that French is not an official language among other users. You are already on the radar of multiple users, so I'm not going to report you but I suggest you be mature enough to not revert to what you think is your opinion until a consensus is formed. In this case, it appears that French is not official due to lack of sources apart from this one which conflates official with working language. - Moalli (talk) 22:22, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Struck through edits by sockpuppet. Doug Weller talk 08:53, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Status of French in Maine and Louisiana
According to the Info Box, French is official language in the States of Maine and Louisiana. However, this is unsourced and to the best of my knowledge untrue. Neither Louisiana nor Maine even have an official language. Yupanqui (talk) 11:29, 4 December 2023 (UTC)


 * @Yupanqui, French is de facto official in Louisiana and Maine per sources in the List of countries and territories where French is an official language article. While not de jure official, both states recognize the usage of French in law and grant certain constitutional rights to the language. You can even request government services in French such as voter information in Louisiana, but it's not available in other languages other than English unless there are some local governments that provide services in other languages. De facto official status can be included on language infoboxes provided they have been proven via sources as with countries such as Japan with Japanese and Mexico with Spanish, for example. - Moalli (talk) 07:32, 6 December 2023 (UTC)