Francophonie

The Francophonie or Francosphere or Francophone world is the whole body of people and organisations around the world who use the French language regularly for private or public purposes. The term was coined by Onésime Reclus in 1880 and became important as part of the conceptual rethinking of cultures and geography in the late 20th century. When used to refer to the French-speaking world, the Francophonie encompasses the countries and territories where French is official or serves as an administrative or major secondary language, which spans 50 countries and dependencies across all inhabited continents. It is a de jure official language in 26 countries (the third most number of countries after English and Arabic). The vast majority of these are also member states of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), a body uniting countries where French is spoken and taught. While it holds official status in more than two dozen countries, it is the majority's first language in only five states and territories, as the rest of French-speaking nations use it primarily administratively and as a lingua franca among populations whose mother tongues are indigenous or regional languages. This disparity is reflected in the number of speakers: of the 327 million total (the 6th-most in the world), about 74 million are native speakers (the 22nd in the world). In 2017 it was among the top five most studied languages in the world with about 120 million learners.