Since the law of June 28, 1833, the State has made it compulsory, in primary schools, to learn “elements of the French language”. Understand: spelling and grammar. According to Larousse, spelling includes the set of rules and usages defined as the standard for writing the words of a given language. Since when has the French language been unified by such rules and usages?

French was born in the 9th century. It is then a language spoken by the upper layers of the population in the North of France, in the regions of Orléans, Paris and Senlis. The people spoke various varieties of oïl in the North, Breton in the North-West, etc. In the South, different varieties of Oc were spoken, close to Latin. From the 10th century and Hugues Capet, the king began to speak French.

Then, in the 13th century, the royal administration switched to French. Between the 14th and 16th centuries, it gradually established itself as the language of royal charters, to the detriment of Latin and other regional languages. Finally, it was under the reign of François 1er that French became the official language of the kingdom with the adoption of the famous ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts in 1539. Then, the French spelling was fixed with the creation of the French Academy in the 17th century. Its mission was to write a reference dictionary.

Test your French language skills by playing the plural quiz below.