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Saturday 7 March 2015

French Language

French was the official language of England from 1066 until 1362.

Most English words ending with "tion" and "sion" originally came from the French language.

The Catholicon (from Greek Καθολικόν, meaning "universal") was published in Tréguier, Brittany, France on November 5, 1499. This Breton-French-Latin dictionary was written in 1464 by the Breton priest Jehan Lagadeuc. It was the first Breton dictionary as well as the first French dictionary.


About 220 million people speak French as a native or a second language.

French is an official language in 29 countries across five different continents, which makes it second to English in terms of official language status.

Countries where French is the official language include Canada, Congo, Ivory Coast, Luxembourg, Monaco, Niger and Switzerland.

French is the second language in New Hampshire, Louisiana, Maine and Vermont.

There are more people speaking French in Africa than in France.

In the French language, there are two initial H sounds. Both are silent. However, the different Hs affect contractions. The words for "hero" and "heroine" have different Hs: le héros versus l'héroïne. Which H is used depends on the linguistic origin of the word.

A New Zealand man memorized the French dictionary to compete in a French Scrabble tournament. He won the tournament despite not speaking the language.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing this post! French is a very popular language these days and many people want to learn it. French vocabulary is closely related to English. Frenchyard offers French Language Classes Online for the people who wish to develop a basic understanding of language.

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  2. Thanks for sharing this post! French is a very popular language these days and many people want to learn it. French vocabulary is closely related to English. Learn French numbers 1-100 for the people who wish to develop a basic understanding of language.

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