• Learn a Language - French - Learn to speak in France - audio cd book - language learning

Learn a Language - French - Learn to speak in France - audio cd book - language learning
French is a Romance language originally spoken in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and
Switzerland, and today by about 350 million people around the world as either a native or a
second language, with significant populations in 54 countries.
French is a descendant of the Latin of the Roman Empire, as are languages such as Spanish,
Italian, Catalan, Romanian, and Portuguese. Its development was also influenced by the native
Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Frankish
invaders.
It is an official language in 31 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 organisations.
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Per the Constitution of France, French has been the official language since 1992[8] (although
previous legal texts have made it official since 1539, see ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts).
France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education outside
of specific cases (though these dispositions are often ignored) and legal contracts;
advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words
For the period up to around 1300, some linguists refer to the oïl languages collectively as Old
French (ancien français). The earliest extant text in French is the Oaths of Strasbourg from
842; Old French became a literary language with the chansons de geste that told tales of the
paladins of Charlemagne and the heroes of the Crusades.
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Learn a Language - French - Learn to speak in France - audio cd book - language learning
By the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts in 1539 King Francis I made French the official language
of administration and court proceedings in France, ousting the Latin that had been used before
then. With the imposition of a standardised chancery dialect and the loss of the declension
system, the dialect is referred to as Middle French (moyen français). The first grammatical
description of French, the Tretté de la Grammaire française by Louis Maigret, was published
in 1550. Many of the 700 words of modern French that originate from Italian were introduced in
this period, including several denoting artistic concepts (scenario, piano), luxury items, and
food.
Following a period of unification, regulation and purification, the French of the 17th to the 18th
centuries is sometimes referred to as Classical French (français classique), although many
linguists simply refer to French language from the 17th century to today as Modern French
(français moderne).
The foundation of the Académie française (French Academy) in 1634 by Cardinal Richelieu
created an official body whose goal has been the purification and preservation of the French
language. This group of 40 members is known as the Immortals, not, as some erroneously
believe, because they are chosen to serve for the extent of their lives (which they are), but
because of the inscription engraved on the official seal given to them by their founder
Richelieu—"À l'immortalité" ("to the Immortality (of the French language)"). The foundation
still exists and contributes to the policing of the language and the adaptation of foreign words
and expressions. Some recent modifications include the change from software to logiciel,
packet-boat to paquebot, and riding-coat to redingote. The word ordinateur for computer was
however not created by the Académie, but by a linguist appointed by IBM
From the 17th to the 19th centuries, France was the leading power of Europe; thanks to this,
together with the influence of the Enlightenment, French was the lingua franca of educated
Europe, especially with regards to the arts, literature, and diplomacy; monarchs like Frederick II
of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia could both speak and write in French.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the French language established itself permanently in the
Americas. There is an academic debate about how fluent in French were the colonists of New
France. While a minority of colonists (mostly women) were from the region of Paris
(approximately 20% of all colonists), most of them came from northern and western regions of
France where French was not the primary language natively spoken by its inhabitants. It is not
clearly known, however, how many among those colonists understood French as a second
language, and how many among them – who, in overwhelming majority, natively spoke an
oïl language – could understand, and be understood by, those who speak French thanks to
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Learn a Language - French - Learn to speak in France - audio cd book - language learning
interlinguistic similarity. In any case, a linguistic unification of all the groups coming from France
happened (either in France, on the ships, or in "Canada") such that, according to many sources,
the then "Canadiens" were all speaking French natively by the end of the 17th century, well
before the unification was complete in France. Today, French is the language of about 10
million people (not counting French-based creoles) in the Americas.
Through the Académie, public education, centuries of official control and the role of media, a
unified official French language has been forged, but there remains a great deal of diversity
today in terms of regional accents and words. For some critics, the "best" pronunciation of the
French language is considered to be the one used in Touraine (around Tours and the Loire
River valley), but such value judgments are fraught with problems, and with the ever increasing
loss of lifelong attachments to a specific region and the growing importance of the national
media, the future of specific "regional" accents is often difficult to predict. The French
nation-state, which appeared after the 1789 French Revolution and Napoleon's empire, unified
the French people in particular through the consolidation of the use of the French language.
Hence, according to historian Eric Hobsbawm, "the French language has been essential to the
concept of 'France', although in 1789 50% of the French people didn't speak it at all, and only
12 to 13% spoke it 'fairly' - in fact, even in oïl language zones, out of a central region, it wasn't
usually spoken except in cities, and, even there, not always in the faubourgs [approximatively
translatable to "suburbs"]. In the North as in the South of France, almost nobody spoke French."
Hobsbawm highlighted the role of conscription, invented by Napoleon, and of the 1880s public
instruction laws, which allowed to mix the various groups of France into a nationalist mold which
created the French citizen and his consciousness of membership to a common nation, while the
various "patois" were progressively eradicated.
 
 
Learn to speak French Audio CD in New Zealand
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Learn a Language - French - Learn to speak in France - audio cd book - language learning
Learn to speak French Audio CD in the UK
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