French language

French (in French français, pronounced /frawn-SAY/) is a language spoken in France, Canada, Southern Belgium, Luxembourg Western Switzerland, as well as many parts of Africa, South East Asia and the New World that were French colonies. French is a Romance language, meaning that it came from Latin. Like most Romance languages, its nouns (things) have gender — that is, they are divided into male and female words.

History

In ancient times, the Celts lived in what is now France. In those days, the land was called Gaul (Gallia). The Romans spread their power to Gallia and made Gallia their provinces. Since Romans spoke Latin, the local people learned Latin and began to speak it. Their own language, Gaulish, tended to be spoken less often, although Breton is a language still spoken today in the part of France called Brittany, that came from the old Celtic language.

After the Roman Empire fell and Germanic peoples swarmed the countryside, Latin was changing quickly; and in medieval France it changed into two accents or languages: langue d'oc and langue d'oïl. They both mean "language of yes", because oc was the word for "yes" in the south, and oïl meant "yes" in the north. Today, the word for yes in French is oui, pronounced like "wee".

Langue d'oc is now called Occitan, and it is still spoken by many people in Southern France.

Examples

Here are some examples of French words and sentences :

Homme : man
Femme : woman
Eau : water
Manger : to eat
Je parle français. I speak French.

Languages

Gourt Home::Gourt :: French language

History

Examples