You probably all know that French is one of the most popular languages that is spoken around the globe by a huge number of people. No doubt the language is beautiful and hails from a country that has rich history and tradition. But do you know that there are some truly interesting facts about the French language that further makes this language a unique one? Check out the facts given below in this blog.

• French is one of the Romance languages in the Indo-European language family which means it is closely linked to Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian.

• It is estimated that there are about 300 million speakers throughout the world, and it is spoken as an official language not just in France but also in Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, Gabon and Ivory Coast and many more countries. French is also the official language of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) and some sports such as fencing and CIO (Comité International Olympique).

• The counting procedure in French counting is partly “vigesimal”, so it is mainly based on twenty rather than ten for the numbers between 80 and 99. (For instance, 80 is quatre-vingts which actually means “four twenties”.)

• French has had a significant influence on the English language. There are several French words in English, in fact, certain estimates go as far as saying that 45 to 50% of all the words have French origins. Have you ever thought that veal, cabbage, blue, and embassy all came from French?

• Various words we use in English originate from the name of French people: inventors, scientists, philosophers, for instance, daguerreotype (after Louis Daguerre), saxophone (Adolphe Sax) or nicotine (Jean Nicot).

• Few overseas cities and place’s names in English are spelled the French way even though they are in separate countries. It includes Venice (Venezia in Italian), Prague (Praha in Czech), and Vienna (Wien in German)

• The Little Prince is the most widely translated French book as it is available in 252 languages besides French. (Including an English version as well).

• French is the second most commonly taught foreign language, behind English.

• The letter “W” is not part of the French alphabet and can only be seen in words with foreign origins.

• During the time of the world-famous French revolution in 1789, at least half of France’s population did not actually speak French. Most of the country communicated in several regional dialects.