French is a Romance language globally spoken by about 80 million people as a first language , by 190 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries.Most native speakers of the language live in France, where the language originated. The rest live essentially in Canada (particularly Quebec, and to a lesser extent Ontario and New Brunswick), Belgium, Switzerland, French-speaking Africa (Cameroon, Gabon, Côte d'Ivoire), Luxembourg, Monaco. Most second-language speakers of French live in Francophonic Africa, arguably exceeding the number of native speakers. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the Francophone country with the largest population.

French is a descendant of the Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are national languages such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, and Catalan, and minority languages ranging from Occitan to Neapolitan and many more. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.As a result of France's extensive colonial ambitions between the 17th and 20th centuries, French was introduced to America, Africa, Polynesia, and the Caribbean. As a result, many creole languages developed as a result of the mixture of French and native languages. Before the Roman conquest of what is now France by Julius Cæsar (58–52 BC), much of France (south of the Seine) was inhabited by Celtic-speaking peoples referred to by the Romans as Gauls. Southern France was also home to a number of other linguistic and ethnic groups including Iberians along the Pyrenees and western Mediterranean coast, Ligures on the eastern Mediterranean coast, Greek colonials in places such as Marseille and Antibes, and Vascons and Aquitanians or Proto-Basques in much of the southwest.

From the 3rd century on, Western Europe was invaded by Germanic tribes from the north and east, and some of these groups settled in Gaul. In the history of the French language, the most important of these groups are the Franks in northern France, the Alemanni in the modern German/French border area, the Burgundians in the Rhône valley and the Visigoths in the Aquitaine region and Spain. Their language had a profound influence on the Latin spoken in their respective regions, altering both the pronunciation and the syntax. They also introduced a number of new words (see List of French words of Germanic origin). Sources disagree on how much of the vocabulary of modern French comes from Germanic words, ranging from just 400 words to 2% of modern vocabulary .

The medieval Italian poet Dante, writing in Latin in his De vulgari eloquentia, classified the Romance languages into three groups: "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("some say oc, others say si, others say oïl"), thereby defining oïl languages (in northern France); oc languages (in southern France) and si languages (in Italy and Iberia). Modern linguists typically divide the languages spoken in medieval France into three geographical subgroups: Langue d'oïl and Langue d'oc are the two major groups; the third group, Franco-Provençal or Arpitan, displays features in common with both other groups, without belonging to either.
The area of langue d'oïl

The Romance language group in the north of France is that of the langue d'oïl, the languages which use oïl (in modern usage, oui) for "yes". These languages, like Picard, Walloon, and Francien, were influenced by the Germanic languages spoken by the Frankish invaders; Norman was later also heavily influenced by the Norse settlers who founded the Norman state. From the time period Clovis I on, the Franks extended their rule over northern Gaul. Over time, the French language developed from either the Oïl language found around Paris (the Francien theory) or from a standard administrative language based on common characteristics found in all Oïl languages (the lingua franca theory). Oïl derives from the Latin hoc ille ("that is it").

Langue d'oc, the languages which use oc for "yes", is the language group in the south of France and northern Spain. These languages, such as Gascon and Provençal, have relatively little Frankish influence. Oc/òc derive from the Latin hoc.

Modern French has two words for "yes", oui and si; the latter is used to contradict negative statements or respond to negative questions, at least in Modern France itself. Si derives from Latin sic ("thus"), and is cognate to the word for "yes" in Spanish (sí), Portuguese (sim), Italian (sì), and Catalan (sí). In Canada, whose francophone population mainly descends from ancestors originating in northwestern France, the word si is not commonly used as a substitute for oui in written form and almost never in spoken language.

The early Middle Ages also saw the influence of other linguistic groups on the dialects of France:

From the 4th to the 7th centuries, Celtic-speaking peoples from southwestern Britain (Wales, Cornwall, Devon) travelled across the English Channel, both for reasons of trade and as a result of the Anglo-Saxon invasions of England. They established themselves in Armorica. Their language was a dialect of the Brythonic languages, which has been named Breton in more recent centuries. This language gave notably bijou and menhir to French. It is part of the larger Celtic language family, though the modern dialects reflect a noticeable influence from French in their vocabulary (aven, a Breton word that French incorporated, is itself derived from the French word havre).

From the 6th to the 7th centuries, the Vascons crossed over the Pyrenees, a mountain range in the south of France. Their presence influenced the Occitan language spoken in southwestern France, resulting in the dialect called Gascon. Its influence is seen in words like boulbène, cargaison.

Scandinavian Vikings invaded France from the 9th century onwards and established themselves mostly in what would come to be called Normandie (Normandy). They took up the langue d'oïl spoken there and contributed many words to French related to maritime environment (crabe, crique, falaise), amongst other things. Another example is boulevard which is derived from the Norse word for quay or bulwark (Danish: bolværk).

With their conquest of England in 1066, the Normans brought their language. The dialect that developed there as a language of administration and literature is referred to as Anglo-Norman. Anglo-Norman served as the language of the ruling classes and commerce in England from the time of the conquest until 1362, when the use of English became dominant again. Because of the Norman Conquest, the English language has borrowed a considerable amount of its vocabulary from French.

For the period up to around 1300, some linguists refer to the oïl languages collectively as Old French (ancien français). The earliest extant text in French is the Oaths of Strasbourg from 842; Old French became a literary language with the chansons de geste that told tales of the paladins of Charlemagne and the heroes of the Crusades.

