French - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

See too

Council of Turns
Oaths of Strasbourg
Sequence of holy Eulalie
Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts
French foreign language

Approaches linguistic French

Vocabulary

The majority of the French funds lexical comes from the Latin (as a language-mother) or is built starting from the graeco-latin roots. Many terms have a synonym, one coming from the old Latin root, the other being popular. These doublets are especially present with a name (popular) and the derived adjective (erudite): mother/maternal, brother/fraternal, hair/capillary, faith/faithful, cold/ice-cold, eye/ocular, safety/safety, etc

The Francique, as a superstratum, left some important words and the loans are numerous: initially with the English, then with the Italian , the others Romance Languages, the Germanic Languages such as the German or the Dutch, etc

Etymology

The Francien, dialect of Language of oil spoken in Ile-de-France with the Middle Ages, is at the origin of French of today. This term was created in 1889 by Gaston Paris, a French linguist, to indicate the medieval dialect.

French spoken today car his name about this dialect, which evolved slowly to a speech suprarégional from 10th/11th/12th centuries: franceis > François > French.

Neologisms

Some Néologisme S French are made up starting from the roots Latin are or Greek:

Software, House automation…

Others follow the rules of suffixation:

Wandering created to replace the English walkman and diskman .
Email created to replace E-mail
Livrel or Bouquineur created to replace Kindle

Foreign loans

Grammar

Semantics

See also: Semantic of the French language

The French language has a very rich Sémantique. It lends itself to Word games, flashes of wit, riddles, Contrepèterie S…

This characteristic is important for the Data processing in the Databases (semantic Web).

Regional varieties of French

The regional variation, in French, can be approached in two manners:

by considering that French is a synonym of the Langue of oil, which implies that all the Romance dialects of the field of oil are dialectal varieties of French (see the article Langue of oil);
while limiting itself to what is called “regional French”, together of regional varieties in the world, which remain very close to standard French. These is the direction which is developed here.

Certain neologisms can also be borrowed from the Vocabulaire of regional French. One calls “regional French” the words or the expressions employed in certain areas of the Francophonie, but not retained in the dictionaries academic S of French or who is not used in the whole of the Francophonie. It is not a question of familiar language, but well of French who evolved/moved in a different way.

In part of the northern half of the France for example, the meal of the morning is called “breakfast”, that of midday the “lunch” and that of the evening the “dinner”, the “Souper” indicating the soup which was tasted around 10 p.m. in certain mediums; to the Quebec, in the remainder of the Canada, in Swiss Belgium and , one says “lunch”, “dinner” and “Souper”. In Swiss Belgium and , one says “Seventy” (70) and “Ninety” (90) while in Suisse one says “Huitante” (80) but only in certain cantons (the form old and now obsolete of “huitante” was “Octante”). To the Quebec, in the remainder of the Canada, in Swiss, Belgium and in certain French areas, one says “sometimes” where French of Paris but also African French uses “presently”; with the Quebec also, “to store” “to make races” (to avoid the Anglicism “making shopping”). In Senegal and in French-speaking Africa, one speaks sometimes about “essencery” to avoid the English neologism of “service station”, in Quebec and often in the remainder of Canada, one also says “to have a blonde” instead of “having a boyfriend” or “to have a girlfriend” etc

They are only some examples and French is rich lexical differences in his regional alternatives.

In France

Parisian French

Parisian French already replaced at the majority of the speakers of the zone of oil the local varieties of Francilien (it is not a question here of what is called sometimes of the “patois”, i.e. dialects of the language of oil, and not easily understandable with Parisian, but of varieties of French close to Parisian in which the local elites were already bilingual under the old mode). The differences between French of a Norman young person and a Parisian young person, for example, will be in the majority of the tiny cases in comparison with the diversity which existed historically in France in the francilien even.

Parisian French constituted for a long time the standard of French for the whole of the French-speaking people in the world, and continuous to exert an influence without similar on the French language sound recording entirety. For this reason one often takes Parisian French as point of reference with which one can compare other varieties of French.

However, certain recent evolutions of Parisian French compared to the traditional standard of French, who is accepted in France and even ratified in the dictionaries (of which the near total are published in France), do not pass unperceived abroad. This is true particularly in Canada, the French-speaking area where the influence of Parisian French is the least strong. As regards the pronunciation, one can think for example of the suppression of the L geminated in colleague , the addition of the T in August, or the homophony of brown bit and .

