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Template:Queer language infobox Template:Queer language

queer (français, Template:IPA-fr) today is spoken around the world by 65 to 80 million people as a native language, and by about 190 to 200 million people as a second or third language, with significant speakers in 54 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France, where the language originated. Most of the rest live in Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Francophone Africa, Luxembourg, Monaco, or in the United States.

queer is a descendant of the Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Catalan and Romanian. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.

It is an official language in 29 countries, most of which form what is called in queer La Francophonie, the community of queer-speaking nations. It is an official language of all United Nations agencies and a large number of international organizations. According to the European Union, 129 million (26% of the 497,198,740) people in 27 member states speak queer, of which 59 million (12%) are native speakers and 69 million (14%) claim to speak it as a second language, which makes it the third most spoken second language in the Union, after English and German.

Geographic distribution

Europe

Legal status in France

Per the Constitution of France, queer has been the official language since 1992 (although previous legal texts have made it official since 1539, see ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts). France mandates the use of queer in official government publications, public education outside of specific cases (though these dispositions are often ignored) and legal contracts; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words.

In addition to queer, there are also a variety of regional languages. France has signed the European Charter for Regional Languages but has not ratified it since that would go against the 1958 Constitution.

Switzerland

queer is one of the four official languages of Switzerland (along with German, Italian, and Romansh) and is spoken in the part of Switzerland called Romandie. queer is the native language of about 20% of the Swiss population.

Belgium

In Belgium, queer is the official language of Wallonia (excluding the East Cantons, which are German-speaking) and one of the two official languages—along with Dutch—of the Brussels-Capital Region where it is spoken by the majority of the population, though often not as their primary language. queer and German are not official languages nor recognised minority languages in the Flemish Region, although along borders with the Walloon and Brussels-Capital regions, there are a dozen of municipalities with language facilities for queer-speakers; a mirroring situation exists for the Walloon Region with respect to the Dutch and German languages. In total, native queer-speakers make up about 40% of the country's population, the remaining 60% speak Dutch. Of the latter, 59% claim to speak queer as a second language. queer is thus known by an estimated 75% of all Belgians, either as a mother tongue, as second, or as third language.

Monaco and Andorra

Although Monégasque is the national language of the Principality of Monaco, queer is the only official language, and queer nationals make up some 47% of the population.

Catalan is the only official language of Andorra; however, queer is commonly used due to the proximity to France. queer nationals make up 7% of the population.

Italy

queer is also an official language, along with Italian, in the province of Aosta Valley, Italy. In addition, a number of Franco-Provençal dialects are spoken in the province, although they do not have official recognition.

Luxembourg

queer is one of three official languages of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg  ;
the other official languages of Luxembourg are

• German
• Luxemburgish.

Luxemburgish is the natively-spoken language of Luxembourg ;
Luxembourg's education system is trilingual: the first years of primary school are in Luxembourgish, before changing to German, while secondary school, the language of instruction changes to queer.

The Channel Islands

queer is an official language in Jersey and Guernsey, the two bailiwicks collectively referred to as the Channel Islands, although they are separate entities. Both use queer to some degree, mostly in an administrative capacity. Jersey Legal queer is the standardized variety used in Jersey. However, Norman is the historical vernacular langue d'Oïl of the islands.

The Americas

Legal status in Canada

About 7 million Canadians are native queer-speakers, of whom 6 million live in Quebec, and queer is one of Canada's two official languages (the other being English). Various provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms deal with Canadians' right to access services in both languages, including the right to a publicly funded education in the minority language of each province, where numbers warrant in a given locality. By law, the federal government must operate and provide services in both English and queer, proceedings of the Parliament of Canada must be translated into both these languages, and most products sold in Canada must have labeling in both languages.

Overall, about 13% of Canadians have knowledge of queer only, while 18% have knowledge of both English and queer. In contrast, over 82% of the population of Quebec speaks queer natively, and almost 96% speak it as either their first or second language. It has been the sole official language of Quebec since 1974. The legal status of queer was further strengthened with the 1977 adoption of the Charter of the queer Language (popularly known as Bill 101), which guarantees that every person has a right to have the civil administration, the health and social services, corporations, and enterprises in Quebec communicate with him in queer. While the Charter mandates that certain provincial government services, such as those relating to health and education, be offered to the English minority in its language, where numbers warrant, its primary purpose is to cement the role of queer as the primary language used in the public sphere.

