The French language is one of the most widespread in the world. While it’s still highly associated with France — the country where it was first formed — most French speakers live in other countries. Getting a grasp on how many people speak French and where people speak French today will take you across almost every continent. It’s a truly global language — and one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. A Brief History Of The French Language French, like Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish, is a Romance language. Romance languages are descended from Vulgar Latin , which was the everyday language of the Romans. It was spread far and wide by Roman colonists, but following the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire, many conquered lands became culturally and linguistically isolated. Vulgar Latin diverged into many different local dialects, which eventually became the Romance languages we know today.…