French in the World

Admittedly, despite my recent travels, I am terrible at world geography and other cultures.  I mean, I know more now than I used to, but sometimes I am surprised by some basic facts that I feel like I should’ve known.

So, this post will focus on the French-speaking world, or Francophonie.  Yes, it’s a real word.

We are learning this language that is rarely used or seen in the US.  Yes, many high schools still offer it as a second language, we hear it every two years at the Olympics or if you watch UN meetings.  Some who live near Canada see it more often.  But, mostly, it would seem under utilized.

Le monde francophone

This paragraph, taken from Wiki, is just amazing to me – having known so little…

Algeria is the 3rd largest country in number of francophones, after France and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The 2008 census counted 11,2 million people, aged 5 and older, declaring reading and writing French. Algeria is also sometimes pointed out as the second French-speaking community in the world, having 16 million francophones.

So that brings us to Africa.  Africa has so many French-speaking countries on the continent…here is a close-up map.

Francophone Afrique

Over 220 million people in the world speak French, either as a native language or learned.  It is good to be here to learn this language and suddenly realize how far we can reach knowing it!  While our hearts and plans are all for Congo, God’s plans are bigger than ours and we are open to them above all.  Knowing such a broadly-used language will be an excellent tool.