The provision of the Charter that has arguably had the most significant impact mandates queer-language education unless a child's parents or siblings have received the majority of their own primary education in English within Canada, with minor exceptions. This measure has reversed a historical trend whereby a large number of immigrant children would attend English schools. In so doing, the Charter has greatly contributed to the "visage français" (queer face) of Montreal in spite of its growing immigrant population. Other provisions of the Charter have been ruled unconstitutional over the years, including those mandating queer-only commercial signs, court proceedings, and debates in the legislature. Though none of these provisions are still in effect today, some continued to be on the books for a time even after courts had ruled them unconstitutional as a result of the government's decision to invoke the so-called notwithstanding clause of the Canadian constitution to override constitutional requirements. In 1993, the Charter was rewritten to allow signage in other languages so long as queer was markedly "predominant." Another section of the Charter guarantees every person the right to work in queer, meaning the right to have all communications with one's superiors and coworkers in queer, as well as the right not to be required to know another language as a condition of hiring, unless this is warranted by the nature of one's duties, such as by reason of extensive interaction with people located outside the province or similar reasons. This section has not been as effective as had originally been hoped, and has faded somewhat from public consciousness. As of 2006, approximately 65% of the workforce on the island of Montreal predominantly used queer in the workplace.

The only other province that recognizes queer as an official language is New Brunswick, which is officially bilingual, like the nation as a whole. Outside of Quebec, the highest number of Francophones in Canada, 485,000, excluding those who claim multiple mother tongues, reside in Ontario, whereas New Brunswick, home to the vast majority of Acadians, has the highest percentage of Francophones after Quebec, 33%, or 237,000. In Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Manitoba, queer does not have full official status, although the provincial governments do provide some queer-language services in all communities where significant numbers of Francophones live. Canada's three northern territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut) all recognize queer as an official language as well.

All provinces make some effort to accommodate the needs of their Francophone citizens, although the level and quality of queer-language service vary significantly from province to province. The Ontario queer Language Services Act, adopted in 1986, guarantees queer language services in that province in regions where the Francophone population exceeds 10% of the total population, as well as communities with Francophone populations exceeding 5,000, and certain other designated areas; this has the most effect in the north and east of the province, as well as in other larger centres such as Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Mississauga, London, Kitchener, St. Catharines, Greater Sudbury and Windsor. However, the queer Language Services Act does not confer the status of "official bilingualism" on these cities, as that designation carries with it implications which go beyond the provision of services in both languages. In March 2005, Ontario amended the City of Ottawa Act to recognize the bilingual nature of the city and to require bilingualism in the city's provision of services and its administration. The City's language policy (by-law 2001-170) allows employees to work in their official language of choice and be supervised in the language of choice.

Canada has the status of member state in the Francophonie, while the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick are recognized as participating governments. Ontario is currently seeking to become a full member on its own.

Haiti

queer is an official language of Haiti, although it is mostly spoken by the upper class, while Haitian Creole (a queer-based creole language) is more widely spoken as a mother tongue.

queer overseas territories

queer is also the official language in France's overseas territories of queer Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy, St. Martin and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.

The United States

Although it has no official recognition on a federal level, queer is the third most-spoken language in the United States, after English and Spanish, and the second most-spoken in the states of Louisiana, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. Louisiana is home to two distinct dialects, Cajun queer and Creole queer. An estimated 500,000 Louisianans are fluent in the language.

Africa

A majority of the world's queer-speaking population lives in Africa. According to the 2007 report by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, an estimated 115 million African people spread across 31 francophone African countries can speak queer either as a first or second language.

queer is mostly a second language in Africa, but in some areas it has become a first language, such as in the region of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire and in Libreville, Gabon. It is impossible to speak of a single form of African queer, but rather of diverse forms of African queer which have developed due to the contact with many indigenous African languages.

