History of the Language

French is a Romance language spoken by 80 million native speakers and around 280 million non-native speakers worldwide. It is an official language in 31 countries stretching from Europe to Africa to the Pacific Islands, and it is one of the official languages of the United Nations. In Canada, 7 million people speak French, and it is the predominant language in the province of Quebec, which began life as a French colony hundreds of years ago.

The French language grew out of Latin, the classical language used by the Roman conquerors of ancient Gaul. As the empire waned, Latin developed into “vulgar Latin,” a less complex form of the language spoken by non-elites. During the Middle Ages, this vernacular language evolved into a panorama of regional dialects, many mutually intelligible. The dialect that grew up around Paris eventually became the most prestigious of French dialects because it was the language of capital and king, and over the centuries Parisian French has come to be the official form of French used in France and abroad.

French colonial expeditions in from the 17th to the 20th centuries carried the French language around the world, and today French speakers can be found on every continent, and Francophone countries in every region of the globe.

The language came to North America with the French colonization of Nova Scotia, Montreal, and Quebec, later ceded to the British. Because these territories have been a part of Canada and thus isolated from France for many years, Canadian French now differs from Parisian French in several respects, notably pronunciation. Canadian French includes three dialects, Quebec, Arcadian, and Newfoundland, which derive from 17th and 18th century Parisian French and retain several older language traits no longer found in France itself.

Today, French is the official language of Quebec province and the joint official language of New Brunswick. It is a minority language elsewhere in Canada, and it is one of the two official languages of the Canadian federal government.