Geographical distribution of French speakers information
"Francophone" redirects here. Not to be confused with Francophonie or Francophobe.
The French language became an international language, the second international language alongside Latin, in the Middle Ages, "from the fourteenth century onwards". It was not by virtue of the power of the Kingdom of France : '"... until the end of the fifteenth century, the French of the chancellery spread as a political and literary language because the French court was the model of chivalric culture". Consequently, it was less as a centralising monarch than as a "gentle courtly prince" that the king unwittingly spread his language" and "the methods of expansion were not political"'.[1] This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the language of European diplomacy and international relations.[2]
According to the 2022 report of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), 321 million people speak French.[3] The OIF states that despite a decline in the number of learners of French in Europe, the overall number of speakers is rising, largely because of its presence in African countries: of the 212 million who use French daily, 54.7% are living in Africa.[4] The OIF figures have been contested as being inflated due to the methodology used and its overly broad definition of the word francophone. According to the authors of a 2017 book on the world distribution of the French language, a credible estimate of the number of "francophones réels" (real francophones), that is, individuals who speak French on a daily basis either as their mother tongue or as a second language, would be around 130 million.[5]
Proportion of French speakers (including L2-speakers) by country in 2022, saturating at 50%, according to the OIF [6]
0–9% Francophone
10–19% Francophone
20–29% Francophone
30–39% Francophone
40–49% Francophone
50%+ Francophone
Proportion of French speakers, saturating at 100%[6]
0–19% Francophone
20–39% Francophone
40–59% Francophone
60–79% Francophone
80–99% Francophone
^Léonard Dauphant, Le Royaume des quatre rivières. L'espace politique français (1380-1515). Paris, Champ-Vallon, 2012, p. 217, quoted in Thierry Dutour, La France hors la France. L’identité avant la nation, Editions Véndémiaire, 2022, p. 62
^"Why Is French Considered the Language of Diplomacy?". Legal Language Blog. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
^"Qui parle français dans le monde – Organisation internationale de la Francophonie – Langue française et diversité linguistique" (in French). Retrieved 25 November 2023.
^"La langue française réunit 274 millions de personnes dans le monde". RTBF Litterature. Archived from the original on 7 January 2015. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
^Roger Pilhion and Marie-Laure Poletti, «...et le monde parlera français», plaidoyer décomplexé pour la Francophonie, RFI, 21 July 2017.
^ abOIF 2022, pp. 30–35.
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Global Information