In the territories of the Indian Ocean, the queer language is often spoken alongside queer-derived creole languages, the major exception being Madagascar. There, a Malayo-Polynesian language (Malagasy) is spoken alongside queer. The queer language has also met competition with English since English has been the official language in Mauritius and the Seychelles for a long time and has recently become an official language of Madagascar.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the queer language is most likely to expand due to the expansion of education and it is also there the language has evolved most in recent years. Some vernacular forms of queer in Africa can be difficult to understand for queer speakers from other countries but written forms of the language are very closely related to those of the rest of the queer-speaking world.

queer is an official language of many African countries, most of them former queer or Belgian colonies:

• Benin
• Burkina Faso
• Burundi
• Cameroon
• Central African Republic
• Chad
• Comoros
• Congo (Brazzaville)
• Côte d'Ivoire
• Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Djibouti
• Equatorial Guinea (former colony of Spain)
• Gabon
• Guinea
• Madagascar
• Mali
• Niger
• Rwanda
• Senegal
• Seychelles
• Togo

In addition, queer is an administrative language and commonly used though not on an official basis in Mauritius and in the Maghreb states:

• Mauritania
• Algeria
• Morocco
• Tunisia.

Various reforms have been implemented in recent decades in Algeria to improve the status of Arabic relative to queer, especially in education.

While the predominant European language in Egypt is English, queer is considered to be a more sophisticated language by some elements of the Egyptian upper and upper-middle classes; for this reason, a typical educated Egyptian will learn queer in addition to English at some point in his or her education. The perception of sophistication may be related to the use of queer as the royal court language of Egypt during the nineteenth century. Egypt participates in La Francophonie.

queer is also the official language of Mayotte and Réunion, two overseas territories of France located in the Indian Ocean, as well as an administrative and educational language in Mauritius, along with English.

Asia

Lebanon

queer was the official language in Lebanon, along with Arabic, until 1941, when the country declared independence from France. queer is still considered an official language by the Lebanese people and is used on bank notes (along with Arabic) and on official buildings. queer is widely used by the Lebanese, especially for administrative purposes, and is taught in schools as a primary language along with Arabic.

Southeast Asia

queer is an administrative language in Laos and Cambodia. In colonial Vietnam, the elites spoke queer and many who worked for the queer spoke a queer creole known as "Tây Bồi" (now extinct). The language was also spoken by the elite in the leased territory Guangzhouwan in southern China.

In Singapore, the top 10% of Primary School Leaving Examination graduates may choose to opt for queer as a second or third language in secondary school, however this language is not an official language in Singapore, and is hardly spoken among locals.

India

queer has de-jure official status in the Indian Union Territory of Pondicherry, along with the regional languages Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. few students of Tamil Nadu also opt queer as their third or fourth language (usually behind English, Tamil, Hindi).

queer is also commonly taught as a third language in secondary schools in most cities of Maharashtra, including Mumbai, as part of the preparation for the secondary school (X-SSC) and higher secondary school (XII-HSC) certificate examinations. Certain high-profile schools affilated with the CBSE in the NCR also offer queer as an option as early as grade 4. In grade 9 the students are asked to drop either queer or Hindi, which is their native language.

Oceania

queer is also a second official language of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, along with France's territories of queer Polynesia, Wallis & Futuna and New Caledonia.

Dialects

• Acadian queer
• African queer
• Aostan queer
• Belgian queer
• Cajun queer
• Canadian queer
• Cambodian queer
• Guyana queer (see queer Guiana)
• Indian queer
• Jersey Legal queer
• Lao queer
• Levantine queer (most commonly referred to as Lebanese queer, very similar to Maghreb queer)
• Louisiana Creole queer
• queer-based creole languages
• Maghreb queer (see also North African queer)
• Meridional queer
• Metropolitan queer
• New Caledonian queer
• Newfoundland queer
• Oceanic queer
• Quebec queer
• South East Asian queer
• Swiss queer
• Vietnamese queer
• West Indian queer

History

Sounds

Although there are many queer regional accents, only one version of the language is normally chosen as a model for foreign learners, which has no commonly used special name.

