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| African French | |
|---|---|
| français africain | |
| Region | Africa |
| Speakers | L1:1.2 million (2021)[1] L1 andL2:167 million (2024)[2][3][4] |
Early forms | |
| Dialects |
|
| Latin (French alphabet) French Braille | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Countries |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| IETF | fr-002 |
 | |
 Official status and native speakers as of 2025: Countries in which it is an officialde jure language Areas and regions in which it is spoken as a first language | |
| Part ofa series on the |
| French language |
|---|
| History |
| Grammar |
| Orthography |
| Phonology |
African French (French:français africain) is the umbrella grouping ofvarieties of theFrench language spoken throughout FrancophoneAfrica. Used mainly as asecondary language orlingua franca, it is spoken by an estimated 167 million people across 34 countries and territories,[Note 1] some of which are not Francophone, but merely members or observers of theOrganisation internationale de la Francophonie. Of these, 18 sovereign states recognize it as an officialde jure language, though it is not the native tongue of the majority.[2] According toEthnologue, only 1,2 million people spoke it as a first language.[1][better source needed] African French speakers represent 47% of theFrancophonie, making Africa the continent with the most French speakers in the world.[3][4]
In Africa, French is often spoken as a second language alongside the Indigenous ones, but in a small number of urban areas (in particular inCentral Africa and in the ports located on theGulf of Guinea) it has become a first language, such as in the region ofAbidjan,Côte d'Ivoire,[7] theDemocratic Republic of Congo,[8] in the urban areas ofDouala,Yaoundé inCameroon, inLibreville,Gabon, andAntananarivo[9].
In some countries, though not having officialde jure status, it is a first language among a small socialclasses of the population, such as inAlgeria,Tunisia,Morocco, andMauritania, where French is a first language among theupper classes along with Arabic (many people in the upper classes aresimultaneous bilinguals in Arabic/French), but only a second language among the general population.
In each of the Francophone African countries, French is spoken with local variations in pronunciation and vocabulary.
French proficiency in African countries according to theOrganisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).[10][11][12][a]
| Countries | Total population | French speaking population | Percentage of the population that speaks French | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Algeria | 47,435,000 | 15,589,000 | 32.86% | 2025 |
 Benin | 14,814,000 | 4,992,000 | 33.7% | 2025 |
 Burkina Faso | 24,075,000 | 5,499,000 | 22.84% | 2025 |
 Burundi | 14,390,000 | 1,250,000 | 8.68% | 2025 |
 Cabo Verde | 527,000 | 52,000 | 10.83% | 2025 |
 Cameroon | 29,879,000 | 12,267,000 | 41.06% | 2025 |
 Central African Republic | 5,513,000 | 1,345,000 | 24.39% | 2025 |
 Chad | 21,004,000 | 2,693,000 | 12.82% | 2025 |
 Comoros | 883,000 | 333,000 | 37.73% | 2025 |
 Congo | 6,484,000 | 3,981,000 | 61.4% | 2025 |
 Côte d'Ivoire | 32,712,000 | 11,913,000 | 36.42% | 2025 |
 Djibouti | 1,184,000 | 592,000 | 50% | 2025 |
 DR Congo | 112,832,000 | 57,196,000 | 50.69% | 2025 |
 Egypt | 118,366,000 | 3,573,000 | 3.02% | 2025 |
 Equatorial Guinea | 1,938,000 | 560,000 | 28.91% | 2025 |
 Gabon | 2,593,000 | 1,719,000 | 66.3% | 2025 |
 Gambia | 2,822,000 | 564,000 | 20.00% | 2025 |
 Ghana | 35,064,000 | 645,000 | 1.84% | 2025 |
 Guinea | 15,100,000 | 4,202,000 | 27.83% | 2025 |
 Guinea-Bissau | ||||
 Madagascar | 32,741,000 | 8,705,000 | 26.59% | 2025 |
 Mali | 25,199,000 | 5,028,000 | 19.95% | 2025 |
 Mauritania | 5,315,000 | 689,000 | 12.96% | 2025 |
 Mauritius | 1,268,000 | 921,000 | 72.65% | 2025 |
 Morocco | 38,431,000 | 13,912,000 | 36.2% | 2025 |
 Niger | 27,918,000 | 3,754,000 | 13.45% | 2025 |
 Rwanda | 14,569,000 | 748,000 | 5.14% | 2025 |
 São Tomé and Príncipe | ||||
