France Languages

According to Article 2 of the constitution of France, French is the official language in the country. The French government primarily communicates in French. There are about seventy-five languages that have been recognized under the government proposal to ratify regional languages, the government also continues to recognize all regional and minority languages but to a limited extent. French is a Romance language that belongs to the Indo-European family; these are a group of languages that are a descendant of the Vulgar Latin, which was a nonstandard form of Latin that was known for common speech. French was also influenced a lot by Celtic and Germanic languages.

Apart from French, which is used as the first language by 88% of the population, other commonly used languages are English, Spanish, German, Italian, Arabic and Portuguese. Several languages are spoken in different regions of France which had their origin from the Germanic, Celtic and Gallo-Romance dialects. For instance, Breton is a Celtic language spoken by about 200,000 people. Corsican is another language that has a Roman origin with influence from Tuscan in Italy, currently spoken by 200,000 people mainly in Corsica. Occitan is spoken in southern France it is thought to have originated in Occitan valley in Italy. Gascon is spoken primarily in the southern provinces of Gascony and Bearn by about 250,000 people, and the dialect has some ties with The Basque language due to the proximity to those two language speakers. Auvergnat is spoken in the Auvergne province south of France. Norma has 100,000 people speaking the language that started at the time of Norse invasion of Normandy.

French has some great phrases that have even found their way into the English language usage, for instance, à la carte which means in the menu, amour fou meaning insane love, and déjà vu meaning already seen.

The minority languages in France, many of which are thought be nearing extinction, include Gallo, which has about 28,000 speakers. It is part of the Óil family made-up of French languages. The language existed alongside Breton. Basque is another minority language spoken by few people in France - around 51,000 people to be exact. It has been theorized that the language existed before the formation of modern European languages. The Languedocien language is spoken in southern France by about 5,000 people only. Other minority languages include Polish, Turkish, Dutch, Romanian, Chinese, Catalan, Croatian, and Galician, used in France by less than 1% of the population.

This page was last modified on May 1st, 2018

More on Graphicmaps

Published on 2019-11-06


Capital	Paris
Languages	French (official) 100%, declining regional dialects and languages (Provencal, Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Catalan, Basque, Flemish, Occitan, Picard)
Ethnic Groups	Celtic and Latin with Teutonic, Slavic, North African, Indochinese, Basque minorities
Religion	Christian (overwhelmingly Roman Catholic) 63-66%, Muslim 7-9%, Buddhist 0.5-0.75%, Jewish 0.5-0.75%, other 0.5-1.0%, none 23-28%
Government	Semi-presidential republic
Independance	No official date of independence: 486 (Frankish tribes unified under Merovingian kingship); 10 August 843 (Western Francia established from the division of the Carolingian Empire); 14 July 1789 (French monarchy overthrown); 22 September 1792 (First French Republic founded); 4 October 1958 (Fifth French Republic established)
Area	643,801.00 km²
Water Area	3,374.00 km²
Land Area	640,427.00 km²
Population	66,836,154.00 Much of the population is concentrated in the north and southeast; although there are many urban agglomerations throughout the country, Paris is by far the largest city, with Lyon ranked a distant second
Location	metropolitan France:?Western Europe, bordering the Bay of Biscay and English Channel, between Belgium and Spain, southeast of the UK; bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Italy and Spain
No. Bordering Countries	8
Bordering Countries	Andorra 55 km, Belgium 556 km, Germany 418 km, Italy 476 km, Luxembourg 69 km, Monaco 6 km, Spain 646 km, Switzerland 525 km
GDP(PPP)	$2,700,000,000,000.00 (USD)
GDP (Per Capita)	$42,400.00 (USD)
Export Partners	Its major export partners are Germany, Spain, and the United States.
Export Commodities	Its main exports are machinery and transportation equipment, as well as aircraft.
Import Partners	Its major import partners are Germany, China, and Italy.
Import Commodities	Its major imports include machinery and equipment, vehicles, crude oil, and aircraft.
Climate	Metropolitan France:?generally cool winters and mild summers, but mild winters and hot summers along the Mediterranean; occasional strong, cold, dry, north-to-northwesterly wind known as mistral
Terrain	Metropolitan France:?mostly flat plains or gently rolling hills in north and west; remainder is mountainous, especially Pyrenees in south, Alps in east
Learn More	France

France Languages

More on Graphicmaps

What is a Trade Embargo?

Which Two Countries Used to Have the Same Flag?

What Is the Only Two-Sided State Flag?

Which Country Flag Looks Like the Texas Flag?

Flags That Resemble the US Flag

What is Demography?