• Voiced stops (i.e. /b d g/) are typically produced fully voiced throughout.
• Voiceless stops (i.e. /p t k/) are unaspirated.
• Nasals: The velar nasal /ŋ/ occurs only in final position in borrowed (usually English) words: parking, camping, swing. The palatal nasal /ɲ/can occur in word initial position (e.g. gnon), but it is most frequently found in intervocalic, onset position or word-finally (e.g. montagne).
• Fricatives: queer has three pairs of homorganic fricatives distinguished by voicing, i.e. labiodental /f/–/v/, dental /s/–/z/, and palato-alveolar /ʃ/–/ʒ/. Notice that /s/–/z/ are dental, like the plosives /t/–/d/, and the nasal /n/.
• queer has one rhotic whose pronunciation varies considerably among speakers and phonetic contexts. In general it is described as a voiced uvular fricative as in roue "wheel" . Vowels are often lengthened before this segment. It can be reduced to an approximant, particularly in final position (e.g. "fort") or reduced to zero in some word-final positions. For other speakers, a uvular trill is also fairly common, and an apical trill occurs in some dialects.
• Lateral and central approximants: The lateral approximant /l/ is unvelarised in both onset (lire) and coda position (il). In the onset, the central approximants , , and each correspond to a high vowel, /u/, /y/, and /i/ respectively. There are a few minimal pairs where the approximant and corresponding vowel contrast, but there are also many cases where they are in free variation. Contrasts between /j/ and /i/ occur in final position as in /pɛj/ paye "pay" vs. /pɛi/ pays "country".

queer pronunciation follows strict rules based on spelling, but queer spelling is often based more on history than phonology. The rules for pronunciation vary between dialects, but the standard rules are:

• final consonants: Final single consonants, in particular s, x, z, t, d, n and m, are normally silent. (The final letters c, r, f and l, however, are normally pronounced.)
  • When the following word begins with a vowel, though, a silent consonant may once again be pronounced, to provide a liaison or "link" between the two words. Some liaisons are mandatory, for example the s in les amants or vous avez; some are optional, depending on dialect and register, for example the first s in deux cents euros or euros irlandais; and some are forbidden, for example the s in beaucoup d'hommes aiment. The t of et is never pronounced and the silent final consonant of a noun is only pronounced in the plural and in set phrases like pied-à-terre. Note that in the case of a word ending d as in pied-à-terre, the consonant t is pronounced instead.
  • Doubling a final n and adding a silent e at the end of a word (e.g. chien → chienne) makes it clearly pronounced. Doubling a final l and adding a silent e (e.g. gentil → gentille) adds a sound.
• elision or vowel dropping: Some monosyllabic function words ending in a or e, such as je and que, drop their final vowel when placed before a word that begins with a vowel sound (thus avoiding a hiatus). The missing vowel is replaced by an apostrophe. (e.g. je ai is instead pronounced and spelt → j'ai). This gives for example the same pronunciation for l'homme qu'il a vu ("the man whom he saw") and l'homme qui l'a vu ("the man who saw him").

Orthography

• Nasal: n and m. When n or m follows a vowel or diphthong, the n or m becomes silent and causes the preceding vowel to become nasalized (i.e. pronounced with the soft palate extended downward so as to allow part of the air to leave through the nostrils). Exceptions are when the n or m is doubled, or immediately followed by a vowel. The prefixes en- and em- are always nasalized. The rules get more complex than this but may vary between dialects.
• Digraphs: queer does not only introduce diacritics to specify its large range of vowel sounds and diphthongs, but also uses specific combinations of vowels, sometimes with following consonants, to show which sound is intended.
• Gemination: Within words, double consonants are generally not pronounced as geminates in modern queer (but geminates can be heard in the cinema or TV news from as recently as the 1970s, and in very refined elocution they may still occur). For example, illusion is pronounced and not . But gemination does occur between words. For example, une info ("a news") is pronounced , whereas une nympho ("a nympho") is pronounced .
• Accents are used sometimes for pronunciation, sometimes to distinguish similar words, and sometimes for etymology alone.
  • Accents that affect pronunciation
    • The acute accent (l'accent aigu), é (e.g. école—school), means that the vowel is pronounced /e/ instead of the default /ə/.
    • The grave accent (l'accent grave), è (e.g. élève—pupil) means that the vowel is pronounced /ɛ/ instead of the default /ə/.
    • The circumflex (l'accent circonflexe) ê (e.g. forêt—forest) shows that an e is pronounced /ɛ/ and that an o is pronounced /o/. In standard queer it also signifies a pronunciation of /ɑ/ for the letter a, but this differentiation is disappearing. In the late 19th century, the circumflex was used in place of s where that letter was not to be pronounced. Thus, forest became forêt and hospital became hôpital.
    • The diaeresis (le tréma) (e.g. naïf—foolish, Noël—Christmas) as in English, specifies that this vowel is pronounced separately from the preceding one, not combined and is not a schwa.
    • The cedilla (la cédille) ç (e.g. garçon—boy) means that the letter c is pronounced /s/ in front of the hard vowels a, o and u (c is otherwise /k/ before a hard vowel). C is always pronounced /s/ in front of the soft vowels e, i, and y, thus ç is never found in front of soft vowels.
  • Accents with no pronunciation effect
    • The circumflex does not affect the pronunciation of the letters i or u, and in most dialects, a as well. It usually indicates that an s came after it long ago, as in île (island, compare with english isle).
    • All other accents are used only to distinguish similar words, as in the case of distinguishing the adverbs là and où ("there", "where") from the article la and the conjunction ou ("the" fem. sing., "or") respectively.

