Bienvenue Francophonie Day!
Bienvenue Francophonie Day! La Francophonie is the term used to describe all the countries and people who share French as a common language.
March 20th marks French language day, today we celebrate the French language, its many cultures and how it marks history. French culture has influenced the entire world. It is the official language of 28 countries and a third of English words have a French origin.
Its history is pretty interesting, although the French language came from ‘Vulgar Latin’ (the simplified Latin language spoken by the common Roman people) in the 5th century AD, it was first recorded in ‘Le Serment de Strasbourg’, an oath declaring alliance between the Holy Roman Emperor Charles II and Louis the German.
French is known as a Romance language (yes, it is a romantic language but that’s not what it’s referring to). Romance language refers to a group of languages based on Latin, spoken by the Romans. It also includes Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and a few more.
English speakers have adopted words to their own vocab as well - déjà vu, rendez-vous, cliché and encore are a few that you will recognise.
Today we acknowledge, appreciate and learn the beauty of this language. Here’s a few things you can do to immerse yourself – play some French music, watch a French film, speak the language (or just use the greetings if you don’t know French) and last but not least, drink French wine! #FrenchLanguageDay