The same applies to certain lexical characteristics such as hard shoulder “hard shoulder” or aprèm “afternoon”. A regionalism characteristic of French of France is sometimes called francism . See also the Debate on the standard of Québécois French.

In Quebec

With the Quebec in particular, French-speaking linguistic space was not nourished any more in a way privileged by the contributions of the metropolis nor subjected to its influence, since the English Conquest in 1760 until the 20th century approximately. French preserved at it his lexical influences borrowed from the vocabulary of the navy of the 18th century (“to bar” a door “to lock”, for example), but also of the antiquated forms which were maintained in North-American French : one says “at present” for “currently” (it is a false-friend, because the term “at present” in France and Belgium means “there, now, immediately”); one says “beverage” for “drink”, that is to say the same nuance which exists in English between the Beverage American and the British drink , the Québécois term having preserved the same neutral direction as in old man-French (drink), while elsewhere in the francophonie (including in France) the word took a pejorative connotation of “bad drink” or, still, of a “Philter” witch in the tales for children; the American word Beverage is remainder, itself, resulting from old man-French and preserved the initial and neutral drink direction.

Since second half of the 20th century, it is true a linguistic engineering which took part of the evolution of Québécois French, in particular by inventing Québécois equivalents with Anglicisms. One says “croustilles” for chips ; “email” for e-mail ; “end of the week” to avoid the Anglicism weekend , etc

The Québécois Office of the French language (OQLF) is, in its missions of terminological day before, the Québécois equivalent of the French Academy in France: its role is at the same time advisory and normative. Within the world francophonie, the considerable influence and relatively news of the OQLF and Québécois lexical matter French (francized words, neologisms, etc) are important even apart from Quebec. For illustration, the French Academy “imports” and integrates from now on much Québécois lexical contributions (recommended by the Québécois office with regard to the use of the language to Quebec), enriching international French and allowing the diffusion of these terms in the world Francophonie; for example, after “markbeing initially marked” like Québécismes, terms as “email” from now on are regarded as standard words for the French-speaking people worldwide (“French international”) and “are not necessarily any more differentiated”. Québécois French takes part in the standard of international French, more largely than of other regional varieties of French (French of Belgium, for example, or that of Switzerland) whose influence out of their national borders remains limited.

The goal of OQLF in the terminological matters is not to deviate from the international standard of French (grammar, etc), but to frame its North-American alternative, in the compliance with the common rules of the French language (common corpus); in that, the lexical activities of the Office contribute to enrich international French by a Québécois contribution, Quebec being the French-speaking territory most influential in the world after France.

In Belgium

French is spoken mainly in the provinces about the south about the country - the Walloon region - like in Brussels, the capital, but there are still many families which speak French in North, that it is in the Flemish middle-class but also in the French-speaking families of the Périphérie of Brussels.

The regional Romance languages like the Walloon or the Picard were replaced by French progressively of the instruction of the popular class, so that they are not used almost any more. The children who went to school learned the language from the administration and the middle-class.

In certain areas (Liege, Namur…), there remained about it typically local words of the vocabulary like Walloon words such as macrale (Witch), oufti (typically of Liege untranslatable, it would be a kind of “Diantre! ” but resolutely more “popular”, potchî foû (to be irritated), “clinche” (handle of door) and of the expressions idiomatic such as “falling low from its clicotes” (Potchîr foû of its clicotes, the expression supplements to be irritated), “Petèye-crompîre” (petée Potato. I.e., with the skin, wrapped in aluminum and passed with the furnace, or old, without aluminum, and directly in embers), “Tesse to Po! ” (Thus Keep silent yourself a little!) and “It is todi the small ones which one språtche” (They is always the small ones which one crushes). There is the same phenomenon in other areas as in Tournaisis or in Brussels.

The strong Italian minority produced a contribution of Italian words, like bye (ciao) (goodbye).

