Talk:French language

Infobox map

We have no criterion for what counts as a local minority, and coloring a whole state fluorescent green because there are expats in one city is misleading (plus why shouldn't, say, Mexico count?), so I removed the green. Vietnam isn't even 1% francophone. I'm happy to put it back if we can come to an agreement as to what should count as green. However, I did change Romania to light blue, as it's part of the francophonie, and added Andorra. (Though removed Syria.) And added the Channel Isles as official. From this map I rediscovered that French is an official language of Puducherry, so I added that to the infobox of this article.

Anyway, if there are other changes that need to be made to the map, could people list them here? Is the green worth restoring? Maybe as small squares the way it's done on e.g. the map for Italian? — kwami (talk) 21:38, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Surely being part of the Francophonie (Romania) is not enough on its own, since you excluded Vietnam (which is also a member)? Double sharp (talk) 07:41, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I'll remove Romania.

Romania's made a big deal about French, Vietnam not so much, and there are many more French speakers in Romania, percentage-wise, though all the talk might be part of separating itself from the Eastern Block and re-orientating to the West. By raw numbers, there aren't as many Francophones in Romania as in several other European countries which are left grey (Netherlands, Italy, Portugal). — kwami (talk) 07:52, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Thanks!

When I read such language maps, honestly the questions I'm most interested in are: if I go there, (1) will the signs be in language X? (2) will a significant number of people generally understand me if I speak to them in language X? (3) do people naturally speak language X to each other, or do they just learn it for school and chatting up foreigners? (4) even if (1) and (3) aren't true in most regions, might they be true for a region where a linguistic minority is concentrated? I guess Romania might fit (2) but not (1), (3), and (4), based on the high percentage of French speakers. But I think (2) is a separate thing not on the map (it's more like the map under English language#Geographical distribution), though I'd be curious about it for de Swaan's 13 supercentral languages. (And for (2) as phrased, I guess it would become tricky for cases of mutual intelligibility, like going to Azerbaijan and speaking to the locals in Turkish.) Double sharp (talk) 08:32, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree Romania (and Syria) should be removed. French Polynesia and New Caledonia should be dark blue as French is the largest language spoken at home in those terrirories. It would be cool if there was some way to show the significant populations of native French speakers in Libreville, Yaoundé, and Abidjan even if the countries as a whole are not native francophone. Joiedevivre123321 (talk) 17:49, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@Joiedevivre123321: all but the last had already been done, but someone replaced the corrected map with an old one. I restored it -- is that better?

We could certainly add francophone communities in cities. The question for me would be consistency -- do we have a RS for which cities to include? E.g. London was once counted as one of them. — kwami (talk) 22:38, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! This map is much better. I feel like the overseas territories should all be dark blue though. Reunion, Guinee Française, Guadeloupe, and Martinique are all majority native Francophone. Mayotte is mostly French as a second language so I think the lighter color is appropriate for that one. That's just me being nitpicky though the map looks great! Joiedevivre123321 (talk) 19:25, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

According to Ethnologue, Reunion is 20% natively French-speaking, French Guiana 8%, Martinique 4% and Guadeloupe 2%. — kwami (talk) 20:30, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Good catch. I guess the creoles are often not fully intelligible with French from the Hexagon and are their own thing. Merci pour la carte! :) Joiedevivre123321 (talk) 14:14, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Kwamikagami,

If there is a way we could show native proficiency of French in Gabon.

Based on this research, it is apparent French is natively spoken at an ever increasing rate across the entire country.

Paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267327159_From_foreign_to_national_a_review_of_the_status_of_French_in_Gabon

Key facts:

"It has been noted that French is increasingly be-coming the mother tongue and the initial language of the younger generations in urban Gabon (Pambou, 1998:147; Ndinga-Koumba-Binza, 2005a:72 & 2005b:141; Idiata, 2008:85; cf. Blanchon, 1994). In fact, studies by Ntong Amvame (1984), Bouché (1998), Mbondzi (1998), Ompoussa (1998), Itembo (1999) and Mouloungui Nguimbyt (2002) have shown that pupils of various ages and grades at schools learn French more efficiently than any other Gabonese language. Idiata (2008:200 & 2009:126) has also noted that some pupils do not speak any of the Gabonese native languages at all.

