Languages of Mauritania - French Language, Arabic Language, Wolof Language, Zenaga Language, Fula Language, Hass N YA Language, Nemadi Language (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 24. Chapters: French language, Arabic language, Wolof language, Zenaga language, Fula language, Hass n ya language, Nemadi language, Soninke language, Pulaar language, Imraguen language, Wolofal script. Excerpt: French (, IPA: ) is a Romance language spoken as a first language by most people from France, French-speaking Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, and the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, as well as minorities elsewhere. Second language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts of the world, the largest numbers of which reside in Francophone Africa, and the highest proportions being situated in Gabon (80%) Mauritius (72.7%) and Cote d'Ivoire (70%). French is estimated as having between 70 million and 110 million native speakers and 190 million second language speakers. French is the second-most studied foreign language in the world, after English. French is a descendant of the spoken Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are languages such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, Sardinian and Catalan. Its closest relatives however are the other langues d'oil and French-based creole languages. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. It is an official language in 30 countries, most of which form what is called, in French, La Francophonie, the community of French-speaking countries. It is an official language of all United Nations agencies and a large number of international organizations. According to the European Union, 129 million, or twenty-six percent of the Union's total population speak French, of whom 65 million are native speakers and 69 million are second-language or foreign language speakers, thus making French the third language in the European Union tha...