 Senegal | 18,932,000 | 5,250,000 | 27.73% | 2025 |
 Seychelles | 133,000 | 70,000 | 53.00% | 2025 |
 Togo | 9,722,000 | 3,998,000 | 41.12% | 2025 |
 Tunisia | 12,349,000 | 6,558,000 | 53.11% | 2025 |
| Country | Notes |
|---|---|
| Benin | Sole official |
| Congo, Democratic Republic of | Sole official |
| Congo, Republic of | Sole official |
| Gabon | Sole official |
| Guinea | Sole official |
| Ivory Coast | Sole official |
| Senegal | Sole official |
| Togo | Sole official |
| Burundi | Co-official withKirundi,English |
| Cameroon | Co-official withEnglish |
| Chad | Co-official withArabic |
| Central African Republic | Co-official withSango |
| Comoros | Co-official withComorian, Arabic |
| Djibouti | Co-official with Arabic |
| Equatorial Guinea | Co-official withSpanish,Portuguese |
| Madagascar | Co-official withMalagasy |
| Rwanda | Co-official withKinyarwanda, English, Swahili |
| Seychelles | Co-official with English,Seychellois Creole |
| Country | Official languages | Usage of French |
|---|---|---|
| Algeria | Arabic | Administrative, commercial, cultural, educational |
| Burkina Faso | Mooré,Dyula,Fula | Working language. Removed as an official language in 2024 |
| Mali | Bambara,Bobo,Hassaniya Arabic,Bozo,Dogon, Toro So,Fula,Kassonke,Maninke,Minyanka,Senufo, Senara,Songhay, Koyraboro Senni,Soninke,Tamasheq | Working language, commercial, educational. Removed as an official language in 2023 |
| Mauritania | Arabic | Used in the media, business, and among educated classes |
| Mauritius | Nonede jure | De facto official with English, used in government administration, courts, and business |
| Morocco | Arabic,Tamazight | Administrative, commercial, cultural, educational |
| Niger | Hausa | Administrative, commercial, educational. Removed as an official language in 2025 |
| Tunisia | Arabic | Administrative, commercial, cultural, educational |
There are many different varieties of African French, but they can be broadly grouped into five categories:[13]
All the African French varieties differ fromStandard French, both in terms of pronunciation and vocabulary, but the formal African French used in education, media and legal documents is based on standard French vocabulary.
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In the colonial period, a vernacular form ofcreole French known asPetit nègre ("littlenegro") was also present in West Africa. The term has since, however, become a pejorative term for "poorly spoken" African French.
InAngola, French is spoken in Angola especiallyCabinda, particularly in the northern regions. WhilePortuguese is the official language, French is understood and spoken, especially among the Kongo people in the north and by Angolans with French ancestry. It's also one of the foreign languages taught in schools with 90% speak French from neighboringDR Congo as a legacy ofBelgian colonial rule which established asBelgium's private colony ofFrancophone Africa until its independence on 30 June 1960.
Code-switching, or the alternation of languages within a single conversation, takes place in bothDR Congo andSenegal, the former having four "national" languages –Ciluba,Kikongo,Lingala, andSwahili – which are in a permanent opposition to French. Code-switching has been studied since colonial times by different institutions of linguistics. One of these, located inDakar, Senegal, already spoke of the creolization[inconsistent] of French in 1968, naming the result "franlof": a mix of French andWolof (the language most spoken in Senegal) which spreads by its use in urban areas and through schools, where teachers often speak Wolof in the classroom despite official instructions.[15]
The omnipresence of local languages in Francophone African countries – along with insufficiencies in education – has given birth to a new linguistic concept:le petit français.[16]Le petit français is the result of a superposition of the structure of a local language with a narrowed lexical knowledge of French. The specific structures, though very different, are juxtaposed, marking the beginning of the creolization process.