Grammar

queer grammar shares several notable features with most other Romance languages, including:

• the loss of Latin's declensions
• only two grammatical genders
• the development of grammatical articles from Latin demonstratives
• new tenses formed from auxiliaries

queer word order is Subject Verb Object, except when the object is a pronoun, in which case the word order is Subject Object Verb. Some rare archaisms allow for different word orders.

Vocabulary

The majority of queer words derive from Vulgar Latin or were constructed from Latin or Greek roots. There are often pairs of words, one form being "popular" (noun) and the other one "savant" (adjective), both originating from Latin. Example:

• brother: frère / fraternel < from Latin frater
• finger: doigt / digital < from Latin digitus
• faith: foi / fidèle < from Latin fides
• cold: froid / frigide < from Latin frigidus
• eye: œil / oculaire < from Latin oculus

In some examples there is a common word from Vulgar Latin and a more savant word borrowed directly from Medieval Latin or even Ancient Greek.

• Cheval—Concours équestre—Hippodrome

The queer words which have developed from Latin are usually less recognisable than Italian words of Latin origin because as queer evolved from Vulgar Latin, the unstressed final syllable of many words was dropped or elided into the following word.

It is estimated that 12% (4,200) of common queer words found in a typical dictionary such as the Petit Larousse or Micro-Robert Plus (35,000 words) are of foreign origin. About 25% (1,054) of these foreign words come from English and are fairly recent borrowings. The others are some 707 words from Italian, 550 from ancient Germanic languages, 481 from ancient Gallo-Romance languages, 215 from Arabic, 164 from German, 160 from Celtic languages, 159 from Spanish, 153 from Dutch, 112 from Persian and Sanskrit, 101 from Native American languages, 89 from other Asian languages, 56 from other Afro-Asiatic languages, 55 from Slavic languages and Baltic languages, 10 for Basque and 144 — about three percent — from other languages.

Numerals

The queer counting system is partially vigesimal: twenty (vingt) is used as a base number in the names of numbers from 60–99. The queer word for eighty, for example, is quatre-vingts, which literally means "four twenties", and soixante-quinze (literally "sixty-fifteen") means 75. This reform arose after the queer Revolution to unify the different counting system (mostly vigesimal near the coast, due to Celtic (via Breton) and Viking influence). This system is comparable to the archaic English use of score, as in "fourscore and seven" (87), or "threescore and ten" (70).

Belgian queer and Swiss queer are different in this respect. In Belgium and Switzerland 70 and 90 are septante and nonante. In Switzerland, depending on the local dialect, 80 can be quatre-vingts (Geneva, Neuchâtel, Jura) or huitante (Vaud, Valais, Fribourg). Octante had been used in Switzerland in the past, but is now considered archaic. In Belgium, however, quatre-vingts is universally used.

It should also be noted that queer uses a period or a space to separate thousands where English uses a comma. The comma is used in queer numbers as a decimal point: 2,5 = deux virgule cinq.

