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Print Job #781

Written By: Mothus Atticus

Non-Fiction
French (Français, /fʁɑ̃sɛ/) is a Romance language spoken as a first language by around 136 million people worldwide. A total of 500 million speak it as either a first, second, or foreign language. Moreover, some 200 million people learn French as a foreign language. French speaking communities are present in 56 countries and territories. Most native speakers of the language live in France, the rest live essentially in Canada, particularly the province of Quebec, with minorities in the Atlantic provinces, Ontario, and Western Canada, as well as Belgium, Switzerland, Monaco, Luxembourg, and the U.S. states of Louisiana and Maine. Most second-language speakers of French live in Francophone Africa, arguably exceeding the number of native speakers.

French is a descendant of the Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are national languages such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian and Catalan, and minority languages ranging from Occitan to Neapolitan and many more. Its closest relatives however are the