法语(French language)

属罗曼诸语言，通行於法国、比利时、瑞士、加拿大（主要在魁北克）及其他从前或现在法属国家和地区。是二十五个以上国家的官方语言。使用人口约7,200万。法语书面文献溯源至西元9世纪。法兰西岛方言即巴黎方言是标准法语的基础，从16世纪中叶以来就是官方的标准语，在很大程度上取代了曾通用於法国北部和中部的所谓奥依语的其他地区方言。标准法语也大大缩小了法国南部奥克西坦语的使用范围。但法语若干方言大多只能保存於文化落後的农村地区。语法方面，法语和母语拉丁语相较，变化很多。名词已无变格。阳性和阴性还有区别，但通常不由名词表示。动词变化有三个「人称」和单、复数形式，可是某些形式仍只是在拼写上有区别，发音却完全相同。

English version：

French language

Romance language spoken as a first language by about 72 million people in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada (mainly Quebec), and many other countries and regions formerly governed by France. French is an official language of more than 25 countries. Its earliest written materials date from the 9th century. Numerous regional dialects were eventually pushed aside by Francien, the dialect of Paris, adopted as the standard language in the mid-16th century. This largely replaced the dialects of northern and central France, known as the langue d'o?l (from o?l, the northern word for “yes”), and greatly reduced the use of the Occitan language of southern France, known as langue d'oc (from oc, Occitan for “yes”). Regional dialects survive mostly in uneducated rural speech. French grammar has been greatly simplified from Latin. Nouns do not have cases, and masculine and feminine gender are marked not in the noun but in its article or adjective. The verb is conjugated for three persons and for singular and plural; though spelled differently, several of these forms are pronounced identically.