French Lessons Melbourne

GLOBAL STATUS

• French is second only to English for the number of countries where it has official status – 32 as opposed to 45. And, with 56 members, La Francophonie is now larger than the Commonwealth, which has 53. 
  
• French is also the only language, with English, that is taught in every country of the world, with 100 million students and 2 million teachers – 20 % of whom are outside of francophone countries.
• The number of French speakers has tripled since 1945 largely since most former French and Belgian colonies kept French as their language of government, education and science after decolonization. 
• French is still a working language of the UN, the EU, and dozens of international organizations including the International Red Cross committee, International Labor Organization, Amnesty International, and Doctors without Borders. Francophone countries form an important bloc in the UN, the EU, the African Union, and the Arab League. 
• Two G-8 countries (France and Canada)  and six European countries (France, Belgium, Switzerland, Romania, Luxembourg, Monaco) are French-speaking countries. 

CULTURE

• The latest edition of the popular comic book Astérix was printed in 7 million copies in French alone and translated into 23 languages. 
• French film production – at 500 films per year – is number two in the world. In Canada, Quebec films often outsell Hollywood films at the box office.
• The Agence universitaire de la Francophonie networks 630 French language universities and more than 350 French faculties worldwide, for a total of 120,000 professors and researchers. 
• Many major living French language authors – Milan Kundera, Nancy Houston, Jonathan Littel, Andreï Makhine, Tahar Ben Jeloun, Dany Laferrière, François Cheng – did not speak French as a mother tongue. 

LINGUISTICS

• At the time of the French Revolution, 75% of French citizens did not speak French as a mother tongue. Until the 19th century, French was spoken more widely in Holland and  Germany  than in some parts of France.
• About a third to a half of basic English words come from French. 
• The origin of French language purism, including the French Academy, can all be traced back to the influence of a single poet, François de Malherbe. 
• The French Academy, created in 1635, was the first body ever to rule over a language. Since then, most of the world’s main languages have had a similar type of institution and most countries of the world rule over proper language rules, including all Spanish-speaking, Scandinavian, German-speaking, Arabic-speaking countries. English-speaking countries are the only exception. 
• French has more than a million words and 20,000 new ones are created every year.