French

French (français) belongs to the Romance languages ​​because of the Latin emerged. However, French differs in many respects from the other Romance languages. First of all, French has a far-reaching abrasion of morphological outputs. Second French has many interruptions and sound shifts, already in the Old French and occurred in the Middle French are evolved. Third, it has a light Celtic substrate (to be found in one word as quatre-vingts, "eighty", literally "four-twenty", in the Celtic languages ​​one counts in twenty numbers) and a free radical Germanic, especially Franconian , super street , which among other things in the double negatives ne ... pas, ne ... rien ne ... personne ne ... jamais etc ..

Content

 * 1 Location and layout
 * 2 Spreading
 * 3 History
 * 4 Conjugation
 * 5 Word Order
 * 6 Emphasis
 * 7 Schools
 * 8 See also
 * 9 Notes
 * 10 External links

Location and layout [ edit ]
The New French is the cultivated version of the Francilien, the dialect of the Île-de-France . This belongs to the group of Oïl the Gallo-Romance languages ​​. Although the standard French has largely supplanted the regional languages ​​of France, a distinction is still a number of more or less related sister language of French. The list can be put together as follows: In France, most of these languages ​​are traditionally regarded as dialects , ie as inferior and its use is discouraged. In recent years, the attitude towards these languages ​​is clear, however, eased.
 * Gallo-Romance languages
 * Oïl languages ​​:
 * Burgundian
 * Champenois
 * Franc-Comtois
 * Gallo
 * Lorraine
 * Norman
 * Picard
 * Poitevin
 * Saintongeais
 * Walloon
 * Franco-Provençal Language
 * Occitan
 * Auvergnat
 * Gascon
 * Languedocien (narrow)
 * Limousijns
 * Provencal
 * Vivaro-Alpine

[Spreading edit ]
French is spoken by about 75 million people as their native language [2] . It is thus in 14th place in the world [3] . It is spoken by 63 million people in France, 7.7 million people in Canada (mainly in Quebec ), 4.2 million in Belgium (mainly in Wallonia and Brussels ) and 1.8 million in Switzerland . The Cajun French in Louisiana is rapidly deteriorating; it was in 2000 by less than 200,000 people talked. French has in Maastricht for a long time until the 18th century, occupied an important place in the high administrative and civil life. [4] In the local dialect Maastricht French influences are audible.

As the language of the administrative elite is French from 1066 in England for centuries been an important factor and has left an indelible mark in the original Anglo-Saxon English. Only in 1258 was in England for the first time an official document drawn up in English. The Anglo-Norman was until the 15th century in use for literary and administrative purposes. Even now the Anglo-Norman is still used occasionally, the British queen leaves with the words "La Reyne remercie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et ainsi le veult" to parliament know a law to have been approved. [5] In Russia, Spain, Germany and elsewhere, the French in the 17th century came into use as the language of the social elite, but since the rise of nationalism in Europe in the 19th century by the national languages ​​repressed again. It is the legacy of French colonialism still outside France by at least 50 million people as a second language. Especially in Africa and to a lesser extent in Southeast Asia does language play an important role as a cultural language, either because French is indispensable as a neutral factor needed amid a variety of rival indigenous languages, whether indigenous languages ​​not yet had written heritage and therefore were too weak to take over the role of French as a valuable medium for culture and administration. The language thus playing the same role as Latin during and after the Roman colonization of Gaul and other European parts of the former Roman Empire. In many African countries, French is the only official language.

French is spoken in forty countries and regions. At least six of those areas ( France , French Polynesia , Monaco , New Caledonia , Quebec and Saint Pierre and Miquelon), this is even the most spoken language. It is also a major immigrant language in eleven other countries.

French is still, despite the rise of English is an important language in the diplomatic traffic. Until the first half of the 20th century it was the most important international language. Wrote the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz lot of French-language publications and used one still French terms in the postal service . The language is still one of the official languages ​​of the United Nations . Also in the European Union plays an important role, although that relatively backward because of the recent enlargement of the Union. As a language for scientific publications of transnational interest is French supplanted almost entirely by English.

Spreading in Africa

History [ edit ]
The oldest French-language writings from the 9th century . The oldest document in French is the Oath of Strasbourg, which was to be apparently understood by the common people. From the 12th century to a literary culture are spoken. Most French texts until the 14th century have been in southern dialects, the Occitan or theLangue d'Oc . In the Edict of Villers-Cotterets, which in 1539 was drafted, the French language was set as mandatory for the administration. This worked to the advantage of the Langue d'oil, northern variant of the French, because the northern Paris was already a thousand years the national administrative center. At that time also begun formalizing the grammar and compiling dictionaries. In 1635 was the French Academy was founded. This was the standardization of the French language is a state matter. The Golden Age of French was the 17th century, especially by the literary works of Corneille , Racine and Molière . In the 18th century made ​​the Latin scientific publications increasingly giving way to the French, which the clarity and precision of language itself benefited. It shares the historical development phases of the French as follows: Modern dating French spelling, like the English, mostly from the end of the Middle Ages; because the pronunciation changed since then, the spelling is now far from being phonetic. She tells us also about the situation in the Middle Ages, when all final letters were still pronounced (filles so sounded like it was written), the ai and oi were wide diphthongs and ou more sounded like oow (as well as the Middle Dutch oe in boec!).
 * Old French (about the 13th century );
 * Middle French (until the 16th century )
 * New French.

[Conjugations edit ]
It knows French, like all Romance languages, more tense, not only in the grammatical rules, but also in practice than Dutch, while auxiliaries are used less. Thepassé simple is completely unknown in Dutch, the subjunctive ( subjunctive ) is rarely used in practice in Dutch. There are so many more individual forms, the irregular inflections have a certain notoriety in teaching French as a foreign language. The existence of four different families regular verbs (ending in -er, -ir, and -re oir) is an additional complication compared to eg Dutch, English and German. Below are the conjugations of the important irregular verbs être (be) and avoir (have) four times.

[Word order edit ]
From beginning to end of the sentence:
 * Subject Matter
 * Denial Part I (ne ... only)
 * Reflexive pronoun
 * Indirect object: me, te, nous vous en se
 * Direct object
 * Indirect object: lui, leur
 * y and / or and
 * Person Form
 * Denial Part II (ne ... pas, rien, personne, jamais etc.)
 * Infinitive
 * Past participle

[Emphasis edit ]
The emphasis in French is simple: it is always on the last syllable, except if the word on a schwa ends, it is the penultimate.

[Schools edit ]
In the Netherlands, French is not a mandatory subject in school. Depending on the school, there is sometimes, besides the compulsory English, a second modern foreign language compulsory. This may, depending on the choice of the school, French is.

In Flanders is French in elementary school always a compulsory subject in the fifth and sixth grade . The state schools are free to start earlier with (initiation) French. For schools in language border municipalities ,municipal facilities and Flemish schools in the Brussels region start studying French at least from the third grade. In secondary education it is a compulsory subject, except in some directions of vocational secondary education .

See also [ edit ]

 * Alliance française
 * Belgian-French
 * Cajun French
 * French in Netherlands
 * French with her
 * French Braille
 * List of French proverbs
 * List of French words and phrases in the Dutch language
 * List of countries where French is an official language