Some African countries such asAlgeria intermittently attempted to remove the use of French; it was removed as an official language inMali,Burkina Faso, andNiger in 2023, 2024, and 2025 respectively.[17][18][19]
In the urban areas of Francophone Africa, another type of French has emerged:Français populaire africain ("Popular African French") or FPA. It is used in the entirety ofSub-Saharan Africa, but especially in cities such asAbidjan, Côte d'Ivoire;Cotonou, Benin;Dakar, Senegal;Lomé, Togo; andOuagadougou, Burkina Faso. At its emergence, it was marginalized and associated with the ghetto; Angèle Bassolé-Ouedraogo describes the reaction of the scholars:
Administration and professors do not want to hear that funny-sounding and barbarian language that seems to despise articles and distorts the sense of words. They see in it a harmful influence to the mastery of good French.[20]
However, FPA has begun to emerge as a second language among the upper class. It has also become a symbol of social acceptance.[citation needed]
FPA can be seen as a progressive evolution of Ivorian French. After diffusing out of Côte d'Ivoire, it became Africanized under the influence of young Africans (often students) and cinema, drama, and dance.[citation needed]
FPA has its own grammatical rules and lexicon. For example, "Il ou elle peut me tuer!" or "Il ou elle peut me dja!" can either mean "This person annoys me very much (literally he or she is annoying me to death)" or "I'm dying (out of love) for him/her" depending on the circumstances. "Il ou elle commence à me plaire" signifies a feeling of exasperation (whereupon it actually means "he or she starts to appeal to me"), and friendship can be expressed with "c'est mon môgô sûr" or "c'est mon bramôgo."[20]
FPA is mainly composed ofmetaphors and images taken from African languages. For example, the upper social class is called "les en-haut d'en-haut" (the above from above) or "les môgôs puissants" (the powerful môgôs).
Pronunciation in the many varieties of African French can be quite varied. There are nonetheless some trends among African French speakers; for instance,⟨r⟩ tends to be pronounced as the historicalveolar trill of pre-20th Century French instead of the now standarduvular trill or 'guttural R.' Thevoiced velar fricative, the sound represented by⟨غ⟩ in theArabic wordمغربMaghrib, is another common alternative. Pronunciation of the letters⟨d⟩,⟨t⟩,⟨l⟩ and⟨l⟩ may also vary, andintonation may differ from standard French.[citation needed]
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According to some estimates, French is spoken by 75 to 99 percent ofAbidjan's population,[21] either alone or alongside indigenous African languages. There are three sorts of French spoken in Abidjan. A formal French is spoken by the educated classes. Most of the population, however, speaks a colloquial form of French known asfrançais de Treichville (after a working-class district of Abidjan) orfrançais de Moussa (after a character in chronicles published by the magazineIvoire Dimanche which are written in this colloquial Abidjan French). Finally, an Abidjan French slang calledNouchi has evolved from an ethnically neutrallingua franca among uneducated youth into acreole language with a distinct grammar.[22] New words often appear inNouchi and then make their way into colloquial Abidjan French after some time.[23] As of 2012, acrowdsourced dictionary ofNouchi was being written using mobile phones.[24]
Here are some examples of words used in the African French variety spoken in Abidjan (the spelling used here conforms toFrench orthography, except ô which is pronounced[ɔ]):[25]
When speaking in a formal context, or when meeting French speakers from outside Côte d'Ivoire, Abidjan speakers would replace these local words with the French standard wordsune fille,un restaurant orune cantine,un copain,battre andl'argent respectively. Note that some local words are used across several African countries. For example,chicotter is attested not only in Côte d'Ivoire but also inSenegal,Mali,Niger,Burkina Faso,Chad, theCentral African Republic,Benin,Togo and theDemocratic Republic of the Congo.[23]
As already mentioned, these local words range from slang to formal usage, and their use therefore varies depending on the context. In Abidjan, this is how the sentence "The girl stole my money." is constructed depending on theregister:[23]
Another unique, identifiable feature of Ivorian French is the use of the phrasen'avoir qu'à + infinitif which, translated into English, roughly means,to have only to + infinitive.[27] The phrase is often used in linguistic contexts of expressing a wish or creating hypotheticals. This original Ivorian phrase is generally used across the Côte d'Ivoire's population; children, uneducated adults, and educated adults all using the phrase relatively equally. Often in written speech, the phrase is written asIls non cas essayer de voir rather thanIls n'ont qu'à essayer de voir.[27]
Many characteristics of Ivorian/Abidjan French differ from "standard" French found in France. Many of the linguistic evolutions are from the influences of native African languages spoken within the Côte d'Ivoire and make Abidjan French a distinct dialect of French.
