French Language
French Translation Services by Green Crescent.
The French language is called Français in French. It is a Romance language, meaning that its ancestor is the language of Rome – that is, Latin. It has been enriched, of course, by influences from several other sources as it developed. The Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in what is today considered Northern France became Old French, and then evolved into the official language of all of France, spoken today. Southern France developed related dialects and separate languages, which are also spoken in narrowly-defined regions. Examples are Occitan, a neighbor to Catalan in the Pyrenees, Provençal and Arpitan, spoken in the Southeastern corner and over the border in Italy.
“Standard French†is spoken by the inhabitants of France and neighboring areas, like Monaco. Distinguishable forms of French are spoken in parts of Belgium, Switzerland, and in the former French colonies. The French explorers claimed and colonized lands in North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco), Africa (many countries, including Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Mali, Congo and DRC, Central African Republic, Chad, Benin, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Djibouti, Gabon, Togo, Senegal, Cameroon, Rwanda and Mozambique), French Southeast Asia (like Cambodia and Viet Nam), French Polynesia and South Pacific (including New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu), and in the Caribbean (Haiti, French Guiana, Martinique, Guadaloupe). A large community of French speakers is found in the Province of Quebec in Canada, where 80% of the population is francophone (French-speaking). French is the official language of France, and an official language of Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and many smaller nations.
As of 2005 an estimated 65 million people in the world speak of French as their primary language, of which 51 million reside in France, and 5.4 million are found elsewhere in Europe. Other large concentrations are in Africa (400,000) and North America (6.7 million). After English, it is the most studied foreign language in the world. The languages of Southeast Asia, French Polynesia and the Caribbean are usually not considered to be French, but rather a French-based mixture with other tongues, most often called “Creole†in the Americas and “pidgin†elsewhere.
History of the French Language.
The name “French†derives from “France,†which in turn is the modern name of the land in which the Franks, a large Germanic tribe settled in the late Roman period and early middle ages. The word “Frank†in turn derives from the Germanic for “freeman†– that is, a non-slave. The “kingdom of the Franks†( “Frankreich†in modern German) was “Frankon†in the Franks’ own tongue, and was called “Francia†in the Latin of the third century. This term evolved into the word “France.â€
Before the dominance of the Franks, the land was inhabited by a Celtic people. The word “Gaul†was used by the Romans. (It is a relative of the words “Gael†and “Gaelic,†which themselves derive from the word “Celtâ€). In Latin they were called Gallii, and became famous to Latin students because of De Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar’s self-congratulatory account of his conquest of Gaul. It started off with the famous line, “Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres†– All Gaul is divided in three parts. Those parts were lands of the Belgae, lands of the Aquitani, and third, those who in their own language are called Celts, “and which we Romans call Gauls.†The French word “Gaulois†means “Gauls.†They numbered about 10 million in Caesar’s time.
Sharing Gaul with the Celts in the first century BC were Iberians in the Southwest and Vascons along the Southwestern coast. There were Greek colonies in the Mediterranean. Marseilles, founded by the Phoenicians, was the most famous. The Ligures also occupied France’s Mediterranean coast. Along the borders with Italy and Germany a number of Germanic tribes had settled in.
Almost no words of Celtic origin have survived into modern French other than agricultural, botanical and geographical names. The Romans also adopted a number of words into Latin from the Gauls, which then reentered French from their Latin origins. The Latin in question was not the literary language of Roman poetry and oratory. Rather, it was the mongrel, slangy and simplified version as spoken by the Roman soldiers, the merchants, and other uneducated peoples in the provinces. It became known as “Vulgar Latin,†meaning the speech of the people (sermo vulgaris).
Celtic did influence the development of French, however in that the pronunciation of vulgar Latin with a distinct Celtic accent brought about a number of phonological changes that point directly to the way modern French is spoken. An example is the nasalization, the muting of the “s†(as in morphing essere to être), the frication or muting of voiced consonants in between vowels, and the palatalization of the hard “g†to a soft “j†as in making “ego†turn to “je.†Where French departs grammatically from Latin, the reason can probably be found in Celtic. For example, counting by twenties and using “à †instead of “de†to indicate possession (as in c’est à moi – it’s mine).
