Français
Native Speakers: 77 million; L2 Speakers: 202.6 million
European Union (France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland), Canada, Africa, South America & Caribbean, Australasia
Official: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, France, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Monaco, Niger, Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Togo; Co-Official: Belgium, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles, Switzerland, Vanuatu
Indo-European, Romance
Fusional (inflected) language with a subject-verb-object (SVO) word order. Nouns and pronouns are inflected for number (singular or plural); adjectives, for number and gender of the corresponding nouns; pronouns, for person, number, gender, and case; and verbs, for tense, aspect, mood, and the person and number of their subjects.
Metropolitan French is the standard dialect in France, based on the dialect spoken around Paris. The two main dialects of Canadian French are Quebec French and Acadian French. Other main European dialects include Belgian French and Swiss French. There are also many varieties of African French (spoken by 120 million people in Africa), influenced by regional languages in each area where it is spoken, although almost all dialects of African French typically include the alveolar trill.
Latin script, with several diacritics.
Approximately 1.2 million people speak French at home in the United States, based on the 2017 American Community Survey data. “Indigenous” varieties of French include Louisiana French and New England French. There has also been increased immigration from Francophone countries, mainly from Africa and Haiti which now make up an increasingly large proportion of French speakers in the United States.
At Latitude Prime, we offer French translation, French interpretation, and French localization services in numerous specialized subject areas and multiple dialects. Whether you need to translate public information notices into French in Montreal, need an African French interpreter for an international development conference in Washington, DC, or want to localize your website into French to market your products or services in the European Union, Latitude Prime has the customized language solution to meet all of your French language needs.
