Is French on the decline?
This is the question that motivated us to write The Story of French in the first place. With the mind-blowing spread of English across the planet, a lot of people assume French is being wiped out. Is it?
Growth in number of native speakers
When we began researching The Story of French, there were 175 million French speakers in the world. The number had tripled in the previous 60 years. Sounds impressive, but all that means is that French speakers increased at the same pace as the world population increased.
But French is still growing along with the world population. The Organization internationale de la francophonie recently increased their official number of French speakers to 200 million. That puts French in 8th position in the ranking of world languages.
Status as an international language
Although French has roughly the same number of speakers as Portuguese, French remains, indisputably, the world’s second international language (after English). That’s became it is second only to English for number of countries where it is an official language (33, compared to 45 for English), for number of people who study it (100 million), for number of countries where it’s taught (every country in the world), for number of teachers (2 million) and because it is still used widely in international institutions and in business.
There is lots of evidence that French is slipping as an international language. For example, the European Union is using English more and more. But French has a long way to slip before it becomes irrelevant, if it ever really does.
Comparison with other world languages
Of course, when you look at the increase in use of English across the planet and the growing influence of Chinese, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that French will lose out and gradually disappear. And a lot of people are jumping to that conclusion.
All I can say is that it’s hard for anyone to predict.
We took a close look at the picture in Senegal, a former French colony considered the cultural capital of West Africa. At the time, George W. Bush was sort of courting Senegalese president Wade to try to boost US influence in a part of the world where it doesn’t have much clout. The obvious way to do that is to push English. But most people we talked to thought the plan was pretty futile. As one university professor explained, since French is the language of Senegal’s education system, Senegalese can only learn English if they already speak French.
As I learned at a recent language conference, the number of native English speakers is increasing only as fast as the number of native French speakers – and that’s not too fast. The real powerhouse languages today are Chinese and Arabic.
Rwanda Ditches French
In the corridors of the Francophonie Summit last weekend in Quebec City, there was surprisingly little discussion of Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s decision to ban French from the central African country’s education system. Most of the journalists I met there were talking either about French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s declaration of non-support of Quebec’s separation movement, or the fact that they weren’t getting any information about what was happening in the closed - door discussions of the Summit.
Getting information really was a problem - not to mention getting around. There were some 3000 police officers on the site; security was intense and traffic was constantly blocked by motorcades as the dozens of heads of states moved about the city.
Inside the press center at the Hilton, brief announcements came out occasionally, and heads of state and other important figures came into the media center to give interviews, but no one really knew what was being discussed, or who said what about a particular issue. It was strange to see 700 or 800 hundred journalists there just waiting around for news that rarely came. Which tended to confirm the reputation the Francophonie has of not communicating its goals very well.
Anyway…Like Sarkozy’s slap in the face to Quebec’s separatist movement, Rwanda’s slap in the face to French was significant because of it’s timing, not so much because it had much to do with the essence of the Francophonie Summit.
And Rwanda’s decision was not so much a slap in the face to French, as it was to the French. And not without reason, given suspicion about France’s role in fomenting the Rwandan genocide.
The thing is, there’s a big difference in saying you will ban French as a language of education, and actually revamping an entire education system — which is what Kagame’s declaration amounts to. In other words, it’s not very likely to work. Like most (but not all) former French and Belgian colonies, Rwanda held on to French as the language of its school system because it couldn’t really afford to create another education system with a new language, which would mean training new teachers from scratch. French is the language of social promotion in Rwanda, like it is in Senegal. The elite speaks French. And those who want to join the elite by getting an education, learn French.
Not only will Kagame have to overcome the resistance of the elite of his own country. He will have to change a mentality that’s been in place since Rwanda became a Belgian colony almost a century ago, in 1925 (it was a German colony starting in 1899): that French is the way to a better life. What we saw researching Story of French in Senegal — which George Bush was courting at the time to try to get a foot in West Africa — was that while learning English sounded good to everyone, in a country where the elite spoke French, the advantages of speaking English were pretty remote.