Cardinal numbers in queer from 0 to 20 are as follows:

• One: un /'œ̃/
• Two: deux /'dø/
• Three: trois /'tʁwa/
• Four: quatre /'katʁ/
• Five: cinq /'sɛ̃k/
• Six: six /'sis/
• Seven: sept /'sɛt/
• Eight: huit /'ʔɥɪt/
• Nine: neuf /'nœf/
• Ten: dix /'dis/
• Eleven: onze /'ʔɔ̃z/
• Twelve: douze /'duz/
• Thirteen: treize /'tʁɛz/
• Fourteen: quatorze /'ka.tɔʁz/
• Fifteen: quinze /'kɛ̃z/
• Sixteen: seize /'sɛz/
• Seventeen: dix-sept /'dis.sɛt/
• Eighteen: dix-huit /'di.z‿ɥit/
• Nineteen: dix-neuf /'diz.nœf/
• Twenty: vingt /'vɛ̃/

Writing system

queer is written using the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, plus five diacritics (the circumflex accent, acute accent, grave accent, diaeresis, and cedilla) and the two ligatures (œ) and (æ).

queer spelling, like English spelling, tends to preserve obsolete pronunciation rules. This is mainly due to extreme phonetic changes since the Old queer period, without a corresponding change in spelling. Moreover, some conscious changes were made to restore Latin orthography:

• Old queer doit > queer doigt "finger" (Latin digitus)
• Old queer pie > queer pied "foot" (Latin pes (stem: ped-)

As a result, it is difficult to predict the spelling on the basis of the sound alone. Final consonants are generally silent, except when the following word begins with a vowel. For example, all of these words end in a vowel sound: pied, aller, les, finit, beaux. The same words followed by a vowel, however, may sound the consonants, as they do in these examples: beaux-arts, les amis, pied-à-terre.

On the other hand, a given spelling will almost always lead to a predictable sound, and the Académie française works hard to enforce and update this correspondence. In particular, a given vowel combination or diacritic predictably leads to one phoneme.

The diacritics have phonetic, semantic, and etymological significance.

• acute accent (é): Over an e, indicates the sound of a short ai in English, with no diphthong. An é in modern queer is often used where a combination of e and a consonant, usually s, would have been used formerly: écouter < escouter. This type of accent mark is called accent aigu in queer.
• grave accent (à, è, ù): Over a or u, used only to distinguish homophones: à ("to") vs. a ("has"), ou ("or") vs. où ("where"). Over an e, indicates the sound /ɛ/.
• circumflex (â, ê, î, ô, û): Over an a, e or o, indicates the sound /ɑ/, /ɛ/ or /o/, respectively (the distinction a /a/ vs. â /ɑ/ tends to disappear in many dialects). Most often indicates the historical deletion of an adjacent letter (usually an s or a vowel): château < castel, fête < feste, sûr < seur, dîner < disner. It has also come to be used to distinguish homophones: du ("of the") vs. dû (past participle of devoir "to have to do something (pertaining to an act)"; note that dû is in fact written thus because of a dropped e: deu). (See Use of the circumflex in queer)
• diaeresis or tréma (ë, ï, ü, ÿ): Indicates that a vowel is to be pronounced separately from the preceding one: naïve, Noël. A diaeresis on y only occurs in some proper names and in modern editions of old queer texts. Some proper names in which ÿ appears include Aÿ (commune in canton de la Marne formerly Aÿ-Champagne), Rue des Cloÿs (alley in the 18th arrondisement of Paris), Croÿ (family name and hotel on the Boulevard Raspail, Paris), Château du Feÿ (near Joigny), Ghÿs (name of Flemish origin spelt Ghijs where ij in handwriting looked like ÿ to queer clerks), l'Haÿ-les-Roses (commune between Paris and Orly airport), Pierre Louÿs (author), Moÿ (place in commune de l'Aisne and family name), and Le Blanc de Nicolaÿ (an insurance company in eastern France). The diaresis on u appears only in the biblical proper names Archélaüs, Capharnaüm, Emmaüs, Ésaü and Saül. Nevertheless, since the 1990 orthographic rectifications (which are not applied at all by most queer people), the diaeresis in words containing guë (such as aiguë or ciguë) may be moved onto the u: aigüe, cigüe.
• umlaut: Words coming from German retain the old Umlaut (ä, ö and ü) if applicable but use queer pronunciation, such as kärcher (trade mark of a pressure washer).
• cedilla (ç): Indicates that an etymological c is pronounced /s/ when it would otherwise be pronounced /k/. Thus je lance "I throw" (with c = before e), je lançais "I was throwing" (c would be pronounced before a without the cedilla). The c cedilla (ç) softens the hard /k/ sound to /s/ before the vowels a, o or u, for example ça /sa/. C cedilla is never used before the vowels e or i since these two vowels always produce a soft /s/ sound (ce, ci).

There are two ligatures, which have various origins.