Some of the major phonetic and phonological variations of Abidjan French, as compared to a more "typical" French, include substituting the nasal low vowel [ɑ̃] for a non-nasal [a], especially when the sound occurs at the beginning of a word, and some difficulty with the full production of the phonemes /ʒ/ and /ʃ/.[28] There are also, to a certain degree, rhythmic speaking patterns in Ivorian French that are influenced by native languages.[28]
Ivorian French is also unique in its grammatical differences present in spoken speech such as these:[28]
French is used as a language of communication, especially among the literate population inCabinda, and it's also a language spoken inAngola as a significantFrench Angolan population, which includes Angolans with French ancestry and French people who live or have lived in Angola, many people, including a large percentage of the literate population, speak French fluently from the neighboringDemocratic Republic of the Congo as a legacy ofBelgian colonial rule fromBrussels that declared its independence fromBelgium on 30 June 1960. Angola has had a historical and cultural connection withFrance, particularly through its colonial past and subsequent economic and political relationships with other countries includingFrancophone Africa which had been colonized as former French colonies fromParis.
Without being an official language, French is frequently used in government, workplaces, and education. French is the default language for work in several sectors. In a 2007 study set in the city ofMostaganem, it was shown that French andArabic were the two functional languages of banking. Technical work (accounting, financial analysis, management) is also frequently done in French. Documents, forms, and posters are often in both French and Arabic.
The usage of French among the Algerian population is different depending on social situations. One can find:
French is the sole official language in Benin. In 2014, over 4 million Beninese citizens spoke French (around 40% of the population).Fongbe is the other widely spoken language of Benin. It is natural to hear both languages blending, either through loan words or code-switching.
Few academic sources exist surrounding the particularisms of Beninese French. Nevertheless, it is evident that Beninese French has adapted the meanings of several French terms over time, such as:seconder (to have relations with a second woman, from the Frenchsecond - second),doigter (to show the way, from the Frenchdoigt - finger).
French is the language of administration, education, and business inBurkina Faso and was thede jure official language until a constitutional change in 2024. While spoken fluently only by about a quarter of the population, French has progressively become a native language among urban populations since the late 20th century, notably in the cities ofOuagadougou,Bobo-Dioulasso, andBanfora. By 2010, about 10% of Ouagadougou residents spoke French as their first language.[29]
Linguists have observed the development of a local vernacular of French in the country calledfrançais populaire burkinabè which is influenced by local languages such asMooré and is used as a lingua franca in commerce.[30] It is largely used as a spoken language whereas speakers continue to use standard French as the written language.[31]
Cameroonian French is a variety ofFrenchspoken in Cameroon. As a formerFrench colony, the country's history has shaped its language, resulting in a distinct variant of French that reflects the country's diverse cultural, linguistic, and historical background.
With more than 11 million inhabitants,Kinshasa is the largest Francophone city in the world, surpassingParis in population. It is the capital of the most populous francophone country in the world, theDemocratic Republic of the Congo, where an estimated 43 million people (51% of the total population) can speak French (essentially as a second language).[14][32] Contrary to Abidjan where French is the first language of a large part of the population, in Kinshasa French is only a second language, and its status oflingua franca is shared withLingala. Kinshasa French also differs from other African French variants, for it has someBelgian French influences, due to colonization. People of different African mother tongues living in Kinshasa usually speak Lingala to communicate with each other in the street, but French is the language of businesses, administrations, schools, newspapers and televisions. French is also the predominant written language.
Due to its widespread presence in Kinshasa, French has become a local language with its own pronunciation and some local words borrowed for the most part from Lingala. Depending on their social status, some people may mix French and Lingala, orcode switch between the two depending on the context. Here are examples of words particular to Kinshasa French. As in Abidjan, there exist variousregisters and the most educated people may frown upon the use of slangish/Lingala terms.
There are many linguistic differences that occur in Kinshasa French that make it a distinct dialect of French. Similarly to many other African dialects of French, many of the linguistic aspects are influenced, either directly or indirectly, by the linguistics of the local African languages. It is also essential to note that grammatical differences between local Congolese languages and the French language, such as the lack of gendered nouns in the former, result in linguistic changes when speakers of the former speak French.[33]
Here are some of the phonetic characteristics of Kinshasa French:[34]
As briefly mentioned above, many Congolese languages are ungendered languages and so there is often some mixing of the French masculine and feminine articles in speakers of Kinshasa French, such as the phraseJe veux du banane rather than the "correct" FrenchJe veux de la banane.[33]
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