Algeria tried very hard to get rid of French as its language of instruction and government and ended up provoking a civil war that cost the lives of some 200,000 Algerians. You’ve got to wonder what kind of price Rwandans are going to pay to send a message to France. If Kagame sticks it out, the price will probably be huge.
Why care about the Francophonie?
It’ surprising so few do care the Francophonie, or the Summit in Quebec City October 17-19. The Summit will be the biggest international forum ever held on Canadian soil, with some 3000 delegates attending from 55 member countries. There will be 34 heads of state there, plus the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon. French President Nicholas Sarkozy will be flying in from a European Union meeting to attend.
What does the Francophonie do?
Almost since it’s creation in 1970, the Francophonie has been considered a sort poor cousin of the Commonwealth. To be fair, the organization did have some difficulty getting off the ground and finding its purpose. And many of its member countries (former French colonies in African and Asia) are poor. But today, the Commonwealth and the Francophonie are pretty comparable organizations, with similar budgets and goals – the main difference is that in the 1990s, the Francophonie added protection of French language to its mandate. The political vision of the two organizations is also different: both work for humanitarian aid and development, but the Commonwealth puts more stress on “good governance” as a condition for aid than the Francophonie does.
Contrary to what most commentators have written, the Francophonie has achieved some pretty impressive goals. It created TV5, today the third biggest the television network in the world after CNN and MTV, with 50 million regular viewers in 201 countries. The Francophonie’s Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie networks almost 700 universities and French faculties in 81 countries. It has 63 offices in the world, 12 research institutes and 29 “electronic campuses”. When we were researching The Story of French in 2004, we visited one of them in Dakar – it was “dernier cri” (cutting edge). Recent efforts to boost the use of French in international institutions have also born fruit: some 12 000 European Union employees – plus several hundred politicians, journalists and even some heads of state – have signed up for French courses since 2002. The Francophonie’s Secretary General, former Senegalese President Abdou Diouf, has also slimmed down the organization since 2005, tightening membership criteria and cutting programmes by 30%.
Quebec’s role?
Although Quebec is not a state, it does sit as an independent member alongside other states. Most importantly, Quebec is seen as a leader among francophonie countries. While researching The Story of French we saw to what extent Quebec is seen a model throughout the Francophonie (in the large sense, the 200 million French speakers in the world), especially where language protection measures are concerned. Even France looks to Quebec for ideas on protecting French. One of the big questions about Quebec’s participation is, given its leadership role, why doesn’t it contribute more financially (at the moment, 21 million dollars)? France has always kept a low profile at Francophonie Summits, but it picks up something like 80% of 310 million dollar bill.
What purpose do summits serve?
In a recent interview in La Presse, Quebec Premier Jean Charest said he wanted to “inject some dynamism” into the Francophonie. At the Summit, Charest will be pushing an environmental agenda. Charest also said he wants to develop the North-South relations in the Francophonie as part of discussions on climate change. In fact, that is the kind of stuff that happens at these meetings: countries form (and un-form) blocs around major international issues. For example, Canada’s position on the War in Iraq was heavily influenced by discussions at the Francophonie Summit in Beirut in October 2002.
And speaking of North-South relations, it’s in these types of international forums that poor countries make their importance felt. The Francophonie is very conscious that the main growth of French over the next decades will be in Africa, so it is keen on developing and consolidating relationships with French-speaking African countries.
Strangely, the French language has never been a hot topic of discussion at the yearly summits and this year, members will only be talking about protecting French on the last day. The main project on the agenda is to promote the use of French in international forums.
This Summit, the Francophonie’s 12th, will be the first where the organization will lay out its expectations about protecting French to member countries, particularly about the role of French in member countries’ education systems.