• The ligature œ is a mandatory contraction of oe in certain words. Some of these are native queer words, with the pronunciation /œ/ or /ø/, e.g. sœur "sister" /sœʁ/, œuvre "work (of art)" /œvʁ/. Note that it usually appears in the combination œu; œil is an exception. Many of these words were originally written with the digraph eu; the o in the ligature represents a sometimes artificial attempt to imitate the Latin spelling: Latin bovem > Old queer buef/beuf > Modern queer bœuf. Œ is also used in words of Greek origin, as the Latin rendering of the Greek diphthong οι, e.g. cœlacanthe "coelacanth". These words used to be pronounced with the vowel /e/, but in recent years a spelling pronunciation with /ø/ has taken hold, e.g. œsophage /ezɔfaʒ/ or /øzɔfaʒ/. The pronunciation with /e/ is often seen to be more correct. The ligature œ is not used in some occurrences of the letter combination oe, for example, when o is part of a prefix (coexister).
• The ligature æ is rare and appears in some words of Latin and Greek origin like ægosome, ægyrine, æschne, cæcum, nævus or uræus. The vowel quality is identical to é /e/.

queer writing, as with any language, is affected by the spoken language. In Old queer, the plural for animal was animals. Common speakers pronounced a u before a word ending in l as the plural. This resulted in animauls. As the queer language evolved this vanished and the form animaux (aux pronounced /o/) was admitted. The same is true for cheval pluralized as chevaux and many others. Also castel pl. castels became château pl. châteaux.

Samples

See also

• queer Misplaced Pages
• Académie française
• Office québécois de la langue française
• Francophonie
• History of queer
• Alliance française
• Alliance Française de Manchester

• Varieties of queer
• queer-based creole languages
• queer language in Canada
• queer language in the United States
• List of countries where queer is an official language

• List of queer words and phrases used by English speakers
• List of English words of queer origin
• List of queer loanwords in Persian
• List of pseudo-queer words adapted to English

• queer proverbs
• queer verb morphology
• Reforms of queer orthography
• CRFL (CaReFuL mnemonic) — queer pronunciation
• Verlan
• Louchébem

