Considering that Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is predicted to more than double in the next decades, French language appears to be the following world’s most spoken tongue ahead of English and Chinese, said the findings obtained by a French investment bank released last year.
One could argue, as Forbes did in this article, the criteria of this study may be brought into question since it assumes every inhabitant from francophone African countries is, and will be, a French speaker. However, French language is indeed rapidly spreading, expecting to reach over 700 million by 2050, a fact that goes beyond demographic aspects.
Let’s talk about politics then. Besides French being the official language of the fastest growing areas of the world (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon or Ivory Coast to just cite some examples), it has always been identified as a language of diplomacy and enlightenment. French language has left its footprint on politics (coup d’état), economics (laissez faire), music (debut), gastronomy (gourmet) and other fields (déjà vu, tour, au pair). It also has a leading position in international relations being one of the official working languages of the European Union, the United Nations and many other important international organizations.
Language is overall the main way of communicating and information is, since the beginning of history, a powerful weapon. For this reason, while the United States hegemony forced to finally stablish English as the lingua franca, France was doing its homework abroad.
In 1990, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs stablished the Agence pour l’enseignement français à l’étranger (Agency for French Education Abroad) with the aim of promoting and preserving “the French national curriculum for pupils of various cultures from preschool through secondary school”. Nowadays there are nearly 500 lycéees Francais in 135 countries throughout the five continents, a political strategy that raises once again the status of French in our civilization building the world’s largest educational network.
Today there is also a “positive correlation between a country’s membership of the French-speaking community and its trading position” increasing trade flows up to 33%, according to a study by the Foundation for International Development Study and Research (FERDI).
Moreover, the Académie Française has recently decided to work on the replacement of English technological terms – such as ‘hashtag’ or ‘webmaster’ – by new ones in French to keep the language homogeneous.
French, nonetheless, still remains in the 6th position after the top five most spoken languages (Chinese, Spanish, English, Hindu and Arabic in this order).
Resources
- The Agency for French Education Abroad. 2013. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.aefe.fr/agency-french-education-abroad-0. [Accessed 15 October 15].
- Floriane Loup. 2013. Term Coord. [ONLINE] Available at: http://termcoord.eu/2013/07/french-2-0/. [Accessed 15 October 15].
- The status of French in the world. 2014. France Diplomatie. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/francophony-1113/the-status-of-french-in-the-world/. [Accessed 15 October 15].
- Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry. 2014. Forbes. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2014/03/21/want-to-know-the-language-of-the-future-the-data-suggests-it-could-be-french/. [Accessed 15 October 15].
- John McWhorter. 2014. Newsrepublic.com. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116443/new-york-citys-french-dual-language-programs-are-mostly-pointless. [Accessed 15 October 15].
- Norma Cohen. 2014. Finantial Times. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5e31ea34-a517-11e3-8988-00144feab7de.html#axzz3ocn7Qn00. [Accessed 15 October 15].
Written by Ana Escaso Moreno
Communication Trainee at TermCoord
Journalist & Social Media manager