© The World in French 2008 - All Rights Reserved
Elegance theme by PowerTheme
http://julie.nadeaubarlow.com/
This is the question that motivated us to write The Story of French in the first place. With the mind-blowing spread of English across the planet, a lot of people assume French is being wiped out. Is it?
Growth in number of native speakers
When we began researching The Story of French, there were 175 million French speakers in the world. The number had tripled in the previous 60 years. Sounds impressive, but all that means is that French speakers increased at the same pace as the world population increased.
But French is still growing along with the world population. The Organization internationale de la francophonie recently increased their official number of French speakers to 200 million. That puts French in 8th position in the ranking of world languages.
Status as an international language
Although French has roughly the same number of speakers as Portuguese, French remains, indisputably, the world’s second international language (after English). That’s became it is second only to English for number of countries where it is an official language (33, compared to 45 for English), for number of people who study it (100 million), for number of countries where it’s taught (every country in the world), for number of teachers (2 million) and because it is still used widely in international institutions and in business.
There is lots of evidence that French is slipping as an international language. For example, the European Union is using English more and more. But French has a long way to slip before it becomes irrelevant, if it ever really does.
Comparison with other world languages
Of course, when you look at the increase in use of English across the planet and the growing influence of Chinese, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that French will lose out and gradually disappear. And a lot of people are jumping to that conclusion.
All I can say is that it’s hard for anyone to predict.
We took a close look at the picture in Senegal, a former French colony considered the cultural capital of West Africa. At the time, George W. Bush was sort of courting Senegalese president Wade to try to boost US influence in a part of the world where it doesn’t have much clout. The obvious way to do that is to push English. But most people we talked to thought the plan was pretty futile. As one university professor explained, since French is the language of Senegal’s education system, Senegalese can only learn English if they already speak French.
As I learned at a recent language conference, the number of native English speakers is increasing only as fast as the number of native French speakers – and that’s not too fast. The real powerhouse languages today are Chinese and Arabic.
Rwanda Ditches French
In the corridors of the Francophonie Summit last weekend in Quebec City, there was surprisingly little discussion of Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s decision to ban French from the central African country’s education system. Most of the journalists I met there were talking either about French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s declaration of non-support of Quebec’s separation movement, or the fact that they weren’t getting any information about what was happening in the closed - door discussions of the Summit.
Getting information really was a problem - not to mention getting around. There were some 3000 police officers on the site; security was intense and traffic was constantly blocked by motorcades as the dozens of heads of states moved about the city.
Inside the press center at the Hilton, brief announcements came out occasionally, and heads of state and other important figures came into the media center to give interviews, but no one really knew what was being discussed, or who said what about a particular issue. It was strange to see 700 or 800 hundred journalists there just waiting around for news that rarely came. Which tended to confirm the reputation the Francophonie has of not communicating its goals very well.
Anyway…Like Sarkozy’s slap in the face to Quebec’s separatist movement, Rwanda’s slap in the face to French was significant because of it’s timing, not so much because it had much to do with the essence of the Francophonie Summit.
And Rwanda’s decision was not so much a slap in the face to French, as it was to the French. And not without reason, given suspicion about France’s role in fomenting the Rwandan genocide.
The thing is, there’s a big difference in saying you will ban French as a language of education, and actually revamping an entire education system — which is what Kagame’s declaration amounts to. In other words, it’s not very likely to work. Like most (but not all) former French and Belgian colonies, Rwanda held on to French as the language of its school system because it couldn’t really afford to create another education system with a new language, which would mean training new teachers from scratch. French is the language of social promotion in Rwanda, like it is in Senegal. The elite speaks French. And those who want to join the elite by getting an education, learn French.
Not only will Kagame have to overcome the resistance of the elite of his own country. He will have to change a mentality that’s been in place since Rwanda became a Belgian colony almost a century ago, in 1925 (it was a German colony starting in 1899): that French is the way to a better life. What we saw researching Story of French in Senegal — which George Bush was courting at the time to try to get a foot in West Africa — was that while learning English sounded good to everyone, in a country where the elite spoke French, the advantages of speaking English were pretty remote.