The Age of the Franks. The Germanic tribes that invaded Gaul in the twilight of the Empire were the Franks (mainly in the North), the Alemanni (along the border with Germany), the Burgundians (Rhône Valley) and the Visigoths (in Aquitaine and down to Spain). The linguistic contribution of these Germanic peoples was mainly in the modification of syntax and pronunciation of the vulgar Latin spoken there. A few vocabulary words were introduced (such as pantalon for trousers – an article of clothing the Romans did not use). The highest estimate of Germanic-origin words in modern French is still only about 2%. When French departs from Latin, the usual explanation can be found among the Franks. For example, “war†in Latin is “bellum,†but in French it is “guerre,†a word much more closely related to the English word (derived from Germanic sources, too) -- “war.†French words beginning with aspirated “h†or hard “g†are reliably of Germanic sources, as these sounds were not common at all in Latin. Pronunciation, too, was heavily influenced by the Franks and other Germanic tribes. The famous “Gallic R†– a velar or pharyngeal fricative – is an import of the Franks. Other influences include the dropping of vowels in unaccented syllables and the creating of diphthongs in syllables carrying an accent. For example, “tela†in Latin is cloth, pronounced TE-la. The TE became “toi†– a [wə] sound – and the final a just became a bit of extra time spent on its neighboring “l†(ell). The result is “toile†(from which English imported “towel†thanks to the Normans). Another syntactical example is the consistent use in French of the subject pronoun, as is in “je parle†– I speak. Italian, Spanish and Portuguese regards such pronouns as optional because the person and number is also conveyed by verb inflection. The use of subject pronouns is a syntactical contribution of the Germanic-speaking peoples, a feature also found in English.
Langue d’Oïl and Langue d’OC. By about the year 1000, French had emerged as a language distinct from vulgar Latin (with the added influences of the Celts and Franks). Some time later, Dante Alighieri, writing De Vulgari Eloquencia, divided Romance languages into three types according to how the people said “yes.†Some (e.g., the Italians and Iberians) say “si†– a derivative of the Latin word “sic†(also meaning “thusâ€). France illustrated the other two types. Both of them used a derivative from the other Latin word for “yes,†which was “hoc†(also meaning “thisâ€). The people living in the Northern part of France, and in Belgium and parts of Switzerland, said “oïl†for “yes†–a contraction of “hoc ille,†meaning “that’s it.†Their language and their region became known as “langue d’oïl.†It was characterized by the Frankish influence in the northern part of the country, and in Normandy, by the arrival of the Norsemen.
South of langue d’oïl, and dividing the country roughly in half across the middle, was langue d’oc, where a third way of saying “yes†prevailed. Though many have thought of these two versions of French as dialects, most linguists classify them as separate languages. At the time the linguistic differences were accompanied by political and economic tensions as well. Starting in about 1100, langue d’oïl is referred to as “Old French,†which ultimately became modern French. Langue d’oc is still spoken, and in modern times is found in several versions, mainly Occitan, Gascon and Provençal. Evidence of the preeminence of langue d’oïl is the fact that the French word for yes is “oui.†(“Si†also is used in French to contradict statements with affirmations and to answer negative questions in the affirmative, somewhat in the manner of “doch†in German. English has no such useful word and muddles along with wordy clarifications, such as “Did you mean ‘yes-no’ or ‘yes-yes’?â€).
Other Influences. During the early middle ages, the Saxons and Angles invaded England, pushing the Celts westward to the coast and into Wales, Cornwall and Devon. Many emigrated to France. They were called Bretons, and established Brittany. Gaelic spoken in Brittany is still mutually discernible with Welch Gaelic. Also during this period the Vascons came over the Pyrenees, establishing Gascon, a dialect of Occitan. The Norsemen invaded Northern France in the 9th century, adopting langue d’oïl and adding Norse vocabulary to it (like “boulevard,†which comes from “bulwark†in Viking, meaning quay or wharf). The adoption of French by the Normans then permitted the export of French into English with the 11th century invasion and occupation of England by William the Conqueror. Through trade within the Mediterranean, and from the heavy Moorish influence in Spain, Arabic words also found their way into French during the middle ages, more prominently, of course, in langue d’oc than in langue d’oïl. Many words described science (alchemie), mathematics (algorithme) and trade (cotton, alcool), as well as luxury items (élixir, orange), in recognition that the culture of the Moors was considerably more “advanced†in material and intellectual ways than that of the French in the middle of the “dark ages.â€
Middle French. King Francis I decreed in 1539 that French, rather than Latin, would be the official language of court and government. Thus “Old French,†the codified Langue d’oïl, gave way to “Middle French.†The main simplification was scrapping declension for nouns, which had been a vestige of the Latin system of cases. Middle French consolidated a number of dialects into one more or less “official†form, spoken by the bureaucrats and the ruling class. In 1550, a grammatical treatise was released for the first time – Louis Maigret’s Tretté de la Grammaire francçaise. A number of Italian words were imported into Middle French, like “piano†and “scenario,†which responded to the crown’s admiration of Italian music and art.
Classical French. In the 17th and 18th centuries, French entered its “Classical Period,†the times of Louis XIV and his successors, down to the Revolution and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1634, Cardinal Richelieu established the famed Académie Française to define the French language and to protect it from pollution and impurity from the outside and sloppy usage from within. The 40 members of the Académie Française to this day are called “the immortals†because the seal of the institution is a dedication to the “immortality of the French language.†A modern invention of the Académie exemplifies its role in preserving the French language: When Sony invented the “Walkman,†the Académie decreed that the French word would be “le balladeur.†This was to avoid an Anglicism invented not by the Americans or the British, but by the Japanese. The name did not stick.
