French
From Conservapedia
French (Français) is a modern European language, a member of the Romance language family, which like others in this group owes much of its structure to Latin with some influence from the native languages of the pre-Roman Franks.
In medieval times, French had evolved into two groups, a northern branch known as the "Langue d'oïl," and a southerly group known as the "Langue d'Oc." However, after the political influence of the southerly group was crushed by the Albigensian Crusade, the northerly variety became dominant, and is the ancestor of modern "standard" French (though the southern variety still exists as the Occitan language). French is also spoken in many former French colonies in West Africa and the Carribbean, the Canadian province of Québec, by some people in Vietnam, in Mauritius, in many Pacific Ocean Islands and in other places. In Tunisia, a former French colony, French is still one of the primary languages spoken.
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L'Académie française
Unlike English, French vocabulary and grammatical rules (at least in France) are determined by an official body, l'Académie française (French Academy). The Academy publishes the official French dictionary. While the Academy's recommendations have no legal power as such, it is instrumental in shaping the French language.
The Academy is often criticised for being a brake on the development of the language. For example, the last fully completed edition of its dictionary was completed in 1935 while it has yet to complete the next edition. Because of this, common usage dictates, as in English, what words can be used but are then often changed by the Academy later, especially if they are loan words from English.
Grammar
Pronouns
- Je - I
- Tu - You(informal)
- Il - He
- Elle - She
- On - One (On le souhaite--one wishes it)
- Qui - Who
- Nous - We
- Vous - You(multiple OR formal)
- Ils - Group of people
- Elles - Group of ONLY females
Object Pronouns
French is a predominately SVO with some SOV aspects. For example...
Il mange une pomme à Paris
Il y en mange une
Edouard vais parler aux professeurs
Edouard vais leurs parler
Avez-vous vu Richard
L'avez-vous vu
The objects are substituted with object pronouns which are placed before the verb in present tense or before the axillary verb.
- Les - Denotes plural direct objects.
- Le - A masculine direct object.
- La - A feminine direct object.
- L' - Placed before a verb that starts with a vowel.
- Lui - Refers to a single indirect object that is a person.
- Leur - Refers to a plural indirect object that is a person.
- Y - Refers to a place or an indirect object that isn't a person.
- En - refers to objects with a number.
Verbs
Present Tense
| Pronoun | parl-er | vend-re | fin-ir |
|---|---|---|---|
| Je | parl-e | vend-s | fin-is |
| Tu | Parl-es | Vend-s | fin-is |
| Il/Elle/On/Qui | parl-e | vend | fin-it |
| Nous | parl-ons | vend-ons | fin-issons |
| Vous | parl-ez | vend-ez | fin-issez |
| Ils/Elles | parl-ent | vend-ent | fin-issent |