One of the reasons for this phenomenon (i.e. French being the mother tongue of younger generations) is cross-ethnic marriages.

In fact, many couples of mixed ethnicity prefer French rather than Gabonese native languages as the code for better communication within the family. Children from a family of this kind have no choice but to acquire French as their first language. The children learn the language at home from the parents before they even get to school, therefore lessening the chances of learning any of the Gabonese native languages.

This urbanisation is also to be considered as a cause for French being the initial language of Gabonese younger generations. In fact, “in certain urban contexts there is a large degree of learning by contact at an early age” (Lafage, 1993:216)."

1. 80% of the country speaks French. ( La Francophonie dans le monde 2006-2007 published by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Nathan, Paris, 2007)
2. French is spoken natively in the urban areas. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267327159_From_foreign_to_national_a_review_of_the_status_of_French_in_Gabon)
3. Urbanization rate of Gabon is at 90.42% in 2021. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/526989/urbanization-in-gabon/)
4. Almost every adult in Gabon can speak French. (https://www.britannica.com/place/Gabon/Economy)

It is clear this is more than just an official language.

It is similar to the Portuguese language in Angola, and the status should be reflected as such.

Thanks! IntelloFR (talk) 04:18, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

(sorry the link for point 4 should be this: https://www.britannica.com/place/Gabon ) IntelloFR (talk) 04:25, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

I had no idea Gabon was so urban! Our map at 'urbanization' shows it as perhaps the highest in Africa.

I agree, if Gabon fits the criteria, it should be colored appropriately. Do you know of any actual figures? Because what you have basically just says "a lot", which while interesting isn't helpful. — kwami (talk) 04:38, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Ethnologue has the following:

1,515,000 [French-speakers] in Gabon, all users. L1 users: 265,000 in Gabon (2021). L2 users: 1,250,000 (Marcoux et al 2022).

That's for a population of 2,233,000 [no date].

From that, it would seem that Gabon is 2∕3 French-speaking, but only 12% natively French-speaking. That's still a high number, and promises to only increase, but it's not high enough to warrant coloring Gabon as an L1 rather than L2 French-speaking country. — kwami (talk) 04:44, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

That is fair! Thanks for checking - I agree, it will only increase in the coming years IntelloFR (talk) 05:54, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Since the 2nd part of this discussion has been moved to Commons, should note here that we decided to add a dot for Libreville, Gabon. — kwami (talk) 08:23, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

How did Ethnologue come up with those numbers? Most of the people in the DOM (Mayotte excepted) speak both French and their local creole. 2600:1702:6D0:5160:4CB6:57CF:7727:27B1 (talk) 23:59, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

@Double sharp, Joiedevivre123321, IntelloFR, Moalli, and M.Bitton: Discussion picked up again, but per request and consent I moved it to Commons:File_talk:Map-Francophone_World.svg#Discussion from WP-en. Zorion provided a ref for Canada there. — kwami (talk) 08:21, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

@Double sharp@Joiedevivre123321@Moalli@Kwamikagami

Hi all, Mali is now a different color entirely on the map, this should probably be updated. IntelloFR (talk) 14:44, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

French is official language of Vatican City

Hello . I'm going to explain my modification so that my changes are justified and I'm not accused of editorial warfare. The Papal State (the Vatican 🇻🇦) has several official languages, including Italian and Latin, of course, but also French, as shown by these various sources (https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_au_Vatican#:~:text=Les%20langues%20officielles%20du%20Vatican,des%20organisations%20internationales)%20et%20l'; [1]https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/dossiers-pays/vatican-saint-siege/presentation-du-vatican/article/presentation-du-vatican; [2]https://www.vaticannews.va/fr/vatican/news/2019-03/vatican-saint-siege-francophonie-langue-francais.html) . In addition, international institutions recognize the Vatican as a French-speaking state, and the Vatican State is even a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. France-Pt9301 (talk) 17:09, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

