Editing French language

'''French''' (French: ''français'') is a [[Romance languages|Romance language]] of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European language family]]. It developed from the spoken Latin used in Roman Gaul and became the main national language of [[France]]. It is also used as an official language in several other states.

French is written with the Latin alphabet. It uses several diacritics, including the acute accent, grave accent, circumflex, diaeresis, and cedilla. Its ISO 639-1 code is ''fr''. Its ISO 639-2 codes are ''fra'' and ''fre'', with ''fra'' used as the terminological code and ''fre'' as the bibliographic code.

== History ==
French developed from Vulgar Latin after the Roman conquest of Gaul. The language was shaped by local Gallo-Romance speech and by later Frankish influence after the collapse of Roman authority in western Europe.

Old French was used in northern France during the medieval period. The dialects of northern France were known as the ''langues d'oïl''. Over time, the speech of Paris and the surrounding Île-de-France region became the basis for standard French. The growth of royal administration, law, education, printing, and literature strengthened the use of French as a written and official language.

The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts of 1539 made French the language of royal legal and administrative records in France. This helped replace Latin in state administration and gave French a stronger official position within the French kingdom.

== Geographic distribution ==
French is the official language of [[France]] and is used in national government, education, law, media, and public administration. It is also the official language of [[Monaco]].

In [[Belgium]], French is one of the three official languages, alongside [[Dutch language|Dutch]] and [[German language|German]]. It is the main language of [[Wallonia]] and is widely used in [[Brussels]].

In [[Switzerland]], French is one of the four official languages, alongside [[German language|German]], [[Italian language|Italian]], and [[Romansh language|Romansh]]. It is mainly used in western Switzerland, including Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel, and Jura.

Outside Europe, French is used in parts of [[Canada]], the Caribbean, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific. In many African states, French is used in government, education, courts, administration, and cross-regional communication.

== Writing system ==
French uses the Latin script. The modern alphabet has 26 basic letters. Written French also uses accented forms, apostrophes, hyphens, and elision marks. Spelling preserves many historical forms that are no longer fully pronounced in modern speech.

== Grammar ==
French grammar has two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine. Nouns and adjectives are marked for number in writing, although many plural endings are silent in speech. Verbs are conjugated for tense, mood, person, and number. The usual basic word order is subject–verb–object.

French lost most of the noun case system inherited from Latin. Modern grammatical relations are mainly shown through word order, prepositions, articles, and pronouns.

== See also ==
* [[France]]
* [[Belgium]]
* [[Switzerland]]
* [[Language]]
* [[List of ISO 639-2 codes]]
* [[Romance languages]]
* [[Latin language]]


[[Category:Languages]]
[[Category:Romance languages]]
[[Category:France]]
[[Category:Language codes]]