Which 33 countries speak french

Although 34 African countries have significant French speakers, the language has official status in only 21 countries. French is the only official language in 11 of the 21 African states. According to the OIF report, over 30 million people in the country can write and read in French, and other millions can speak and understand the language.

In most of these countries, French is spoken alongside other national languages, mostly local or native languages. Since Africa has rich indigenous languages, French is used alongside some of the local languages. However, in Cameroon and Seychelles, it shares official status with English, while in Comoros and Djibouti, French is used alongside Arabic.

However, only 9. However, a series of wars resulted in France losing much of its empire over the course of the 18th and early 19th century. A second French colonial empire began to take shape during the 19th century, beginning with the conquest of Algeria.

Many of the French colonies gained independence after the First World War, but France continued to have influence in Africa until the s and many of the former French colonies continue to promote French as an official language. What are the Main French Speaking Countries? Live Classes with Real Teachers! Start Free Trial Learn More. Learn More About the French Speaking Countries The French language has approximately 80 million native speakers, as well as million secondary speakers, meaning that around million people speak the language worldwide.

While the reasons vary nonetheless, learning French can open a fascinating world. The population and number of speakers are keys to choosing a foreign language to learn, and some of the most popular tongues are Spanish, French, Arabic, and Mandarin.

The French language belongs to the group of romance languages like Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Catalan. French is the only language other than English to be spoken in all five continents worldwide , in virtually every nation. The tongue is ranked the 6th most widely spoken language — just after Chinese Mandarin, English, Hindi, and Spanish, including Arabic. The number also includes 71 million partial speakers and speakers of numerous French dialects and creoles.

The Caribbean and America account for 7. Europe is home to an enormous number of French-speaking people, with It is an official, co-official, or de facto national of 33 countries. French is spoken in over 50 countries, making it one of the most widely spoken languages globally. We have 33 countries in the French-speaking world. Now, with an online language learning tool like Lingvist, learning a language in your free time has never been easier.

Sign up today and you can access your personalized French program while commuting, during your lunch break, or from your computer at home. As you might imagine, running a country of inhabitants that had trouble understanding each other could present some logistical difficulties. The usage of French or a related dialect also persisted in the neighboring modern-day countries of Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. As a result, French is still spoken in former colonies all over the world.

In which countries is French an official language? French is an official language in 29 independent nations de facto language , 10 dependent entities with differing statuses , and five overseas regions of France islands that are not a part of mainland France, but remain under the jurisdiction of the French government.