Certain typical terms are included in the law or perceived like depending, at the very least, of the good language such as chicory (endive), crolles (ringlets), ninety (90), seventy (70), burgomaster (mayor)…

Pronunciation

Writing of French texts

French is written (mainly) with the basic Latin alphabet (26 letters) extended by some signs diacric (obligatory) and bindings (used conventionally but according to a less respected convention). The writing of French in Latin writing has been the object for several centuries of rather precise orthographical standards, published, taught, generally recognized and accepted but always not respected very well (these standards evolved/moved and adapted more or less well with time).

Other writings are possible to write French, in particular with the Alphabet Braille (which requires an adaptation of the existing French orthography, because the Braille is more restrictive and brings specific constraints to its use).

The purely phonetic transcriptions use the API, but they are only used to specify the pronunciation (generally only in the phonological plan to allow a sufficient mutual comprehension, and not the exact transcription phonetic which depends on L `regional accent of the speaker).

The transcription is rather easy also in the Greek alphabets and Cyrillic thanks to the existence of standards (used for the official transcription of the toponyms and French names), but more delicate and vague with the Semitic writings (in the languages which use these writings, the standardized French writing is generally preserved.)

Standardized Latin orthography of French

The French Academy and of the similar institutions of other French-speaking countries approved a series of orthographical corrections suggested in 1990 by a report/ratio of the Superior council of the French language. These corrections relate to less 3 % of the vocabulary. Moreover, the French Academy stresses that these corrections are not obligatory, but which they are recommended. These proposals are described in the article: orthographical Corrections of French.

Let us note that, at all times, the orthography of French underwent many corrections, but that the literary practice to adapt the works in the official orthography of the moment gives an impression of continuity to us that the written French language, in fact, forever have.

Alphabetical order of French

The algorithm of sorting is multilevel, in accordance with the specification of the standardized algorithms of scheduling UCA (of Unicode):

Initially, the differences of breakage and accents are ignored, just as, for certain types of sorting, all the separators of words and the punctuation. The French alphabet uses digraphs and trigraphes to note certain letters, however they are not regarded as letters distinct from the alphabet (as it is the case in Breton). All the Latin letters are not used, but can appear in imported words (in particular of the proper names and toponyms not translated, but generally transcribed litéralement since another writing): one then classifies these words, which contain additional letters (like þ , etc) after those containing the other letters; however certain dictionaries can classify these additional Latin letters according to their transliteration in the basic alphabet, like þ , the Scandinavian letter thorn, classified like HT ). French
(as into Breton), the secondary differences (of accents mainly) will be normally sorted by initially comparing the last characters of the texts or words to be classified, and not the first letters of these texts.
Finally the separators of words, the punctuation, the symbols and the differences in breakage and are considered in the normal direction of reading.

The French orthography uses the whole of the basic letters of the Latin alphabet (on green bottom below) and their alternatives (on white zone) and the orthographical separators (in yellow, of which space; the other symbols of punctuation are treated as space); the mathematical and monetary symbols (on orange bottom) are classified before the figures. The numbers are written with the decimal digits arabo-Europeans (on blue bottom).

The table below (in conformity with the table of scheduling owing to lack of Unicode ( DUCET ), only adapted for the French basic alphabet and the particular case of binding æ which is not regarded as a French letter of the alphabet but a recommended typographical form; scheduling owing to lack of Unicode classifies already the specifically French binding œ like two letters) does not list any other letter borrowed from another language: other specific characters can be as employed such as purely typographical bindings not differentiated in the alphabetical and orthographical plan, various technical symbols, additional punctuation marks, and letters borrowed from other languages as French. The characters ignored during the first levels of sorting (or treaties for this level as if they were other characters indicated in italic and treaties for this phase as these separate characters) are marked of a gray bottom for these phases.

Continuation of the table:

French typographical specificities

Several typographical conventions often have the orthographical force of convention in French, and are the subject of frequent corrections, intended to specify the written text.

Spaces and indents separating the paragraphs, the sentences and the words

Within the same paragraph, the sentences must be finished by final punctuations (which are the point, the point of exclamation, the question mark). Two of the same paragraphs levels are normally not separated if those end in a comma, a semicolon or a sign two points; these signs bind together two sentences which are complementary mutually, and a simple and sectile space follows these separating punctuations but not finales.