As I already mentioned on your talk page, other Wikipedias (or Wikipedia itself) do not qualify as reliable sources, as they are user generated. I'm relying on Google translate here, but your source says "French is among the official languages ​​of Vatican City, alongside Italian, the official language of the Vatican City State; from Latin, the official language of the Roman Catholic Church and the legal language of the Vatican; and German, the official language of the Vatican army, the Pontifical Swiss Guard." Languages of Vatican City already discuss the use of other languages for diplomacy and the army, but only Italian is the official language of the city-state, which is the criteria in this article. Every other source I've reviewed says that only Italian is the official language of the state entity. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 17:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

::@OhnoitsjamieI've already answered you on my talk page but I'll repost here. I did put French Wikipedia as a source to illustrate my point but I understood that you didn't consider Wikipedia of other languages as sources and that's why I also put two other sources (an article from Vatican News and a page from diplomatie.gouv.fr which is a channel of the French government) and these two 3 sources mention that French is one of the official languages of the Vatican 🇻🇦 in the same way as Latin or Italian (specifying that if the 4 languages are official, they have different uses). The Vatican is also recognized by international institutions as a French-speaking country, and the Papal State is a member of the international organization of the Francophonie. France-Pt9301 (talk) 16:03, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi @France-Pt9301, the sources you listed are not from official Vatican sources that are used to confirm official status of French. As far as a quick Google search goes, only Italian and Latin show up as official languages. You can't cite Wikipedia articles as a source per WP:CIRCULAR. The France Diplomatie website cites French as a diplomatic language and German as a working language of the Swiss Guard. This does *not* reference to their usage as an official language for state or internal communications which is what an official language is. Algeria and Morocco use French as a diplomatic language as well (plus in a lot more areas), you wouldn't list them as official would you? You are twisting meaning and quite frankly, pushing WP:POV. The Vatican most certainly is not considered Francophone nor is it on the list of members or observers of La Francophonie.[3]

Until consensus is reached or a reliable source from the Vatican is found, the Vatican is to be left off the infobox. I also see you're involved in multiple edit wars. Please refrain from these disruptive edits before a consensus is reached. - Moalli (talk) 20:59, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Good morning @Moalli . One of the sources is Vatican News, a service provided by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, in collaboration with the media offices of the Holy See according to what is said in the Wikipedia article dedicated to it. Therefore, I think it is a reliable source which confirms my point, namely that French is one of the official languages ​​of the Vatican. I agree with you on the fact that it is not the most spoken or used language within the Papacy (French being an official language used mainly for diplomacy) but French remains an official language within the Vatican. A language can be official and be little spoken within the population (this is the case for example in Vanuatu where French is only spoken by 37% of the population and yet French is one of the official languages ​​of by France's colonial past but also for diplomacy). The examples of Morocco and Algeria are different cases because they do not currently recognize French as an official language.

::::I'm engaged in some edit wars yes but my changes are all sourced and I'm ready to explain them. France-Pt9301 (talk) 21:44, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

The article appears to conflate official language with working language and contradicts itself regarding official status. French is specifically outlined as being used in diplomacy only. Italian appears to be the only official state language ("l’italien, langue officielle de l'État de la Cité du Vatican") with Latin used in internal governance ("langue juridique du Vatican"). This means that Italian would be the only official language of the Vatican City state and Latin used in administration. French does not figure into any official status but is a working language of diplomacy, which once again does *not* equal official language. In the case of Vanuatu, the country's constitution specifically outlines French as an official language. This is not the case with Vatican City, nor is there a law or ordinance proving this.