The Age of Enlightenment and the grandeur of the French royalty made France the common language of Europe, such that Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great were both fluent in French. In fact, the term for a common language became “Lingua Franca,†as in the ironic phrase, “English is the Lingua Franca of information technology.†Voltaire and Frederick of Prussia conducted a spirited correspondence. In one famous exchange, Frederick sent Voltaire this message: “P/venéz à 6/100.†Voltaire’s response was, “G a.†Decoded: “Venéz supper (sous P) a San Souci (cent sous six).†It was a dinner invitation to Frederick’s royal palace in Potsdam (named “Without a Care†in French). (Literally, “Come to dine at San Souciâ€.) The response from the clever French author was “J’ai grande apetite†(G-grand a-petite -- “I have a big appetiteâ€).
Colonial French. French Canada was established during the 17th century, and flourished into the 18th century, when eventually Quebec became independent and Napoleon sold Louisiana to the Americans in order to finance his invasions of Eastern Europe and Russia. Most of the early French colonists came from Northern and Western provinces, where “official†French was not the common tongue, but rather some other dialect of Langue d’Oïl. By the middle of the 17th century, due to an explicit government policy of “language unification,†all residents of French Canada were native speakers of a standardized French. This preceded the unification of French in the home country by several years. Modern Quebecois is a distinct dialect of French, sounding particularly old-fashioned to the modern French ear. In other parts of the Americas, French mixed in with native languages (including African tongues spoken by slaves, together with bits of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and English) to form “Creole French.†Creole is considered a separate language, and exists in several different varieties, depending on the location. Caribbean Creole has several versions, and the Creole spoken in Louisiana is much different. (Creole should not be confused with Papiamento, a mixture of the same languages, but with more Dutch and Portuguese influence, spoken in former Dutch colonies).
Language Unification. By the time of the Declaration of the French Republic in 1789, the government had been trying to establish a single version of French for the entire nation, a policy that had succeeded in the colonies. One historian (Eric Hobsbawm) estimates that in 1789 over half of the population of France did not speak any French at all, but rather some other dialect or patois of langue d’oc or langue d’oïl. Others spoke separate languages altogether, like Gascon. Fewer than 15% of the French citizenry spoke “official†French fairly well, and they lived mainly in the urban areas in the central part of the country. In the northern and southern provinces, it was reported that “nobody spoke French.†This is something of a paradox, as the French language has been so intimately identified with the French State. The monarchs had come to use the word “France†as synonymous with themselves, to the point that Louis XVI referred to himself as “France.†To depart from this usage, the revolutionaries, and eventually Napoleon Bonaparte, started to refer to the Republic as “the French†or the “the French People.†Thus, the speaking of French became an integral part of the image of the modern French nation state. And yet, few of the citizens of France actually spoke it.
In 1802 a Ministry of Public Instruction was created with the objective of teaching French to the French. Simultaneously, Napoleon drafted all able-bodied French males for obligatory military service, which forced them to speak and understand the language of their cadres. Gradually the local dialects ceded ground to official French, so that by the end of the 19th century, the members of the population were all on the same linguistic page. Regional languages and dialects remained, however, down to the present day.
Modern Issues.
In what is perhaps a losing battle to internationalization, France enacted a series of measures to prevent the infiltration of foreign terms into the language and to preserve French as a language of culture. The most recent measure, still in effect, is the Toubon Law of 1994. The law forbids the use of anything other than French in official publications, public advertisements, government workplaces, in official legal documents, and in schools and other institutions financed with state funds. It also decrees that 40% of the songs played on the radio and television be in French. The Loi Toubon requires that in billboards, any foreign phrase requires that an alternative French translation also appear. The law’s sponsor, Jacques Toubon, a member of the conservative party and Minister of Culture when the law passed. Cynics called it the “Loi Allgood,†an ironic translation of “Toubon†into “Franglais.†At the same time as this pressure to protect the purity of the official French language, regions of the country have organized efforts to preserve and advance their own local languages and cultures, seeking to have the other languages taught in schools and to have local government support for cultural events highlighting these regional differences.
The Alphabet.
Like English, French uses the Latin alphabet. Like German and English, and unlike Swedish, the letters that carry diacritical marks (like é) are not considered separate letters, but are just variations of the single letter “e†(or whatever). There are 26 letters in all, the same ones as in English, with 5 of them being unambiguous vowels (a-e-i-o-u) and one (y) sometimes being a consonant and sometimes a vowel. “W†and “K†are used infrequently and mainly for foreign words.