Except for the paragraphs of titles, when they do not form a complete sentence, and paragraphs introducing a list (which should be finished by a nonfinal punctuation, i.e. generally a sign two points, sometimes a semicolon), all the paragraphs must be finished by a final punctuation. The same sentence should not be crossed in two distinct paragraphs.

However, in the lists with chips or numbered, one can separate the subparagraphs constituting the elements from the list and finished by a comma or a semicolon, if the whole list supplements the sentence started in a paragraph preceding this énumérative list (it should not have there within this introductory sentence or of the list no punctuation final (apart from the quotations which must be framed). The lists, which they are énumératives or not, should not comprise any element not finished by a punctuation, this would be only one comma or a semicolon; the last element of the list will always end in a point (except if the sentence continues in the following paragraph after the list itself, which of it is only one part and which should be limited to a simple enumeration).

Between two sentences of the same paragraph, the space which separates the first sentence (finished by a final punctuation) from the following sentence is preferably a simple and sectile space (contrary to English conventions typographical which prefers a space increased, or two simple spaces in the typed texts) . If a semantic separation is really necessary in French, one will prefer to separate the sentences in two distinct paragraphs, in the other cases, a separation by a space widened is not necessary in the French texts.

Between the words of the same sentence, or after a comma, before or after a quotation within a sentence, one uses a sectile simple space. One should put no space between a word and a simple punctuation (comma in medium of sentence or not at the end of the sentence), the two elements being inseparable even in the event of caesura.

The only punctuations which can be preceded by a simple space are the opening punctuations (brackets, hooks, accodances, quotation marks, or indent em quadrat of aside); this simple space is even necessary if this punctuation is not at the head of introduced paragraph but and separates a subparagraph in the medium or the end from an other sentence.

No space separates the hyphen connecting the words from the same made up word; it is the same for the indent en quad separating the two terminals from an interval (of distinct date, or places).

Space French indivisible fine (in the numbers in figures and with the punctuations)

French rules of caesura

The French apostrophe

Quotations and quotation marks

Writing of the simple numbers in the French texts

For the positive or null whole small numbers (exprimables by only one word) it is of use to rather write them in all letters than in figures in the texts (of “ zéro ” with “ seize ”, “ vingt ”, “ cent ” and “ mille ”, even “millet” for the ordinal number only), however the Roman numbers (in Latin letters capital S) are systematically used for the ordinal numbers representing an order of reign, and often also for a number of volume, volume, or chapter.

Capital letters and written letters in capitals

Literature in French language

Among major works, one can quote:

Sequence of holy Eulalie , first literary text " français"
the Song of Roland (characters: Roland, Charlemagne, Olivier, Ganelon);
the Romance of Renart (characters: Goupil, Ysengrin);
novels of Christian of Troyes;
Gargantua of François Rabelais;
the Odes of Pierre de Ronsard;
Defense and illustration of the French language of Joachim of Bellay;
the Tests of Montaigne;
the Discourse on Method of Rene Descartes;
Thought of Blaise Pascal;
Cid and other parts of Pierre Corneille;
Miserly the and other parts of Molière;
Phèdre and other parts of Jean Root;
Ingenuous of Voltaire;
the News Héloïse of Jean-Jacques Rousseau;
the Barber of Seville of Beaumarchais;
dangerous Connections of Choderlos de Laclos;
Jacques the Fatalist and his Master of Denis Diderot;
Red and the Black of Stendhal;
the Father Goriot of Honore de Balzac;
the Mémoires of in addition to-fall from Chateaubriand;
Flowers of the evil of Charles Baudelaire;
Mrs Bovary of Gustave Flaubert;
the Poor wretches of Victor Hugo;
Germinal of Emile Zola;
With the research of time lost of Marcel Proust;
the Small Prince of Saint-Exupéry;
the Plague of Albert Camus;
the Words of Jean-Paul Sartre.

French Place du in the world

French in the monde'
Bleu dark: language maternelle
Bleu: language administrative
Bleu clearly: language of culture
Vert: minorities francophones

French is the Official language of many countries, It is largely used in a certain number of other countries. Part of the nations using this language is gathered within the “Francophonie”. Exceeding, the only Language Service, the High council of the francophonie is a platform of exchanges implying a third of the countries of planet. This movement confirms a redefinition of the place of French in the world. A recent estimate evaluates to approximately 265 million people able to speak in French in the world.

