Talk:French language/Archive 2

message: French is coofficial in the US state of Louisiana. The article has it listed as national but unofficial. kwami 12:49, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Official in Louisiana

message: Hi,
Some problems with the map.  
The Virgin Islands aren't officially French speaking, though Martinique & Guadeloupe are. And don't forget St Pierre, which has been left off the map. 
New Caledonia is only 1/4 native French speaking, so coloring it dark blue is misleading. Similarly for northern Quebec, French Guiana, and Corsica. (Quebec should be dark blue in the south & medium blue in the north. The others should be medium blue with green squares.)
Europa and Clipperton are uninhabited, so saying that French is the language of administration there is misleading. 
There are also areas of open ocean that are circled. The one at the far left is probably supposed to be Wallis & Futuna, but that's directly west of French Polynesia. The large one in the Indian Ocean might be supposed to be Kerguelen, but that's further south and in any case is uninhabited -- unless the sea turtles there speak French? 
The Solomon Islands are not French speaking. 
French is co-official (though dominant) in Cameroon. Perhaps that country should be hatch-marked, at least in the west? (Cameroonian language identity is a somewhat touchy subject, and Anglophones constantly complain about Francophone language imperialism, so it isn't a good idea to shade in the entire country with solid blue.) 
kwami 02:51, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Why is Ontario colored in dark blue when the province is 95 % Anglophone ? Given that, in absolute numbers, there is a sizeable Francophone minority in Ontario (between 300,000 and 500,000), I would be willing to accept a light blue color, but dark blue is totally unwarranted. 161.24.19.82 11:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  problems with map 

message: I couldn't find the name of the dialect of French spoken in France in the article (it's not in the list of dialects). Is it called "standard French"? ntennis 01:09, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Several dialects are spoken, most of which diverge quite a bit from standard "media French". I guess you could call all the forms of French associated with Franch "French French" or "French of France", but only if it is very necesseray to distinguish these forms from other forms of French not usually associated with France. :] //Big Adamsky 01:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: What about Metropolitan French? Aaker 10:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  French French 

message: Several international organizations, like the United Nations, use French as an official language. Do those organizations specifically use the language as defined by the Académie française, or do they use some other "international" version? I'm contrasting here the UN's use of International English, based on the Oxford English Dictionary's usage and with slight variations from both American English and Commonwealth English.
Any idea? --ESP 18:43, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  International use 

message: It has been proposed that Languages of Oïl be renamed and moved to Langues d'Oïl. Comments and votes on Talk:Languages of Oïl, please, if you're interested. Man vyi 09:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed move 

message: Hello. About this contrib. I notice probably a user is passionated about French language. Nice. But it shouldn't forgotten that neutral point of view is seeked after. In my opinion it is required to phrase things in a non over-enthouisastic manner, also very importantly, big statements (like french language is seeked after by many intellectuals on the planet) needs big verifiability. Otherewise, anyone can make any random statements. Gtabary 18:05, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Did someextra removal of POV. Circeus 18:55, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some POV 

message: Under gemination, should "spelling" be replaced with "pronounced"?  Or I am confused?   --Deville (Talk) 12:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sound system 

message: Contrary to what this article says, Franco-Provençal is NOT a "transitional" dialectal group 'between' Langue d'oc and Langue d'oil. The article on FRANCO-PROVENÇAL correctly makes this point quite clear, indicating the errors of that old-fashioned view; FP, therefore, is a dialectal group in its own right, just as much as, say, Reto-Romanic is. So, one article is contradicting the other, while only one (and not THIS one) is scientifically correct. We have to find some other way to phrase the description of Franco-Provençal in the French Language article or else replace it. Stephanos1ko 18:45, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Depends what one understands by transitional... for example, Slovene displays transitional features between South and West Slavonic, and nothing wrong with that. Still, no harm is done by clarifying the wording to explain the situation (and so I've had a stab at it). Man vyi 20:07, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction on Franco-Provençal? 