Algeria tried very hard to get rid of French as its language of instruction and government and ended up provoking a civil war that cost the lives of some 200,000 Algerians. You’ve got to wonder what kind of price Rwandans are going to pay to send a message to France. If Kagame sticks it out, the price will probably be huge.
Why care about the Francophonie?
It’ surprising so few do care the Francophonie, or the Summit in Quebec City October 17-19. The Summit will be the biggest international forum ever held on Canadian soil, with some 3000 delegates attending from 55 member countries. There will be 34 heads of state there, plus the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon. French President Nicholas Sarkozy will be flying in from a European Union meeting to attend.
What does the Francophonie do?
Almost since it’s creation in 1970, the Francophonie has been considered a sort poor cousin of the Commonwealth. To be fair, the organization did have some difficulty getting off the ground and finding its purpose. And many of its member countries (former French colonies in African and Asia) are poor. But today, the Commonwealth and the Francophonie are pretty comparable organizations, with similar budgets and goals – the main difference is that in the 1990s, the Francophonie added protection of French language to its mandate. The political vision of the two organizations is also different: both work for humanitarian aid and development, but the Commonwealth puts more stress on “good governance” as a condition for aid than the Francophonie does.
Contrary to what most commentators have written, the Francophonie has achieved some pretty impressive goals. It created TV5, today the third biggest the television network in the world after CNN and MTV, with 50 million regular viewers in 201 countries. The Francophonie’s Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie networks almost 700 universities and French faculties in 81 countries. It has 63 offices in the world, 12 research institutes and 29 “electronic campuses”. When we were researching The Story of French in 2004, we visited one of them in Dakar – it was “dernier cri” (cutting edge). Recent efforts to boost the use of French in international institutions have also born fruit: some 12 000 European Union employees – plus several hundred politicians, journalists and even some heads of state – have signed up for French courses since 2002. The Francophonie’s Secretary General, former Senegalese President Abdou Diouf, has also slimmed down the organization since 2005, tightening membership criteria and cutting programmes by 30%.
Quebec’s role?
Although Quebec is not a state, it does sit as an independent member alongside other states. Most importantly, Quebec is seen as a leader among francophonie countries. While researching The Story of French we saw to what extent Quebec is seen a model throughout the Francophonie (in the large sense, the 200 million French speakers in the world), especially where language protection measures are concerned. Even France looks to Quebec for ideas on protecting French. One of the big questions about Quebec’s participation is, given its leadership role, why doesn’t it contribute more financially (at the moment, 21 million dollars)? France has always kept a low profile at Francophonie Summits, but it picks up something like 80% of 310 million dollar bill.
What purpose do summits serve?
In a recent interview in La Presse, Quebec Premier Jean Charest said he wanted to “inject some dynamism” into the Francophonie. At the Summit, Charest will be pushing an environmental agenda. Charest also said he wants to develop the North-South relations in the Francophonie as part of discussions on climate change. In fact, that is the kind of stuff that happens at these meetings: countries form (and un-form) blocs around major international issues. For example, Canada’s position on the War in Iraq was heavily influenced by discussions at the Francophonie Summit in Beirut in October 2002.
And speaking of North-South relations, it’s in these types of international forums that poor countries make their importance felt. The Francophonie is very conscious that the main growth of French over the next decades will be in Africa, so it is keen on developing and consolidating relationships with French-speaking African countries.
Strangely, the French language has never been a hot topic of discussion at the yearly summits and this year, members will only be talking about protecting French on the last day. The main project on the agenda is to promote the use of French in international forums.
This Summit, the Francophonie’s 12th, will be the first where the organization will lay out its expectations about protecting French to member countries, particularly about the role of French in member countries’ education systems.
© The World in French 2008 - All Rights Reserved
Elegance theme by PowerTheme
http://julie.nadeaubarlow.com/