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Being spoken in the least developed countries seems more like a plus for French than a minus. As those countries develop, French will become even more important

Being spoken in the least developed countries seems more like a plus for French than a minus. As those countries develop, French will become even more important (assuming they still speak French). A language like German on the other hand will never experience this kind of organic growth because pretty much everywhere that speaks German is already well developed (and has negative or near-zero population growth, which certainly isn't helping the language grow).

jiggy2011 12y ago
Examples of French speaking countries would be Rwanda, Congo, Niger and Madagascar. You could be waiting a very long time for these to become significant economies.
- Jacqued 12y ago
  There are many more than that though. Basically you can draw a line from Congo to Algeria, and every country west of that line speaks French. There are 4 exceptions : Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone. That still leaves a huge pool of speakers. Probably not enough to make it the 'most spoken language in the world by 2050'[0] because it is mostly spoken by educated and urban people, and far less in the countryside, but enough to make it a dynamic, growing language. [0] : http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2014/03/21/want-to-know-the-language-of-the-future-the-data-suggests-it-could-be-french/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2014/03/21/w...
  - vacri 12y ago
    Well, it's more that French is an official language of those countries, rather than those countries speak French. WP has a list where most of those countries have only around 10%[1] of the population that can speak French. Given that French isn't particularly popular in the world of business (English and Chinese rule there) and that English seems to have become the default in science and engineering, it seems an assumption that a growing African economy would retain its French as it's primary 'international' language. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_French_is_an_official_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_French_...
    - _delirium 12y ago
      There are some regional shifts involved in some of those countries. Burundi and Rwanda are looking more east than west in recent years, and East Africa uses a mixture of Swahili and English rather than French as the common language. Rwanda in particular is not in practice really part of French-speaking Africa anymore. The numbers you link show only 3% of Rwandans speak partial French, which is barely more than any other country where a handful of people choose French as a foreign language in school. That's related to the ethnic unrest in the country; much of the current elite are ex-refugees who grew up in Uganda, which is not Francophone, and there's also a political edge to it because they consider France to have been too close to the previous Hutu-dominated government.

jiggy2011 12y ago

Examples of French speaking countries would be Rwanda, Congo, Niger and Madagascar. You could be waiting a very long time for these to become significant economies.

Jacqued 12y ago
There are many more than that though. Basically you can draw a line from Congo to Algeria, and every country west of that line speaks French. There are 4 exceptions : Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone. That still leaves a huge pool of speakers. Probably not enough to make it the 'most spoken language in the world by 2050'[0] because it is mostly spoken by educated and urban people, and far less in the countryside, but enough to make it a dynamic, growing language. [0] : http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2014/03/21/want-to-know-the-language-of-the-future-the-data-suggests-it-could-be-french/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2014/03/21/w...
- vacri 12y ago
  Well, it's more that French is an official language of those countries, rather than those countries speak French. WP has a list where most of those countries have only around 10%[1] of the population that can speak French. Given that French isn't particularly popular in the world of business (English and Chinese rule there) and that English seems to have become the default in science and engineering, it seems an assumption that a growing African economy would retain its French as it's primary 'international' language. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_French_is_an_official_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_French_...
  - _delirium 12y ago
    There are some regional shifts involved in some of those countries. Burundi and Rwanda are looking more east than west in recent years, and East Africa uses a mixture of Swahili and English rather than French as the common language. Rwanda in particular is not in practice really part of French-speaking Africa anymore. The numbers you link show only 3% of Rwandans speak partial French, which is barely more than any other country where a handful of people choose French as a foreign language in school. That's related to the ethnic unrest in the country; much of the current elite are ex-refugees who grew up in Uganda, which is not Francophone, and there's also a political edge to it because they consider France to have been too close to the previous Hutu-dominated government.