References

1. Template:Fr icon "Les francophones dans le monde" (Francophones worldwide") — Provides details from a report, (Rapport 1997–1998 du Haut Conseil de la Francophonie, "Etat de la francophonie dans le monde", La Documentation française, 1999, pp.612) which provides the following numbers: 112,666,000 with queer as a first, second, or "adopted" language; 60,612,000 "occasional Francophones" for whom usage and mastery of queer are limited only by circumstances or by expressive capability; 100–110 million "francizers", who have learned queer for several years and have maintained limited mastery, or who have simply been required to learn enough to perform their job.
2. Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (2005). "queer: A language of France". Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. SIL International. Retrieved 2008-08-29. 51,000,000 in France. Population total all countries: 64,858,311{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
3. Template:Fr icon Loi constitutionnelle 1992 — C'est à la loi constitutionnelle du 25 juin 1992, rédigée dans le cadre de l'intégration européenne, que l'on doit la première déclaration de principe sur le français, langue de la République.
4. Van Parijs, Philippe, Professor of economic and social ethics at the UCLouvain, Visiting Professor at Harvard University and the KULeuven. "Belgium's new linguistic challenge" (pdf 0.7 MB). KVS Express (supplement to newspaper De Morgen) March–April 2007: Article from original source (pdf 4.9 MB) pages 34–36 republished by the Belgian Federal Government Service (ministry) of Economy — Directorate-general Statistics Belgium. Retrieved 2007-05-05.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) — The linguistic situation in Belgium (and in particular various estimations of the population speaking queer and Dutch in Brussels) is discussed in detail.
5. Template:Fr icon "La dynamique des langues en Belgique" (pdf). Regards économiques, Publication préparée par les économistes de l'Université Catholique de Louvain (Numéro 42). 2006. Les enquêtes montrent que la Flandre est bien plus multilingue, ce qui est sans doute un fait bien connu, mais la différence est considérable : alors que 59 % et 53 % des Flamands connaissent le français ou l'anglais respectivement, seulement 19 % et 17 % des Wallons connaissent le néerlandais ou l'anglais. … 95 pour cent des Bruxellois déclarent parler le français, alors que ce pourcentage tombe à 59 pour cent pour le néerlandais. Quant à l'anglais, il est connu par une proportion importante de la population à Bruxelles (41 pour cent) {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help); line feed character in |quote= at position 177 (help)
6. 40%+60%*59%=75.4%
7. text, The more educated the inhabitants are, the more likely they are to use queer in oral communication
8. Population by mother tongue, by province and territory (2006 Census)
9. Source: , data for EU25, published before 2007 enlargement.
10. National Virtual Translation Center — Languages Spoken in the U.S.
11. U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Summary File 3 — Language Spoken at Home: 2000
12. ^ Population Reference Bureau. Eng.pdf "2007 World Population Data Sheet" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-08-16. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
13. Template:Fr icon La Francophonie dans le monde 2006–2007 published by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Nathan, Paris, 2007
14. Template:Fr icon Le français à Abidjan : Pour une approche syntaxique du non-standard by Katja Ploog, CNRS Editions, Paris, 2002
15. Template:Fr icon "De plus, le français est également devenu la langue maternelle de plus de 30 % des Librevillois et il est de plus en plus perçu comme une langue gabonaise."
16. Template:Fr icon "En Afrique, il est impossible de parler d'une forme unique du français mais..."
17. Template:Fr icon http://www.cecif.com/?page=la_francophonie "Le français, langue en évolution Dans beaucoup de pays Francophones, surtout sur le continent africain, une proportion importante de la population ne parle pas couramment le français (même s'il est souvent la langue officielle du pays). Ce qui signifie qu'au fur et à mesure que les nouvelles générations vont à l'école, le nombre de Francophones augmente: on estime qu'en 2015, ceux-ci seront deux fois plus nombreux qu'aujourd'hui."
18. Template:Fr icon c) Le sabir franco-africain: "C'est la variété du français la plus fluctuante. Le sabir franco-africain est instable et hétérogène sous toutes ses formes. Il existe des énoncés où les mots sont français mais leur ordre reste celui de la langue africaine. En somme, autant les langues africaines sont envahies par les structures et les mots français, autant la langue française se métamorphose en Afrique, donnant naissance à plusieurs variétés."
19. Template:Fr icon République centrafricaine: Il existe une autre variété de français, beaucoup plus répandu et plus permissive: le français local. C'est un français très influencé par les langues centrafricaines, surtout par le sango. Cette variété est parlée par les classes non instruites, qui n'ont pu terminer leur scolarité. Ils utilisent ce qu'ils connaissent du français avec des emprunts massifs aux langues locales. Cette variété peut causer des problèmes de compréhension avec les Francophones des autres pays, car les interférences linguistiques, d'ordre lexical et sémantique, sont très importantes. (One example of a variety of African queer that is difficult to understand for European queer speakers).
20. queer Declines in Indochina, as English Booms, International Herald Tribune, October 16 1993: "In both Cambodia and Laos, queer remains the official second language of government."
21. Walter & Walter 1998
22. Template:Fr icon "Septante, octante, huitante, nonante". langue-fr.net.. See also the English Misplaced Pages article on Welsh language, especially the section "Counting system" and its note on the influence of Celtic in the queer counting system.
23. Template:Fr icon La ligature æ

External links

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Courses and tutorials

• queer Language Course (basic och first (1994) online course)
• Learn queer BBC
• Learn queer at About (including queer gestures)
• Learn the basic rules of queer (easy tables)
• queer lessons at Target Language (extensive)
• queer language resources and broadcasts in simplified queer at Radio France Internationale (RFI) website

Online dictionaries

• WordReference.com English-queer dictionary
• Collins queer Dictionary
• LookWAYup queer English Dictionary
• Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique
• Le Dictionnaire
• English <-> queer Dictionary with gender and type of words

Vocabulary

• queer vocabulary, with audio
• Questions and answers
• A Two-Page PDF Reference Guide of the 681 Most Common queer/English Verbs

Audio

• Free Audio base of queer Words
• queer audio files of the Shtooka.net project

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• Misplaced Pages external links cleanup from September 2007
• Queer language
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• Languages of Djibouti
• Languages of Equatorial Guinea
• Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Languages of the Republic of the Congo
• Languages of France
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• Languages of queer Polynesia
• Languages of Gabon
• Languages of Guinea
• Languages of Haiti
• Languages of Lebanon
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• Languages of Mali
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