By Quick facts
- Name in French
- français
- Language family
- Indo-European › Romance
- Writing system
- Latin alphabet — alphabet, left to right
- Where it began
- Northern Gaul (Paris region)
- Main countries
- France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Canada, Haiti, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Benin, Togo, Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, DR Congo, Gabon, Madagascar, Rwanda, Burundi, Djibouti
- ISO 639-3 code
fra
Where French ranks
French is the 6th most-spoken language in the world by total speakers [1,2]. Here it is among its neighbours in the ranking, on one scale.
- 3Hindi611M
- 4Spanish561M
- 5Modern Standard Arabic335M
- 6French334M
- 7Bengali274M
- 8Portuguese269M
- 9Indonesian255M
“How are you?” in French
Comment allez-vous ?
Formal or plural; informal: Comment ça va ?
How are you?
Phrases: Omniglot — Useful phrases in French [6]. Other languages' phrases come from the sources on their own pages. Synthetic voice (ElevenLabs Eleven v3, voice “Sia”). Pronunciation is approximate and may not match a native speaker; Cantonese and Wu Chinese are not voiced because the model reads Chinese characters with Mandarin sounds.
A short history
French developed out of the Vulgar Latin spoken in northern and central Gaul, and it is now an official language in more than 25 countries[3].
In 1635 Cardinal Richelieu founded the Académie française to give the language rules and a dictionary; it still publishes the official dictionary[4].
The design of Latin alphabet
An alphabet: separate letters for consonants and vowels, written left to right. The Romans took it from a Greek alphabet by way of the Etruscans[7], and it is now the most widely used script in the world[8]. Most languages that use it add marks or extra letters for their own sounds[5].
Alphabet. One letter for each consonant and vowel.
- Kind
- Alphabet
- Direction
- Left to right
- Took shape
- By the 7th century BCE in central Italy
- Line of descent
- Egyptian hieroglyphs → Proto-Sinaitic → Phoenician → Greek → Etruscan → Latin
- Traditional surface
- Parchment and vellum
- Own digits
- No — uses the Western 0–9
- Egyptian hieroglyphs
- Proto-Sinaitic
- Phoenician
- Greek
- Etruscan
- Latin
Two alphabets in one
Capitals come from the square capitals the Romans carved in stone[9]; small letters come from Carolingian minuscule, a rounded book hand standardised in Charlemagne's empire in the late 8th century[10]. Writing with both is called case, and software has to know which pairs belong together[5].
Built to be extended
Rather than inventing new letters, most languages bolt marks onto old ones: é, ñ, ç, ş, ọ. Unicode encodes many as single letters and also as a base letter plus a combining mark, so the same word can be stored two ways[5].
Gothic or roman
Through the Middle Ages much of Europe wrote and printed in blackletter. German kept its Fraktur style for everyday print far longer than its neighbours, until the 20th century[11].
Accents that carry history
The circumflex in forêt (forest) and hôpital (hospital) often marks an s that was dropped from the spelling, as in English 'forest' and 'hospital'. French encodes these as letters with marks, which Unicode treats as precomposed characters[5,3].
Spaces before punctuation
French typography puts a space before ? ! : ; as Omniglot's phrases show: « Comment allez-vous ? »[6].
Explore the letters
French's relatives among the 38
French belongs to the Indo-European family (Romance). These are the other languages with 50 million or more speakers in the same family; the closest — in the same branch — come first.
- españolSpanishSame branch: Romance · 561M
- portuguêsPortugueseSame branch: Romance · 269M
- italianoItalianSame branch: Romance · 66M
- EnglishEnglishGermanic · 1.5B
- हिन्दीHindiIndo-Aryan · 611M
- বাংলাBengaliIndo-Aryan · 274M
- اُردُوUrduIndo-Aryan · 246M
- русскийRussianBalto-Slavic · 210M
- DeutschGermanGermanic · 133M
- मराठीMarathiIndo-Aryan · 99M
- پنجابیWestern PunjabiIndo-Aryan · 90M
- فارسیPersian (Iranian)Iranian · 82M
- ગુજરાતીGujaratiIndo-Aryan · 62M
- भोजपुरीBhojpuriIndo-Aryan (Bihari) · 53M
French across the hub
The main page compares all 38 languages. Each link opens it on French.
- Preview it in the explorer →with all 38 side by side
- Hear it in the voice tour →“How are you?” in every language, spoken in turn
- Trace its script's family tree →from the first alphabets and Chinese oracle bones
- Compare its digits →ten ways to write 0–9
- See its share of speakers →an interactive breakdown by script, family and region
Frequently asked questions
How many people speak French?
About 334 million people speak French: 75 million as a first language and 258 million as a second, according to Ethnologue's 2026 figures. That makes it the 6th most-spoken language in the world by total speakers.
What script is French written in?
French is written in the Latin alphabet, an alphabet: one letter for each consonant and vowel. It runs left to right.
How do you say "How are you?" in French?
In French, "How are you?" is Comment allez-vous ?. Formal or plural; informal: Comment ça va ?
Where is French spoken?
French is spoken mainly in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Canada, Haiti, Senegal and Mali and many other countries. It began in Northern Gaul (Paris region).
How old is the French script?
The Latin alphabet was in use in central Italy by the 7th century BCE. Its family line runs Egyptian hieroglyphs → Proto-Sinaitic → Phoenician → Greek → Etruscan → Latin.
Sources
- Ethnologue — What are the top 200 most spoken languages? (2026)
- Wikipedia — List of languages by total number of speakers (Ethnologue 2026 figures, retrieved October 2026)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — French language
- Académie française — L'histoire
- The Unicode Standard 17.0, chapter 7: Europe-I (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic)
- Omniglot — Useful phrases in French
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Alphabet (writing)
- Omniglot — Latin alphabet
- Omniglot — Classical Latin alphabet
- Omniglot — Carolingian minuscule
- Omniglot — Fraktur
- Omniglot — Phoenician alphabet
Checked October 25, 2026. Speaker numbers are Ethnologue's 2026 estimates, which count each language separately (Arabic and Chinese varieties are listed one by one). Maps shade whole countries, not regions within them. Found an error? Tell us.
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