By the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts in 1539 King Francis I made French the official language of administration and court proceedings in France, ousting the Latin that had been used before then. With the imposition of a standardised chancery dialect and the loss of the declension system, the dialect is referred to as Middle French (moyen français). The first grammatical description of French, the Tretté de la Grammaire française by Louis Maigret, was published in 1550. Many of the 700 words of modern French that originate from Italian were introduced in this period, including several denoting artistic concepts (scenario, piano), luxury items, and food.

Following a period of unification, regulation and purification or latinization, the French of the 17th to the 18th centuries is sometimes referred to as Classical French (français classique), although many linguists simply refer to French language from the 17th century to today as Modern French (français moderne).

The foundation of the Académie française (French Academy) in 1634 by Cardinal Richelieu created an official body whose goal has been the purification and preservation of the French language. This group of 40 members is known as the Immortals, not, as some erroneously believe, because they are chosen to serve for the extent of their lives (which they are), but because of the inscription engraved on the official seal given to them by their founder Richelieu—"À l'immortalité" ("to the Immortality (of the French language)"). The foundation still exists and contributes to the policing of the language and the adaptation of foreign words and expressions. Some recent modifications include the change from software to logiciel, packet-boat to paquebot, and riding-coat to redingote. The word ordinateur for computer was however not created by the Académie, but by a linguist appointed by IBM (see fr:ordinateur).

From the 17th to the 20th centuries, France was the leading power of Europe; thanks to this, together with the influence of the Enlightenment, French was the lingua franca of educated Europe, especially with regards to the arts, literature, and diplomacy; monarchs like Frederick II of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia could both speak and write in French.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the French language established itself permanently in the Americas. There is an academic debate about how fluent in French were the colonists of New France. While a minority of colonists (mostly women) were from the region of Paris (approximately 20% of all colonists), most of them came from northern and western regions of France where French was not the primary language natively spoken by its inhabitants. It is not clearly known, however, how many among those colonists understood French as a second language, and how many among them – who, in overwhelming majority, natively spoke an oïl language – could understand, and be understood by, those who speak French thanks to interlinguistic similarity. In any case, a linguistic unification of all the groups coming from France happened (either in France, on the ships, or in "Canada") such that, according to many sources, the then "Canadiens" were all speaking French natively by the end of the 17th century, well before the unification was complete in France. Today, French is the language of about 10 million people (not counting French-based creoles, which are also spoken by about 10 million people) in the Americas.

Through the Académie, public education, centuries of official control and the role of media, a unified official French language has been forged, but there remains a great deal of diversity today in terms of regional accents and words. For some critics, the "best" pronunciation of the French language is considered to be the one used in Touraine (around Tours and the Loire River valley), but such value judgments are fraught with problems, and with the ever increasing loss of lifelong attachments to a specific region and the growing importance of the national media, the future of specific "regional" accents is often difficult to predict. The French nation-state, which appeared after the 1789 French Revolution and Napoleon's empire, unified the French people in particular through the consolidation of the use of the French language. Hence, according to historian Eric Hobsbawm, "the French language has been essential to the concept of 'France', although in 1789 50% of the French people didn't speak it at all, and only 12 to 13% spoke it 'fairly' - in fact, even in oïl language zones, out of a central region, it wasn't usually spoken except in cities, and, even there, not always in the faubourgs . In the North as in the South of France, almost nobody spoke French." Hobsbawm highlighted the role of conscription, invented by Napoleon, and of the 1880s public instruction laws, which allowed to mix the various groups of France into a nationalist mold which created the French citizen and his consciousness of membership to a common nation, while the various "patois" were progressively eradicated. There is some debate in today's France about the preservation of the French language and the influence of English , especially with regard to international business, the sciences, and popular culture. There have been laws enacted which require that all print ads and billboards with foreign expressions include a French translation and which require quotas of French-language songs (at least 40%) on the radio. There is also pressure, in differing degrees, from some regions as well as minority political or cultural groups for a measure of recognition and support for their regional languages.

Once the most universal language, French lost most of its international significance to English in the 20th century, especially after World War II, with the rise of the U.S. as the dominant global superpower. A small but increasing number of large multinational firms headquartered in France are using English as their working language even in their French operations, and to gain international recognition, French scientists must now publish their work in English in journals based outside of France. These trends, understandably, have met some resistance. In March 2006, President Chirac briefly walked out of a EU summit after Ernest-Antoine Seilliere began addressing the summit in English. And in February 2007, Forum Francophone International began organizing protests against the "linguistic hegemony" of English in France and in support of the right of French workers to use French as their working language.

Nevertheless, French is still the second most-studied foreign language in the world after English. The legacy of French as a living language outside Europe is mixed: it is nearly extinct in some former French colonies (Southeast Asia), while the language has changed to creoles, dialects or pidgins in the French departments in the West Indies and the South Pacific (French Polynesia). On the other hand, many former French colonies have adopted French as an official language, and the total number of French-speakers has increased, especially in Africa.

In the Canadian province of Québec, the language has thrived and today is spoken by 80% of the province's population. Different laws ensure the preservation of French in administration, business and education since the seventies. Bill 101, for example, obliges every child whose parents did not attend an English school to be educated in French, thus preventing that English or non-Francophone languages supplant French in Québec as is mostly the case in North America. Efforts are also made, by the Office québécois de la langue française for instance, to make more uniform the variation of French spoken in Québec as well as to preserve the distinctiveness of Quebec French.

There has been French emigration to the United States, Australia and South America, but the descendants of these immigrants have assimilated to the point that few of them still speak French. In the United States, efforts are ongoing in Louisiana (see CODOFIL) and parts of New England (particularly Maine) to preserve the language.