History UsefulNotes / FrenchLanguage

Contrary to the common perception that all the French people have always spoken French, that was probably not the case in the early 20th century or late 19th century. French language suppressed all the other languages and local dialects when school became mandatory and children were prevented from speaking languages that were not standard
French.

* Basque is a language that doesn't belong in indo-european languages. It is not a dying language mostly because it is still spoken in Spain.
* Breton is a celtic dying language.
* Catalan is a Latin language; it is not considered as dying mostly because it is spoken in Spain.
* Corsican is also a Latin language, that is closer to Italian than French.

French was the most important language of diplomacy and international relations between the 17th and 20th centuries until English replaced it after the United States became the dominant global power after World War II, French itself having replaced Latin in that role in the 17th century. Even today, it still remains one of the world's most influential languages because of its wide use in the worlds of journalism, jurisprudence, the academy, and diplomacy, and it is considered to be one of the most useful languages for business alongside English and Chinese.

French nouns are either masculine or feminine, with generally no inflection for gender.[[note]](except for some nouns that are gendered like English actor/actress)[[/note]] Grammatical gender determines some pronouns[[note]](as in English ''he'' and ''she'')[[/note]] but also articles, for instance English ''the'' generally translates as ''le'' or ''la'' depending on gender.[[note]]''le'' and ''la'' are shortened before a vowel, so ''the money'' translates as ''l'argent''. More importantly this is for singular, the plural form is ''les'' and is gender neutral. Since the singular and plural form of most nouns sound the same, articles are generally what tells you about number.[[/note]] This is all contrary to the common belief among English speakers that ''the thing'' translates as ''le chose''. [[note]](''chose'' is grammatically feminine so it would be ''la chose'')[[/note]]

French is a Gallo-Romance language and the official and national language of UsefulNotes/{{France}}, as well as an official language of several other Western European countries, specifically UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}, UsefulNotes/{{Luxembourg}}, UsefulNotes/{{Monaco}} and UsefulNotes/{{Switzerland}}. It is also the third primary language spoken in North America after English and Spanish, and is widespread throughout Africa, where the majority of the world's French speaking population live. As an official language of 29 countries worldwide, it is the third most spoken Romance language after Spanish and Portuguese, the second or third most studied language worldwide, the 6th most spoken language in the world, and one of the official languages of the United Nations, the European Union, NATO, the World Trade Organization and the International Olympic Committee.

This is frequently misunderstood, but in French territory there are languages other than French. They still count as French languages (at least those located in Europe, it may be a stretch to call "French languages" the native languages of French Guyana or French Polynesia).
* Alsacien is very close to German, and Germany pretended it was German everytime it annexed Alsace. It seems safe to say it is a dying dialect of German language.

* Catalan is a Latin language; it is not dying mostly because it is spoken in Spain.

* the southern half of mainland France that didn't speak Basque, Catalan or Corsican, used to speak Occitan dialects. They are all dying languages (or dying dialects).
* The northern half of mainland France that didn't speak Breton or Alsacian, used to speak dialects of Oil (aka French; French is the Oil dialect that became standard). Like Occitan languages (or dialects) they are dying.

Contrary to the common perception that all the French people have always spoken French, that was probably not the case in the early 20th century or late 19th century. French language suppressed all the other languages and local dialects when school became mendatory and children were prevented to speak languages that wasn't standard

These languages/dialects that are dying in France should not be confused with French dialects (such as French language, as it is spoken in Canada or in Africa).

French.

Contrary to the common perception that all the French people have always spoken French, that was probably not the case in the early 20th century or late 19th century. French language suppressed all the other languages and local dialect when school became mendatory and children were prevented to speak languages that wasn't standard

* The northern half of mainland France that didn't speak Breton or Alsacian, used to speak dialects of Oil (aka French; French is the Oil dialect that became standard). Like Occitan languages (or dialects) they are dying.

They are invariant, including family names. The messy divorce movie ''Film/TheWarOfTheRoses'' is translated as ''La guerre des Rose''.