French, international language

Child of the Latin , French replaces it as an international language at the 17th century. In 1685, Pierre Bayle can thus write that French is “the point of communication of all the people of Europe”. The main cause of this French hegemony holds with the precision of the language, engraved by the French Academy since 1635. The March 6th 1714, the Traité of Radstadt marking the end of the War of succession of Spain is written only in French. French par excellence remains the international language until in 1919. Georges Clémenceau accepts that the Traité of Versailles enclosing the First World War is written in French and English. Since then, English nibbles on French. At the beginning of the 21e century, French still preserves many his prerogatives. If the international authorities can accept several official languages, only one language must be the language reference in the event of conflict. In this field, French resists. Let us quote for the example the attempt to impose English on the place of French as language of reference of the International Olympic committee which was rejected. The rule 24 of the Olympic charter always specifies: “The official languages of the CIO are French and English. (…) In the event of divergence between the French text and the English text of the Olympic Charter and any other document of the CIO, the French text will be taken except provision contrary written express. ”. There exist even international organizations where the only official language remains French: the Universal postal union in particular. On the other hand, English is clearly preferred with French as regards scientific publications or speech to the platform of UNO, for example. If French manages to maintain his positions institutional, its use with the daily newspaper as working language is lost, reinforcing the image of decline which is real since 1919.

Official language

French remains one of the Official languages of many international organizations.

French is the second Official language of the Economic Cooperation organization and Development, whose seat is with Paris. He appears among the six Official languages of the United Nations and UNESCO (with English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic).

French is also official language of the European Union, of the European Union of radio-television, the European space agency, the African Union, the international Secrétariat of water, the international hydrographic Organization, the Universal postal union (where it remains the principal official language), of the International office of the weights and measures, of the International association of political science, of the the International Court of Justice, NATO, the World Trade organization, the International penal court, Interpol. International Olympic committee, FINA, FIFA, TRUSTED, and of the world Agence antidopage,

Working language

French also appears among the two working languages of UNO, as well as all his agencies. The French language is one of the three working languages of the African Union. It is also one of the two principal working languages of the European Union (with English), although the German became the third working language of the Union.

In practice, the use of French as Working language must be translated in the use of the tools Informatique S such as the semantic Web.

Foreign language

It is also the language which progresses most quickly on the whole of the African continent (like official language or foreign language). French is taught in many universities everywhere throughout the world and he enjoys a radiation in particular in the worlds diplomatic, journalistic, legal and university. French is the second foreign language most taught in the schools of the European Union (with equality with German; Spanish arriving only far behind in 4th position). With the entry of the Romania and Bulgaria in the European Union since January 2007, French passes by again in front of German as a foreign language the most taught in the Union after English. In a general way, French remains the language most taught in the world after English and only with English with being learned on the five continents.

Because of the particular case of an important Spanish-speaking linguistic block in Latin America, only continent where one finds to a significant degree the Spanish language (with share Spain even), the the United States are the only large anglophone country of the world where French is not the first taught foreign language, it is Spanish here (since the Années 1980; previously it was French). In other anglophone countries (Ireland, anglophone Canada, etc), French preserves the privilege to be the first foreign language taught and far in front of the other languages.

French-speaking people

See also: Distribution of the French-speaking people in the world, regional Variations of French

In 1998, the High council of the Francophonie considered the French-speaking people “real” at 112,6 million for which it is advisable to add 60,6 million French-speaking people described as “partial” or “occasional”, that is to say 173,2 million French-speaking people. Moreover, 100 to 110 million “francizing”, which, quote the official report here, “French learned during several years and kept a variable control of it or which are brought to practice it, even partially, for their trade. ” The same type of study had been carried out by this same organization in 1989 (report published in 1990) with 104,6 million listed French-speaking people “real” more 54,2 million “partial”, that is to say 158,8 million French-speaking people. The recorded progression is important with a profit of 14,4 million in 9 years. Two million these “new” French-speaking people is French, demography obliges, but large battalion is provided by the unintermitting African. By extrapolating these figures, one can estimate the number of the French-speaking speakers at officially some 183 million In 2005 and the full number of people ready to express themselves in French to approximately 265 million

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