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Dialects of French
Together with Spanish and Portuguese, French is one of the most important Romance languages. In 1999, there were 77 million Francophones (or French speakers) worldwide, a number which, including 2nd language speakers, reached 128 million people. This data made French the 11th most spoken language in the world. Numerous communities and organizations, such as The United Nations, IOC, the European Union and the Universal Postal Union have French as their mother tongue.Although French is the most widely spoken and the only officially recognised language of the country, numerous dialects are spoken all around France. Some of them are historical regional languages which aren't of primary importance, others derive directly from the languages of immigrants.
African French
Due the colonization by France and Belgium, French is spoken by many people in Africa. This makes Africans an important part of the French speaking population. Between the different States local variations can be identified.Belgian French
In Belgium, it is spoken a variety of French which is called Belgian French. This dialect is very similar to standard French (the two are mutually intelligible), apart from small differences in vocabulary. For instance, in both standard and Swiss French, the word for "seventy" is "septante", while in Belgian French it is "soixante-dix" (which literally is "sixty-ten"). In the same way, "nonante" is the standard for "ninety", which in Belgian is "quatre-vingt-dix" (literally 'four score and ten').There are also small differences as for pronunciation, for instance the letter "w", which in France is "v", in Belgian is pronounced in the English way. In any case, these are not striking differences, as they more or less correspond to the variations between the dialects of different cities in France (i.e. the pronunciation of Marseille and that of Paris).
Cajun French
Cajun French is derives from Acadian, a dialect of French which is spoken in Canada's Maritime Provinces and in the state of Maine. The name comes from the English pronunciation of the French word Acadien. Nowadays, Cajun is mainly spoken in the American state of Louisiana.Quebec French
A survey which was carried out in 2001, has shown that 82.8% of people in the Canadian state of Quebec speak a variety of French which is called Quebec French (or Québécois French). In 2004, about 6,700,000 Canadians had French as their first language.Swiss French
Swiss French is the name which is used to call the dialects of French of the Francophone part of Switzerland.Swiss and Standard French are very close one to the other, so that a speaker of Swiss French could speak to a French citizen without problems. Indeed, the main differences concern vocabulary, so that a French speaker would encounter only a few unknown words when conversating with a Swiss French speaker.
Vietnamese French
In Vietman it is spoken a dialect of French which is called Vietnamese French and which originated from the French rule of 1884. It was influenced by a variety of languages among which we find French, Vietnamese, Javanese, English, Portuguese and Cantonese (a dialect of Chinese). Before 1954, year on which the French left Vietnam, Vietnamese French was the lingua franca for conversation between Vietnamese and French people. Nowadays, standard French is used in Vietnamese education-in some schools it is studied as a second language.Today, standard French is used in some schools as a second language.
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