Parlez-vous le français?
Speaking french is the desire of many people around the world. And why wouldn't it be? It is a sexy and romantic sounding language.
If you would like to learn french, read more in French Tutoring. If you would like a document translated from French to English, go to French Translation.
History of French
French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 128 million people as first or second language, and by about an extra 72 million people with limited language skills, with significant speakers in 54 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France, where the language originated. Most of the rest live in Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Francophone Africa, Luxembourg and Monaco.
French is a descendant of the Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Catalan and Romanian. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.
In Gallo-Roman France, a split occurred between north and south, assisted by incursions of Germanic-speaking Franks. Hence the name "France" into the north. Here, too, further dialectalization occurred throughout the Middle Ages, resulting in a multitude of speech forms such as Francien, Picard, Norman, Lorrain, and Walloon. Southern French, or Provençal, split into Languedocien, Auvergnat, and many other dialects. The dialect of Paris gradually became the national language because of the political prestige of the capital and today is accepted as the model for the French language.
It is an official language in 29 countries, most of which form what is called in French La Francophonie, the community of French-speaking nations. It is an official language of all United Nations agencies and a large number of international organizations. According to the European Union, 129 million (26% of the 497,198,740) people in 27 member states speak French, of which 59 million (12%) are native speakers and 69 million (14%) claim to speak it as a second language, which makes it the third most spoken second language in the Union, after English and German.