You violated the WP:3RR rule by reverting my edit when there's a consensus that French is not an official language among other users. You are already on the radar of multiple users, so I'm not going to report you but I suggest you be mature enough to not revert to what you think is your opinion until a consensus is formed. In this case, it appears that French is not official due to lack of sources apart from this one which conflates official with working language. - Moalli (talk) 22:22, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Struck through edits by sockpuppet. Doug Weller talk 08:53, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Status of French in Maine and Louisiana

According to the Info Box, French is official language in the States of Maine and Louisiana. However, this is unsourced and to the best of my knowledge untrue. Neither Louisiana nor Maine even have an official language. Yupanqui (talk) 11:29, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Yupanqui, French is de facto official in Louisiana and Maine per sources in the List of countries and territories where French is an official language article. While not de jure official, both states recognize the usage of French in law and grant certain constitutional rights to the language. You can even request government services in French such as voter information in Louisiana, but it's not available in other languages other than English unless there are some local governments that provide services in other languages. De facto official status can be included on language infoboxes provided they have been proven via sources as with countries such as Japan with Japanese and Mexico with Spanish, for example. - Moalli (talk) 07:32, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Lead

French (French: français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family.

Should be changed to:

French (endonym: français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family.

(If you can’t see the difference look at it in wiki text) 2A01:B340:82:8F97:99C9:2F9E:8DDE:B377 (talk) 16:07, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Why should it be so? I am aware that you're mass editing every unlocked article of European languages, but wouldn't it be easier to leave things just as they are, or spell out the language, as in: French (French: français [fʁɑ̃sɛ]...)? –Austronesier (talk) 17:19, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

They reason I think it should is:

• in this version there are lang tags and IPA tags (current version doesn’t have them)
• I think it is better to use endonym label than duplicate the language’s name, it lets readers learn a new term if they don’t already and it makes it clearer that it is an endonym compared to pages that don’t use it, e.g. Spanish (espangol), etc., I think it’s fine to reduplicate the name though.

The main focus of my suggestion was meant to be to use lang tags and IPA tags (which the lead currently does not do). You can see them if you look at original comment in wiki text. 2A01:B340:82:8F97:18FD:6DF6:D80E:B6A9 (talk) 17:40, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Nevermind, I see now that the lead already uses lang tags and IPA lags, my bad. 2A01:B340:82:8F97:18FD:6DF6:D80E:B6A9 (talk) 18:07, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I am unsure about the placement of "endonym" everywhere. Here it would avoid repetition of French, but, for Instance, on Dutch Language it just had nederlands and no label, whereas now it does. I am not so opposed to it as to go mass reverting, but I am not sure what it gains. If a reader has to click off the page to look up a word, rather than answering their information need on this page we are showing off our vocabulary and slowing that reader down. It seems to be a case of the word drawing too much attention to itself. On the other hand, it is accurate. Not convinced it is better. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:26, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I'd prefer no label at all, so "French (français"; "Dutch (nederlands", etc. Which was previously done at Dutch language. If a standard needs to be made, best raise with WP:LANGUAGES, unless already discussed or under another project. But I find linking "endonym" very out of place considering the language is used on all other references (which understandably doesn't work here as a self-link), plus technically it is a "endolinguonym". DankJae 22:24, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 January 2024

in the part where all the subnational that adopted french as their main language are listed, you missed Québec, it is a canadian province that made the Official language act of 1974, and therefore made french the official language, so just add Québec in the subnational section 😄 2605:B100:515:E63B:7DBE:46A1:53B9:F082 (talk) 16:15, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

But as it is an official language of Canada, it is not needed at subnational level. Not setting this to done/not done yet, to see what other editors think. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:01, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Mostly agree with Sirfurboy, adding Quebec would be redundant and opens the door to adding basically every subdivision of all French speaking countries. I am anticipating an objection about the fact that the overseas collectivities of France are also independently listed, but I think leaving them there is fine, given their special semi-autonomous status that distinguishes them from other subnational divisions. Liu1126 (talk) 19:04, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. M.Bitton (talk) 19:22, 14 January 2024 (UTC)