The following table provides the letter names and their pronunciation according to the International Phonetic Alphabet [link]. The pronunciation is according to a standard French accent, not as it may have developed in French colonies of the Americas, Africa, Asia or the Pacific.
Two ligatures (linkages of two letters) are commonly in use: œ (as in œil or bœuf) and æ (as in tænia or æquo).
Several years ago there was an attempt to change the letter names to sounds more like the sounds the letters represented, rather than the traditional set. It was called “la nouvelle épellation.†The effort did not succeed.
Vowels and Diacritics.
The vowels in the French alphabet are the same as those in the English one, except that they might be altered in sound by the addition of a diacritical mark. In terms of sounds, French has 13 oral vowels and 4 nasal ones.
In written French, the “accent aigu†(acute accent) is used over the “e†to make it sound [e], which sounds like English “hey†without the diphthongal “ee†at the end. It is uttered with the tongue mid-high in the mouth and towards the front. Some French words with the acute accent actually are pronounced more with the tongue more in the mid-low front position, like [ɛ], as in réglementaire.
The “accent grave†(grave accent) is used on the letter “e†to indicate the front, mid-low “e†(or [ɛ]), if preceding a single consonant, as in “après.†The grave has a second job of distinguishing between homophones, like la (the) and là (there) or ou (or) and òu (where).
The “accent circonflexe†(circumflex accent) can appear on any of the vowels, though it does not affect how “i†and “u†are pronounced (except perhaps to lengthen them in regions where long and short vowels are still used). In most accents, it does not change the way “a†is pronounced, but in some places the “a†shifts from the usual “ah†([a]) to a “awh†([ɑ]), which is produced low and farther back in the Vocal Tract. The circumflex does affect “o†so that the usual back open-mid sound [ɔ] is converted to a more close-mid sound [o]. With the letter “e†the effect is the same as the grave accent, converting the sound from [e] to [ɛ]. The main function of the circumflex is to indicate the omission of another letter (usually an “sâ€), which used to be in the word. For example, “forest†evolved to “forêt.â€
The “cédille" (cedilla) appears only under the “c†to make it a soft sounding [s] when the “c†is followed by the vowels “a,†“o†or “u.†Normally such a “c†would be hard, like [k].
Finally, “tréma†(diaresis) will appear to separate vowels that might otherwise be pronounced as a diphthong. The most famous example is “Noël.†The second of the two vowels receives the mark. If an adjective’s masculine form ends in “gu†– ambigu, for example, the feminine form would end in “gue,†but could be mispronounced. So the tréma is added on the “e†of the feminine adjectival form, as in “ambiguë.†Verb forms under similar circumstances do not add the tréma.
Sample Text.
Article I of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights is often used to illustrate the text of a given language. In French it is:
French: Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux en dignité et en droits. Ils sont doués de raison et de conscience et doivent agir les uns envers les autres dans un esprit de fraternité.
English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Sample Phrases.
Reference Links.
A good starting point: http://www.alliancefr.org/
French language, phrases and lessons
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The French language is called Français in French. It is a Romance language, meaning that its ancestor is the language of Rome – that is, Latin. It has been enriched, of course, by influences from several other sources as it developed. The Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in what is today considered Northern France became Old French, and then evolved into the official language of all of France, spoken today. Southern France developed related dialects and separate languages, which are also spoken in narrowly-defined regions. Examples are Occitan, a neighbor to Catalan in the Pyrenees, Provençal and Arpitan, spoken in the Southeastern corner and over the border in Italy.
“Standard French†is spoken by the inhabitants of France and neighboring areas, like Monaco. Distinguishable forms of French are spoken in parts of Belgium, Switzerland, and in the former French colonies. The French explorers claimed and colonized lands in North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco), Africa (many countries, including Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Mali, Congo and DRC, Central African Republic, Chad, Benin, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Djibouti, Gabon, Togo, Senegal, Cameroon, Rwanda and Mozambique), French Southeast Asia (like Cambodia and Viet Nam), French Polynesia and South Pacific (including New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu), and in the Caribbean (Haiti, French Guiana, Martinique, Guadaloupe). A large community of French speakers is found in the Province of Quebec in Canada, where 80% of the population is francophone (French-speaking). French is the official language of France, and an official language of Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and many smaller nations.
As of 2005 an estimated 65 million people in the world speak of French as their primary language, of which 51 million reside in France, and 5.4 million are found elsewhere in Europe. Other large concentrations are in Africa (400,000) and North America (6.7 million). After English, it is the most studied foreign language in the world. The languages of Southeast Asia, French Polynesia and the Caribbean are usually not considered to be French, but rather a French-based mixture with other tongues, most often called “Creole†in the Americas and “pidgin†elsewhere.
History of the French Language.
