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It states that 14% of the adult people living in France in 1999 were born and raised up to the age of 5 in families that spoke only (or predominantly) some other languages than French. It does not mean that 14% of adult people in France spoke some other languages than French in 1999. Only adults (i.e. 18 years and older) were surveyed.
The European Union is a supranational union composed of 27 member states. The total English-speaking population of the European Union and the United Kingdom combined (2012) is 256,876,220 [70] (out of a total population of 500,000,000, [71] i.e. 51%) including 65,478,252 native speakers and 191,397,968 non-native speakers, and would be ranked 2nd if it were included.
(On this page a regional language has parentheses next to it that contain a region, province, etc. where the language has regional status.) National language A language that uniquely represents the national identity of a state, nation, and/or country and is so designated by a country's government; some are technically minority languages.
French is an official language in 27 independent nations. French is also the second most geographically widespread language in the world after English, with about 50 countries and territories having it as a de jure or de facto official, administrative, or cultural language. [1]
At first, the revolutionaries declared liberty of language for all citizens of the Republic; this policy was subsequently abandoned in favour of the imposition of a common language which was to do away with the other languages of France. Other languages were seen as keeping the peasant masses in obscurantism. [citation needed] The new idea was ...
More citizens in the new member states speak German (23% compared with 12% in the EU15) while fewer speak French or Spanish (3% and 1% respectively compared with 16% and 7% among the EU15 group). A notable exception is Romania, where 24% of the population speaks French as a foreign language compared to 6% who speak German as a foreign language.
As of 2024, there are 57 sovereign states and 28 non-sovereign entities where English is an official language. Many administrative divisions have declared English an official language at the local or regional level. Most states where English is an official language are former territories of the British Empire.
At a regional level, French is acknowledged as an official language in the Aosta Valley region of Italy (the first government authority to adopt Modern French as the official language in 1536, three years before France itself), [47] in which is spoken as a first language by 1.25% of the population and as a second one by approximately 50%. [48]