Tremas serve a different purpose. In French spelling most letters are pronunced differently depending on the other letters that are around. For instance the sequence of letters ''ch'' is generally pronunced like ''sh'' would be in English, which is different from a standalone c or h. Likewise a sequence of vowel letters like ''ai'' would be pronunced as one vowel (different from a standalone a or i), while ''aï'' as in ''naïf''[[note]]naive[[/note]] indicates that the two vowels a and i should be read separately. Trema indicates an exception to the usual grouping of letters.

They are invariant, including family names. The messy divorce movie ''Film/WarOfTheRoses'' is translated as ''La guerre des Rose''.

The verbs are conjugated by isolating the stem of the verb and adding an ending, which depends on the mood, tense, aspect, and voice of the verb, as well as on the person and number of its subject. In the first and second conjugation, the stem is easily identifiable from the infinitive, and remains essentially constant throughout the paradigm, though in the third group, the relationship between the infinitive form and the stem is less consistent, and several distinct stems are needed to produce all the forms in the paradigm.

Adjectives generally agree in gender (and in number) with the nouns that they modify. [[note]](fun fact in french it would be with the noun (singualar) that they modify, because each adjective modifies only one noun)[[/note]] ''The white dog'' translate as ''le chien blanc'' if male, ''la chienne blanche'' if female. ''The white dogs'' translate as ''les chiens blancs'' if at least one dog is male, and as ''les chiennes blanches'' if they are all female.[[note]]This may be viewed as DoubleStandard, although some linguists would argue that this is nonsense.[[/note]]

Adjectives may be set before or after the noun that they modify; however you don't do whatever you want in that regard. Most of the time they are set after the noun.

Adjectives generally agree in gender (and in number) with the nouns that they modify. ''The white dog'' translate as ''le chien blanc'' if male, ''la chienne blanche'' if female. ''The white dogs'' translate as ''les chiens blancs'' if at least one dog is male, and as ''les chiennes blanches'' if they are all female.[[note]]This may be viewed as DoubleStandard, although some linguists would argue that this is nonsense.[[/note]]

The concept of grammatical gender for nouns is in fact quite common among European languages. If you know the gender of a noun from an other romance language, there is a resonable chance it will be the same in French. However if you try to predict grammatical gender from some knowledge of a Germanic or Slavic language, you will find out that grammatical genders of things follow an InsaneTrollLogic.

Adjectives generally agree in gender (and in number) with the nouns that they modify. ''The white dog'' translate as ''le chien blanc'' if male, ''la chienne blanche'' if female. ''The white dogs'' translate as ''les chiens blancs'' if at least one dog is male, and as ''les chiennes blanches'' if they are all female.[[note]]This may be viewed as DoubleStandard, although some linguist would argue that this is nonsense.[[/note]]

Grammatical genders are reasonably easy to predict for people and pets, however they may be difficult to predict for other things. If learning French, when learning a new noun you need to also learn its grammatical gender. However if you are wrong most of the time you may be understood (but people may find it funny).

French nouns are either masculine or feminine, with generally no inflection for gender.[[note]](except for some nouns that are gendered like English actor/actress)[[/note]] Grammatical gender determines some pronouns[[note]](as in English ''he'' and ''she'')[[/note]] but also articles, for instance English ''the'' generally translates as ''le'' or ''la'' depending on gender.[[note]]''le'' and ''la'' are shortened before a vowel, so ''the money'' translates as ''l'argent''. More importantly this is for singular, the plural form is ''les'' and is gender neutral. Since the singular and pluarl form of most nouns sound the same, articles are generally what tells you about number.[[/note]] This is all contrary to the common belief among English speakers that ''the thing'' translates as ''le chose''. [[note]](''chose'' is grammatically feminine so it would be ''la chose'')[[/note]]

!!Nouns:
French nouns are either masculine or feminine, with no inflection for gender. Grammatical genders always correspond to that which they refer to in the case of singular nouns regarding the living, while in the case of plural nouns that refer to groups of both masculine and feminine entities, they are always masculine. In many situations, both the singular and plural form of a noun are pronounced identically, so in order to provide a distinguishing factor between the two in speech, an article such as "le", "la" or "les" is used, with the article also providing the only difference in some situations where the feminine and masculine form of a noun are the same.