The name “French†derives from “France,†which in turn is the modern name of the land in which the Franks, a large Germanic tribe settled in the late Roman period and early middle ages. The word “Frank†in turn derives from the Germanic for “freeman†– that is, a non-slave. The “kingdom of the Franks†( “Frankreich†in modern German) was “Frankon†in the Franks’ own tongue, and was called “Francia†in the Latin of the third century. This term evolved into the word “France.â€
Before the dominance of the Franks, the land was inhabited by a Celtic people. The word “Gaul†was used by the Romans. (It is a relative of the words “Gael†and “Gaelic,†which themselves derive from the word “Celtâ€). In Latin they were called Gallii, and became famous to Latin students because of De Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar’s self-congratulatory account of his conquest of Gaul. It started off with the famous line, “Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres†– All Gaul is divided in three parts. Those parts were lands of the Belgae, lands of the Aquitani, and third, those who in their own language are called Celts, “and which we Romans call Gauls.†The French word “Gaulois†means “Gauls.†They numbered about 10 million in Caesar’s time.
Sharing Gaul with the Celts in the first century BC were Iberians in the Southwest and Vascons along the Southwestern coast. There were Greek colonies in the Mediterranean. Marseilles, founded by the Phoenicians, was the most famous. The Ligures also occupied France’s Mediterranean coast. Along the borders with Italy and Germany a number of Germanic tribes had settled in.
Almost no words of Celtic origin have survived into modern French other than agricultural, botanical and geographical names. The Romans also adopted a number of words into Latin from the Gauls, which then reentered French from their Latin origins. The Latin in question was not the literary language of Roman poetry and oratory. Rather, it was the mongrel, slangy and simplified version as spoken by the Roman soldiers, the merchants, and other uneducated peoples in the provinces. It became known as “Vulgar Latin,†meaning the speech of the people (sermo vulgaris).
Celtic did influence the development of French, however in that the pronunciation of vulgar Latin with a distinct Celtic accent brought about a number of phonological changes that point directly to the way modern French is spoken. An example is the nasalization, the muting of the “s†(as in morphing essere to être), the frication or muting of voiced consonants in between vowels, and the palatalization of the hard “g†to a soft “j†as in making “ego†turn to “je.†Where French departs grammatically from Latin, the reason can probably be found in Celtic. For example, counting by twenties and using “à †instead of “de†to indicate possession (as in c’est à moi – it’s mine).
The Age of the Franks. The Germanic tribes that invaded Gaul in the twilight of the Empire were the Franks (mainly in the North), the Alemanni (along the border with Germany), the Burgundians (Rhône Valley) and the Visigoths (in Aquitaine and down to Spain). The linguistic contribution of these Germanic peoples was mainly in the modification of syntax and pronunciation of the vulgar Latin spoken there. A few vocabulary words were introduced (such as pantalon for trousers – an article of clothing the Romans did not use). The highest estimate of Germanic-origin words in modern French is still only about 2%. When French departs from Latin, the usual explanation can be found among the Franks. For example, “war†in Latin is “bellum,†but in French it is “guerre,†a word much more closely related to the English word (derived from Germanic sources, too) -- “war.†French words beginning with aspirated “h†or hard “g†are reliably of Germanic sources, as these sounds were not common at all in Latin. Pronunciation, too, was heavily influenced by the Franks and other Germanic tribes. The famous “Gallic R†– a velar or pharyngeal fricative – is an import of the Franks. Other influences include the dropping of vowels in unaccented syllables and the creating of diphthongs in syllables carrying an accent. For example, “tela†in Latin is cloth, pronounced TE-la. The TE became “toi†– a [wə] sound – and the final a just became a bit of extra time spent on its neighboring “l†(ell). The result is “toile†(from which English imported “towel†thanks to the Normans). Another syntactical example is the consistent use in French of the subject pronoun, as is in “je parle†– I speak. Italian, Spanish and Portuguese regards such pronouns as optional because the person and number is also conveyed by verb inflection. The use of subject pronouns is a syntactical contribution of the Germanic-speaking peoples, a feature also found in English.
Langue d’Oïl and Langue d’OC. By about the year 1000, French had emerged as a language distinct from vulgar Latin (with the added influences of the Celts and Franks). Some time later, Dante Alighieri, writing De Vulgari Eloquencia, divided Romance languages into three types according to how the people said “yes.†Some (e.g., the Italians and Iberians) say “si†– a derivative of the Latin word “sic†(also meaning “thusâ€). France illustrated the other two types. Both of them used a derivative from the other Latin word for “yes,†which was “hoc†(also meaning “thisâ€). The people living in the Northern part of France, and in Belgium and parts of Switzerland, said “oïl†for “yes†–a contraction of “hoc ille,†meaning “that’s it.†Their language and their region became known as “langue d’oïl.†It was characterized by the Frankish influence in the northern part of the country, and in Normandy, by the arrival of the Norsemen.
