Francophonie
French-speaking world
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ToursExplore Lably’s 3D toursWhen used to refer to the French-speaking world, the Francophonie encompasses the countries and territories where French is official or serves as an administrative or major secondary language, which spans 50 countries and dependencies across all inhabited continents. It is a de jure official language in 26 countries (the third most number of countries after English and Arabic). The vast majority of these are also member states of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), a body uniting countries where French is spoken and taught.
While it holds official status in more than two dozen countries, it is the majority's first language in only five states and territories, as the rest of French-speaking nations use it primarily administratively and as a lingua franca among populations whose mother tongues are indigenous or regional languages. This disparity is reflected in the number of speakers: of the 327 million total (the 6th-most in the world), about 74 million are native speakers (the 22nd in the world). In 2017 it was among the top five most studied languages in the world with about 120 million learners.
Denominations
Francophonie, francophonie and francophone space are syntagmatic. This expression is relevant to countries which speak French as their national language, may it be as a mother language or a secondary language.
These expressions are sometimes misunderstood or misused by English speakers. They can be synonymous but most of the time they are complementary.
- "francophonie", with a small "f", refers to populations and people who speak French for communication or/and in their daily lives.
- "Francophonie", with a capital "F", can be defined as referring to the governments, governmental and non-governmental organisations or governing officials that share the use of French in their work and exchange.
- "Francophone space", "Francophone world", "Francosphere" represents not only a linguistic or geographic reality, but also a cultural entity: for example describing any individual who identifies with one of the francophone cultures, may it be Slavic, Latin, Creole, North American or Oceanian for example.
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Origins
The term francophonie was invented by Onésime Reclus in 1880: "We also put aside four large countries, Senegal, Gabon, Cochinchina and Cambodia, whose future from a "Francophone" point of view is still very doubtful, except perhaps for Senegal" (in French « Nous mettons aussi de côté quatre grands pays, le Sénégal, le Gabon, la Cochinchine, le Cambodge dont l’avenir au point de vue « francophone » est encore très douteux sauf peut-être pour le Sénégal »); and then used by geographers.
During the Third Republic, the French language progressively gained importance.
The Académie française, a French institution created in 1635 in charge of officially determining and unifying the rules and evolutions of the French language, participated in the promotion and the development of the French language.
Countries
The definition of the Francophone world is distinguished by countries and territories where French is an official language, those where it is the native language of the majority of the population, and those where the language is used as a working language of administration or where the language still has an important cultural impact and prestige without having official status. There are 50 countries and territories which fall into this category, although in some countries the Francosphere is limited to certain regions or states.