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The French Language
Estimates say that around 71 million people in France and in other 24 countries speak French. The most important community of French speakers outside France is found in Canada (6 million people) and Belgium (4 million people). A number of important International Organizations, such as NATO, UN and EU have French as their official language.Dialects
The numeorus important countries were French is spoken gave rise to the different dialects.Belgian French is very similar to standard language, as the only difference between the two lies in some vocabulary. For instance, "seventy" is "septante" in Belgium but "soixante-dix" in French.
Cajun french is the variety which is more different from standard Dutch and it is spoken in the American State of Loisiana.
In Canada, most precisely in the state of Quebeq, French is spoken by the majority of people and another important francophone community is found in Swiss.
History
Although French partly derives from the Celtic as well as from the old Germanic language, the strongest influence on it has been that of Latin. Indeed, the territory which nowadays corresponds to France, in the past belonged to the Roman Empire. This is why French is considered a sort of modern Latin. The Latin influence is reflected in the complex ity of French Grammar, in its numerous verb tenses and exceptions as for names and adjectives.In 1539 King Francis I issued a document which established that Latin, which up to then had been used in French administration and court proceedings, should be substituted by "Middle French", a primitive form of French.
While French was evoluting in different languages, a stricter control became necessary, at least in order to start the shaping of the pure form of French. With this aim, in 1634 Richelieu opened the Académie Française, which immediately started its work of unification and regulation of the language.
The control on the language became even stricter in the following years. At the end of the process, the Official French language was born. Nowadays, French embraces many regional varieties which differ as for accents and words.
L'argot
French slang is a live and colorful language which is used in informal situations to create a friendly linguistic environment. Verlan is undoubtely the most amusing form of slang. It is a real game which sounds completely different from French..learners usually get scared when they hear this slang.This is a summary of the origins of Verlain: you take a word, separate it into syllables and rearrange everything with a different order...you will obtain something which it is hard to identify as French. For instance, where does the bizarre name "Verlain" come from? Let's play the game to find it out. The starting point is the French word "l'envers", which means "the reverse". If you split it into two syllables you obtain "l'en" and "vers"..if you invert them and put them together in a single word you will obtain "versl'en"..adjust a little the spelling and here you have it: "verlain"!