South of langue d’oïl, and dividing the country roughly in half across the middle, was langue d’oc, where a third way of saying “yes†prevailed. Though many have thought of these two versions of French as dialects, most linguists classify them as separate languages. At the time the linguistic differences were accompanied by political and economic tensions as well. Starting in about 1100, langue d’oïl is referred to as “Old French,†which ultimately became modern French. Langue d’oc is still spoken, and in modern times is found in several versions, mainly Occitan, Gascon and Provençal. Evidence of the preeminence of langue d’oïl is the fact that the French word for yes is “oui.†(“Si†also is used in French to contradict statements with affirmations and to answer negative questions in the affirmative, somewhat in the manner of “doch†in German. English has no such useful word and muddles along with wordy clarifications, such as “Did you mean ‘yes-no’ or ‘yes-yes’?â€).
Other Influences. During the early middle ages, the Saxons and Angles invaded England, pushing the Celts westward to the coast and into Wales, Cornwall and Devon. Many emigrated to France. They were called Bretons, and established Brittany. Gaelic spoken in Brittany is still mutually discernible with Welch Gaelic. Also during this period the Vascons came over the Pyrenees, establishing Gascon, a dialect of Occitan. The Norsemen invaded Northern France in the 9th century, adopting langue d’oïl and adding Norse vocabulary to it (like “boulevard,†which comes from “bulwark†in Viking, meaning quay or wharf). The adoption of French by the Normans then permitted the export of French into English with the 11th century invasion and occupation of England by William the Conqueror. Through trade within the Mediterranean, and from the heavy Moorish influence in Spain, Arabic words also found their way into French during the middle ages, more prominently, of course, in langue d’oc than in langue d’oïl. Many words described science (alchemie), mathematics (algorithme) and trade (cotton, alcool), as well as luxury items (élixir, orange), in recognition that the culture of the Moors was considerably more “advanced†in material and intellectual ways than that of the French in the middle of the “dark ages.â€
Middle French. King Francis I decreed in 1539 that French, rather than Latin, would be the official language of court and government. Thus “Old French,†the codified Langue d’oïl, gave way to “Middle French.†The main simplification was scrapping declension for nouns, which had been a vestige of the Latin system of cases. Middle French consolidated a number of dialects into one more or less “official†form, spoken by the bureaucrats and the ruling class. In 1550, a grammatical treatise was released for the first time – Louis Maigret’s Tretté de la Grammaire francçaise. A number of Italian words were imported into Middle French, like “piano†and “scenario,†which responded to the crown’s admiration of Italian music and art.
Classical French. In the 17th and 18th centuries, French entered its “Classical Period,†the times of Louis XIV and his successors, down to the Revolution and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1634, Cardinal Richelieu established the famed Académie Française to define the French language and to protect it from pollution and impurity from the outside and sloppy usage from within. The 40 members of the Académie Française to this day are called “the immortals†because the seal of the institution is a dedication to the “immortality of the French language.†A modern invention of the Académie exemplifies its role in preserving the French language: When Sony invented the “Walkman,†the Académie decreed that the French word would be “le balladeur.†This was to avoid an Anglicism invented not by the Americans or the British, but by the Japanese. The name did not stick.
The Age of Enlightenment and the grandeur of the French royalty made France the common language of Europe, such that Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great were both fluent in French. In fact, the term for a common language became “Lingua Franca,†as in the ironic phrase, “English is the Lingua Franca of information technology.†Voltaire and Frederick of Prussia conducted a spirited correspondence. In one famous exchange, Frederick sent Voltaire this message: “P/venéz à 6/100.†Voltaire’s response was, “G a.†Decoded: “Venéz supper (sous P) a San Souci (cent sous six).†It was a dinner invitation to Frederick’s royal palace in Potsdam (named “Without a Care†in French). (Literally, “Come to dine at San Souciâ€.) The response from the clever French author was “J’ai grande apetite†(G-grand a-petite -- “I have a big appetiteâ€).
Colonial French. French Canada was established during the 17th century, and flourished into the 18th century, when eventually Quebec became independent and Napoleon sold Louisiana to the Americans in order to finance his invasions of Eastern Europe and Russia. Most of the early French colonists came from Northern and Western provinces, where “official†French was not the common tongue, but rather some other dialect of Langue d’Oïl. By the middle of the 17th century, due to an explicit government policy of “language unification,†all residents of French Canada were native speakers of a standardized French. This preceded the unification of French in the home country by several years. Modern Quebecois is a distinct dialect of French, sounding particularly old-fashioned to the modern French ear. In other parts of the Americas, French mixed in with native languages (including African tongues spoken by slaves, together with bits of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and English) to form “Creole French.†Creole is considered a separate language, and exists in several different varieties, depending on the location. Caribbean Creole has several versions, and the Creole spoken in Louisiana is much different. (Creole should not be confused with Papiamento, a mixture of the same languages, but with more Dutch and Portuguese influence, spoken in former Dutch colonies).
