
Where It Is Spoken // Northern and Central France Number of Speakers // 570,000 (excluding the French language) It also refers specifically to Moselle Franconian. Lorraine Franconian is a group of dialects of West Central German spoken in the Moselle département in north-eastern France. Where It Is Spoken // Moselle département in Lorraine Number of Speakers // anywhere from 30,000 to 400,000 There are three French periodicals, Platch’iou (Dunkerque), Revue de l’Houtland (Steenvoorde) and Yserhouck (Volkerinckhove) that contain articles on various aspects of Flemish in France as well as articles in the language. The area became a part of France in the 17th century.

The language’s roots can be traced back to about 892 AD, when the region was ruled by the Counts of Flanders. Where It Is Spoken // in France near the border of Flanders, Belgiumįrench Flemish is spoken in the area of France known as French Flanders. It is also often confused with Lorraine Franconian. It is a Germanic language that has a strong French influence and it is more closely related to Swiss German than standard German.Īlsatian is different from Alsatian French which is a French dialect/accent. Where It Is Spoken // French region of Alsace (north east)Īlsatian is the second most spoken regional language in France after Occitan. – Teach Me Breton Alsatian // Elsässerditsch

– and include a list of radio stations in Breton which are good for hearing Breton by a variety of speakers. – is a course with audio files, easy short stories and links to other Breton sites. You need to take out a yearly membership and pay for courses, but might be an effective long-distance option (using Skype) – EduBreizh is an online service to learn Breton. – Skol Ober is a very old organization for correspondence study of Breton. There are four traditional dialects of Breton – Leoneg, Tregerieg, Kerneveg, and Gwenedeg – but these are bishopric divisions rather than linguistic. There have been efforts to revive the language, notably through Diwan, or Breton immersion, schools. Today, many Breton speakers are over the age of 60 and even fewer are monolingual in the language. At the end of the 19th and into the mid-20th centuries, Breton was banned in schools and children were punished for speaking it. It was the language of the nobility in Brittany until around the 12th century. Where It Is Spoken // North Western Peninsula of Franceīreton is a Brythonic language that was brought to France by the Britons in the middle ages. – Pimsleur Conversational Breton // Brezhoneg

It retained this role until the mid-20th century when it was replaced by English.ĭialects of French include Acadian French, Belgian French, Louisiana French, Quebec French, and Swiss French, among others. Like Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and a few other languages, French is said to be a descendent of Latin.ĭuring the 17th century, French replaced Latin as the language of diplomacy and international relations. It is Romance language and it is a part of the Indo-European family of languages.

There were attempts to modify the French Constitution so that it would recognize its minority languages as official languages, but efforts were blocked because it was deemed that the change would contradict the status of French within the Fifth Republic’s constitution (this change is signed but not yet ratified).įrench, as mentioned earlier, is the official language of France (and 28 other countries). And even as late as 1789, the year of the French Revolution, it was estimated that only about half of the French population actually spoke French. In fact, France has a number of languages that are native to its lands. The French LanguageĪs of today, French is the only official language of France, but that doesn’t mean that it is the only language spoken in France. So much so, that the Académie Française exists, in part, to act as an official authority over the French language. When we think of France, the French language is one of the first associations that often comes to mind, and understandably so as it is one of the most learned languages across the globe as well as an important part of French identity.
