Francophone facts

Francophone facts.... To get the most out of learning a language it always helps to have a few interesting snippets of information at your finger tips. So read on and maybe you will discover some fascinating facts that you never knew....

Francophone is an adjective and means French speaking. It usually refers to a person/people whose first language is French although it can also refer to countries and places. There are 200 million francophones in the world (La francophone dans le monde 2006-2007)

La Francophonie is a noun referring to an international organization of French speaking countries. The term francophonie dates back to 1880 but the modern francophonie was formed in 1970 with its headquarters in Paris. The francophonie motto is �galit�, compl�mentarit�, solidarit� (equality, complementarity, and solidarity) which is rather similar to France's motto of Libert�, �galit�, fraternit� (liberty, equality, fraternity). There are currently 53 member states plus 2 associate members and 13 observers which make up 11% of the worlds population.

Official Language is French �	Co-official Language is French �
EUROPE	EUROPE
* Luxembourg * Monaco * France * Switzerland (Vaud, Neuch�tel, Gen�ve & Jura)	* Belgium * Channel Islands (Jersey & Guernsey)
AFRICA	AFRICA
* Benin * Burkina Faso * Central African Republic * Congo (Brazzaville) * C�te d'Ivoire * Democratic Republic of Congo * Gabon * Guinea * Mali * Niger * Senegal * Togo	* Burundi * Cameroon * Chad * Comoros Islands * Djibouti * Equatorial�Guinea * Madagascar * Mauritius * Rwanda * Seychelles
NORTH AMERICA	AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT
* Canada (Quebec) * Haiti	* Vanuatu

Around 75 million people worldwide have French as their mother tongue and as a second language by some other 52,000,000. It is one of the five official languages of the United Nations.	French is a romance language descended from Latin. Two third of the French vocabulary is derived from Latin.
French is the second most frequently taught language in the world - after English.	The French alphabet is the same as that in English, although the letter W is only used in foreign words.
French spelling, which has many silent letters, is not always a reliable guide to pronunciation. Final consonants are usually not sounded and an s or x at the end of a noun to form the plural is also usually not pronounced.	In the past 10 years, French has been inundated with English words - so much so that the resulting jargon has been dubbed Franglais (a combination of Fran�ais and Anglais). For example : le hamburger, le chewing gum, le shopping, le week-end, le meeting.
French features 5 diacritical (accent) marks: accent aigu � (acute accent) �accent grave ` (grave accent) accent circonflexe � (circonflex) accent tr�ma � (dieresis or umlaut) cedille � (cedilla, only with letter 'c')	The standard for French is based on the dialect of �le de France (technically known as Francien) and has been the official standard language since the mid-16th century. Francien replaced several regional dialects of French spoken in northern and central France. These dialects were referred to as the so-called Langue d'o�l. Regional dialects of French are nowadays mainly evident only in rural speech, although the Picard-Walloon dialect of northern France and the Norman dialect of western France gave strong competition to Francien in medieval times, and Walloon is still spoken in Belgium.

France's flag (officially known as the 'Tricolor') was first used in 1789, after the French Revolution. It was officially adopted as the French national flag on February 15, 1794. It consists of three vertical bands of equal width, displaying the country's national colors: blue (nearest the flag staff), white (in the middle) and red (on the outside). The colors are representative of the revolution being white (for the king) and blue and red (for the city of Paris). Today, the "tricolor" flies over all public buildings and is flown at most official ceremonies, both civil and military.

On July 14, Bastille Day, La Marseillaise, one of the best-known national anthems in the world, is sung all over France. In fact, the anthem was not created in Marseille but in Strasbourg during the heat of the Revolution. General Kellermann, who as at the head of the Army of the Rhine in 1792, asked Captain Rouget de Lisle, one of his officers who was a poet and musician in his spare time, to compose a battle march to be played as the soldiers were leaving for the front. Working all through the night, the following day the captain presented the new war song. The song was immediately adopted by the people with huge enthusiasm. La Marseillaise was declared the French national anthem in 1795.

The French motto "Libert�, Egalit�, Fraternit�" first appeared during the French Revolution. Although it was often called into question, it finally established itself under the Third Republic. It was written into the 1958 Constitution and is part nowadays of the French national heritage.

Marianne symbolizes the "Triumph of the Republic", and stands as a bronze sculpture overlooking the Place de la Nation in Paris. There is a also a bust of Marianne in every Mairie in France. Her profile is engraved on coins and drawn on stamps and banknotes and is drawn as the official seal of the country. Marianne is considered as the most prominent depiction of the French Republic.

According to the story, it appears that in 1797 when seeking a name for the Republic, Barras, one of the members of the Directoire, asked his hostess's name; "Marie-Anne," she replied. "Perfect," Barras exclaimed. "It is a short and simple name which befits the Republic just as much as yourself, Madame."

The new official French enblem was created by the French government and it will appear on all material - brochures, internal and external publications, publicity campaings, letter headings, business cards. Its design consisits of the colours of the French flag and the image of Marianne who symbolises "The Triumph of the Republic".

The rooster has been used as an ornament on church bell towers in France since the early Middle Ages. The Gallic Rooster decorated French flags during the Revolution, and since 1848, the the Coq Gaulois (the Gallic Rooster) has been seen on the seal of the Republic. It is the symbol of the French people because of the play on words of the Latin gallus meaning Gaul and gallus meaning coq, or rooster.

The storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 has been commemorated in France for more than a century. This day pays hommage to all those who died in the French revolution whilst freeing their country fromt the monarchy in order to create a republic.

It is a national holiday and the French flag will be see flying everywhere to symbolise the struggle for freedom.

The national flower of France is the Lily or Fleur-de-Lis as it is known there. In the language of flowers, Iris means: your friendship means so much to me. It symbolises wisdom, faith and hope.

* Croissants are not a French invention! It is believed they were actually invented in Budapest in 1686 when the Turks were besieging the city. To reach the centre of the town the Turks had to dig underground passages but bakers working during the night, heard the noise made by the Turks and gave the alarm which helped save the city. As a thank you, the bakers were granted the privilege of making a special pastry which had to take the form of a crescent in memory of the emblem on the Ottoman flag.

* The Eiffel tower was built in 1889. To celebrate its 75th anniversary in 1964, 10 mountain climbers were assigned to scale the Tower. The event was televised throughout Europe. However they were outdone by one of the spectators. He climbed up with them and overtook them, without any climbing gear. He happened to be one of the Tower's painters!

* The French are famed for their habit of greeting each other with a kiss. So it should come as no surprise to discover that on November 9, 2006, some 1188 Parisians greeted each other in the traditional way at La Defense in Paris, France, and set a new world record for the largest number of people kissing simultaneously.

* When Dom Perignon and his Benedictine monk colleagues first stumbled upon champagne, they regarded the bubbles as a serious defect, and were trying to work out ways to eliminate them until they actually had a sip.

* 1915: Fran�ois Faber, Luxembourgian Tour de France winner, died in a trench on the western front of World War I. He received a telegram saying his wife had given birth to a daughter. He cheered, giving away his position, and was shot by a German sniper.

* The stripes of the French flag are equal width, except on the version used by the Navy, for which the red stripe is biggest.

* Under laws that no-one has ever got round to removing from the statute book, it is illegal to call a pig Napoleon.

* In the French Court of Louis XI, the ladies' meals were mostly soup. Why?....They were afraid that chewing would give them lots of wrinkles. OK, it's soup for me from now on!

Francophone Facts