Language Unification. By the time of the Declaration of the French Republic in 1789, the government had been trying to establish a single version of French for the entire nation, a policy that had succeeded in the colonies. One historian (Eric Hobsbawm) estimates that in 1789 over half of the population of France did not speak any French at all, but rather some other dialect or patois of langue d’oc or langue d’oïl. Others spoke separate languages altogether, like Gascon. Fewer than 15% of the French citizenry spoke “official†French fairly well, and they lived mainly in the urban areas in the central part of the country. In the northern and southern provinces, it was reported that “nobody spoke French.†This is something of a paradox, as the French language has been so intimately identified with the French State. The monarchs had come to use the word “France†as synonymous with themselves, to the point that Louis XVI referred to himself as “France.†To depart from this usage, the revolutionaries, and eventually Napoleon Bonaparte, started to refer to the Republic as “the French†or the “the French People.†Thus, the speaking of French became an integral part of the image of the modern French nation state. And yet, few of the citizens of France actually spoke it.
In 1802 a Ministry of Public Instruction was created with the objective of teaching French to the French. Simultaneously, Napoleon drafted all able-bodied French males for obligatory military service, which forced them to speak and understand the language of their cadres. Gradually the local dialects ceded ground to official French, so that by the end of the 19th century, the members of the population were all on the same linguistic page. Regional languages and dialects remained, however, down to the present day.
Modern Issues.
In what is perhaps a losing battle to internationalization, France enacted a series of measures to prevent the infiltration of foreign terms into the language and to preserve French as a language of culture. The most recent measure, still in effect, is the Toubon Law of 1994. The law forbids the use of anything other than French in official publications, public advertisements, government workplaces, in official legal documents, and in schools and other institutions financed with state funds. It also decrees that 40% of the songs played on the radio and television be in French. The Loi Toubon requires that in billboards, any foreign phrase requires that an alternative French translation also appear. The law’s sponsor, Jacques Toubon, a member of the conservative party and Minister of Culture when the law passed. Cynics called it the “Loi Allgood,†an ironic translation of “Toubon†into “Franglais.†At the same time as this pressure to protect the purity of the official French language, regions of the country have organized efforts to preserve and advance their own local languages and cultures, seeking to have the other languages taught in schools and to have local government support for cultural events highlighting these regional differences.
The Alphabet.
Like English, French uses the Latin alphabet. Like German and English, and unlike Swedish, the letters that carry diacritical marks (like é) are not considered separate letters, but are just variations of the single letter “e†(or whatever). There are 26 letters in all, the same ones as in English, with 5 of them being unambiguous vowels (a-e-i-o-u) and one (y) sometimes being a consonant and sometimes a vowel. “W†and “K†are used infrequently and mainly for foreign words.
The following table provides the letter names and their pronunciation according to the International Phonetic Alphabet [link]. The pronunciation is according to a standard French accent, not as it may have developed in French colonies of the Americas, Africa, Asia or the Pacific.
| Letter | Pronunciation | Name |
| A | /ɑ/ | a |
| B | /be/ | bé |
| C | /se/ | cé |
| D | /de/ | dé |
| E | /ə/ | e |
| F | /ɛf/ | effe |
| G | /ʒe/ | gé |
| H | /aʃ/ | ache |
| I | /i/ | i |
| J | /ʒi/ | ji |
| K | /ka/ | ka |
| L | /ɛl/ | elle |
| M | /ɛm/ | emme |
| N | /ɛn/ | enne |
| O | /o/ | o |
| P | /pe/ | pé |
| Q | /ky/ | cu |
| R | /ɛ ʁ/ | erre |
| S | /ɛs/ | esse |
| T | /te/ | té |
| U | /y/ | u |
| V | /ve/ | vé |
| W | /dublə ve/ | double vé |
| X | /iks/ | ixe |
| Y | /igʁ ɛk/ | i grec |
| Z | /zɛd/ | zède |
Two ligatures (linkages of two letters) are commonly in use: œ (as in œil or bœuf) and æ (as in tænia or æquo).
Several years ago there was an attempt to change the letter names to sounds more like the sounds the letters represented, rather than the traditional set. It was called “la nouvelle épellation.†The effort did not succeed.
Vowels and Diacritics.
The vowels in the French alphabet are the same as those in the English one, except that they might be altered in sound by the addition of a diacritical mark. In terms of sounds, French has 13 oral vowels and 4 nasal ones.
In written French, the “accent aigu†(acute accent) is used over the “e†to make it sound [e], which sounds like English “hey†without the diphthongal “ee†at the end. It is uttered with the tongue mid-high in the mouth and towards the front. Some French words with the acute accent actually are pronounced more with the tongue more in the mid-low front position, like [ɛ], as in réglementaire.