message: I copied & pasted the History section of this article in a new History of the French language article. Now that we have a full article, I think we can shorten the History section a bit and concentrate on improving the accuracy, quality and depth of this new article.
At the moment, judging by its contents, the article would be better named "History of the languages that are or were once spoken on the present territory of France". There remains a lot of work to do to improve it and make it worthy of its own name. :-) -- Mathieugp 17:19, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of the French language 

message: In the section discussing grammatical/pronunciation rules it states that "This gives for example the same pronunciation for "l'homme qu'il a vu" ("the man whom he saw") and "l'homme qui l'a vu" ("the man who saw him")."  Not to be nitpicky, but I believe the pronunciation of these two phrases, if done correctly, would be slightly different.  The difference probably wouldn't be easily noticed by a person who wasn't used to hearing the language, but there still would be a difference.
Why do you think it should ? And by the way who are you ? I am French, and I affirm that even in careful and slow speech, you cannot hear any slight difference. If you want to remove the ambiguity, you must use periphrases like "l'homme que lui il a vu", "l'homme qui a vu X". Bratta75 16:48, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Small error? 

message: On the translation table - it states that help me is aidez-moi - however a better example is surely au secours! which is a cry for help. 
I dont know how to alter this so others will have to help me!
ha ha ha 
Benjaminstewart05 16:45, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you know how to edit the talk page, surely you also know how to edit the main article? Maybe the table was confusing you. Anyway, it's changed. Lesgles (talk) 18:29, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Indeed, and I took out the "me" too. But I think "help!"/"au secours" is more pertinent in a list of the most useful expressions. Lesgles (talk) 16:41, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "help me"

message: "It is also an official language, along with Italian, in Val d'Aoste, Italy." It isn't correct: the Aosta Valley's charter says that the official languages are Italian and Franco-provençal. As you can see in this last article, this dialect and/or language is recognized as official in Valley Aosta. There are other regions in Italy with similar status like South Tyrol. Here the people speaks a german dialect knows as Bavarian, but the official language is German language. If Aosta Valley has taken another decision we should respect this decision. --Ilario 15:59, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It could be that I'm having a mistake. I've written to URP of Aosta Valley. I know that the french is spoken only by the 2% of population :fr:Vallée_d'Aoste_:_La_francophonie vs the franco-provençal spoken by the 20% --Ilario 16:12, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Aosta Valley]]

message: Web searches show up  as a dialectal alternative for 90, and I'm almost certain I've heard it used (albeit as an oddity pointed out by a tutor in a classroom conversation a decade and a half ago). Any chance someone could verify whether  is actually used and add it to the article? (Possibly of linguistic interest is the f / v mutation which is also found in English: half / halves etc.) Cyrek 07:15, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Numerals

message: Belgium is mostly a Dutch speaking country, so the designation colour should change from dark (French speaking) to blue (official language). (In Belgium French is an official minority language - about 40% of population speaks French, while about 60% speaks Dutch) Sijo Ripa 15:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Map needs correction

message: I've recorded and uploaded a sound file for each of the Examples of French. I couldn't find an appropriate icon for them so right now it looks kind of ugly. I'll see if I can remember to clean that up tomorrow. Azio 07:43, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been taken care of. :) "Pardon" needs an IPA transcription, though. --Kjoonlee 14:38, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IPA has been added, thanks to someone at the reference desk, and thanks to my dictionary. --Kjoonlee 07:50, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New sound files

message: The article says that voiceless stops are never glottalized.  I wonder if this is really accurate.  I'm sure I've heard many French speakers routinely glottalize their voiceless stops.  Any comments?  Richwales 05:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Glottalization (or not) of voiceless stops? 

message: What is the number of second language speakers of French in the world? I want to exclude people for whom french is their first language.--Sonjaaa 05:09, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: About 51 million according to Ethnologue. -- the GREAT Gavini 16:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Number of second language speakers?