The “accent grave†(grave accent) is used on the letter “e†to indicate the front, mid-low “e†(or [ɛ]), if preceding a single consonant, as in “après.†The grave has a second job of distinguishing between homophones, like la (the) and là (there) or ou (or) and òu (where).
The “accent circonflexe†(circumflex accent) can appear on any of the vowels, though it does not affect how “i†and “u†are pronounced (except perhaps to lengthen them in regions where long and short vowels are still used). In most accents, it does not change the way “a†is pronounced, but in some places the “a†shifts from the usual “ah†([a]) to a “awh†([ɑ]), which is produced low and farther back in the Vocal Tract. The circumflex does affect “o†so that the usual back open-mid sound [ɔ] is converted to a more close-mid sound [o]. With the letter “e†the effect is the same as the grave accent, converting the sound from [e] to [ɛ]. The main function of the circumflex is to indicate the omission of another letter (usually an “sâ€), which used to be in the word. For example, “forest†evolved to “forêt.â€
The “cédille" (cedilla) appears only under the “c†to make it a soft sounding [s] when the “c†is followed by the vowels “a,†“o†or “u.†Normally such a “c†would be hard, like [k].
Finally, “tréma†(diaresis) will appear to separate vowels that might otherwise be pronounced as a diphthong. The most famous example is “Noël.†The second of the two vowels receives the mark. If an adjective’s masculine form ends in “gu†– ambigu, for example, the feminine form would end in “gue,†but could be mispronounced. So the tréma is added on the “e†of the feminine adjectival form, as in “ambiguë.†Verb forms under similar circumstances do not add the tréma.
Sample Text.
Article I of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights is often used to illustrate the text of a given language. In French it is:
French: Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux en dignité et en droits. Ils sont doués de raison et de conscience et doivent agir les uns envers les autres dans un esprit de fraternité.
English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Sample Phrases.
| Greetings | |
| Hello | Bonjour |
| Good day | Bonjour |
| Good evening | Bonsoir |
| Good night | Bonsoir |
| Hi | Salut |
| Good bye | Au revoir |
| General responses | |
| Yes | Oui |
| No | Non |
| That depends | Cela dépend |
| I don't know | Je ne sais pas |
| I don't think so | Je ne crois pas |
| I suppose so | Je suppose que oui |
| I think so | Je crois que oui |
| It doesn't matter | Ça ne fait rien |
| I don't mind | Cela m'est égal |
| Of course | Bien sûr |
| True | Vrai |
| With pleasure | Avec plasir |
| Questions | |
| Where? | Où? |
| When? | Quand? |
| Why? | Porquoi? |
| What? | Qu'est-ce que/qui...? |
| Who? | Qui? |
| How? | Comment? |
| How much/many? | Combien? |
| Is/are there? | Y a-t-il? |
| Ocassions | |
| Congratulations! | Félicitations! |
| Happy Birthday! | Bon anniversaire! |
| Happy Christmas! | Joyeux Noël! |
| Happy New Year! | Bonne Année! |
| Happy Easter! | Joyeuses Pâques! |
| Good Luck! | Bonne chance! |
| Enjoy the meal! | Bon appétit! |
| Have a safe journey! | Bon voyage! |
| Have a good holiday! | Bonnes vacances! |
| Take Care! | Prenez/Prends garde! |
| Have a nice day! | Bonne journée! |
| Courtesy | |
| Please | S'il vous/te plaît |
| Thank you (very much) | Merci (beaucoup) |
| Excuse me | Excusez-moi |
| I'm sorry, but...) | Je regrette, mais... |
| That's a shame | Quel dommage |
| May I... ? | Puis-je... ? |
Reference Links.
A good starting point: http://www.alliancefr.org/
French language, phrases and lessons
- http://www.ielanguages.com/french.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/
http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au/~mongoose/french/phrases.html (fun)
http://www.frenchlanguageguide.com/
http://www.jump-gate.com/languages/french/
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http://www.wordreference.com/fr/
http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/dictionary/
http://www.freedict.com/onldict/fre.html
http://lookwayup.com/free/FrenchEnglishDictionary.htm
http://www.ectaco.co.uk/English-French-Dictionary/
http://www.yourdictionary.com/languages/romance.html#french (more references)
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http://www.radio-station-directory.com/france_french_online.html
http://www.listenlive.eu/france.html
http://www.rfi.fr/lfen/statiques/accueil.asp
http://www.lefigaro.fr/
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=CPDROIT (Canada)
http://www.french-news.com/ (English)
http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/types/flnews/french.html (more references)
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http://www.guidelecture.com/ (to get started)
http://www.litt-and-co.org/textes/sommaire.htm (texts on line)
http://www.digital-librarian.com/frenchlit.html (more references)
http://www.portail.lettres.net/ (search engine)
