Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: Is French spoken in Ontario?
French is the mother tongue of about 7.2 million Canadians (20.6% of the Canadian population, second to English at 56%) according to Census Canada 2016.[1] Most native speakers of the French language in Canada live in Quebec, where French is the majority official language. 77% of Quebec's population are native francophones, and 95% of the population speak French as their first or second language.[2] Additionally, about one million native francophones live in other provinces, forming a sizable minority in New Brunswick, which is officially a bilingual province, where about one-third of the population are francophone. There are also French-speaking communities in Manitoba and Ontario, where francophones make up about 4 percent of the population,[3] as well as significantly smaller communities in Alberta, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan – around 1–2%.[3] Many, but not all of these communities are supported by French-language institutions.
Many French speakers from surrounding countries have influenced the English spoken in the border regions of Nigeria and some Nigerian citizens have become fluent enough in French to work in the surrounding countries. The French spoken in Nigeria may be mixed with some native languages but is mostly spoken like the French spoken in Benin. French may also be mixed with English as it is in Cameroon. Most of the population speaks English as their native language.
Varieties with progressive aspect marker ape[1] Haitian Creole (Kreyòl ayisyen, locally called Creole) is a language spoken primarily in Haiti: the largest French-derived language in the world, with an estimated total of 12million fluent speakers. It is also the most-spoken creole language in the world and is based largely on 18th century French with influences from Portuguese, Spanish, English, Taíno, and West African languages.[2] It is an official language in Haiti. Louisiana Creole (Kréyol la Lwizyàn, locally called Kourí-Viní and Creole), the Louisiana creole language. Varieties with progressive aspect marker ka[3] Antillean Creole is a language spoken primarily in the francophone (and some of the anglophone) Lesser Antilles, such as Martinique, Guadeloupe, Îles des Saintes, Dominica, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago and many other smaller islands. Although all of the creoles spoken on these islands are considered to be the same language, there are noticeable differences between the dialects of each island. Notably, the Creole spoken in the Eastern (windward) part of the island Saint-Barthélemy is spoken exclusively by a white population of European descent, imported into the island from Saint Kitts in 1648. Dominican Creole French, Grenadian Creole French, Saint Lucian Creole French Guianese Creole is a language spoken in French Guiana, and to a lesser degree in Suriname and Guyana. It is closely related to Antillean Creole, but there are some noteworthy differences between the two. Karipúna, spoken in Brazil, mostly in the state of Amapá. It was developed by Amerindians, with possible influences from immigrants from neighboring French Guiana and French territories of the Caribbean and with a recent lexical adstratum from Portuguese. Lanc-Patuá, spoken more widely in the state of Amapá, is a variety of the former, possibly the same language.
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) has largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. 
French is an official language in 29 countries across multiple different continents, most of which are members of the "Organisation internationale de la Francophonie" (OIF), the community of 84 countries which share the official use or teaching of French. It is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France, Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick as well as other Francophone regions, Belgium (Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region), western Switzerland (cantons of Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Jura, Neuchâtel, Vaud, Valais), Monaco, parts of the United States (Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont), partly in Luxembourg and in northern Italy (region of Aosta Valley), and by various communities elsewhere. In 2015, approximately 40% of the francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) lived in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas, and 1% in Asia and Oceania. French is the fourth most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, Of Europeans who speak other languages natively, approximately one-fifth are able to speak French as a second language. French is the second most taught foreign language in the EU. French is also the 18th most natively spoken language in the world, 6th most spoken language by total number of speakers and the second most studied language worldwide (with about 120 million current learners).
Quebec French is spoken in Quebec. Closely related varieties are spoken by francophone communities in Ontario, Western Canada, Labrador and in the New England region of the United States and differ from Quebec French primarily by their greater conservatism. The term Laurentian French has limited application as a collective label for all these varieties, and Quebec French has also been used for the entire dialect group. The overwhelming majority of francophone Canadians speak this dialect.
While English is the predominant language spoken by Torontonians, many other languages have considerable numbers of local speakers. The varieties of Chinese and Italian are the second and third most widely spoken languages at work. Despite Canada's official bilingualism, while 9.7% of Ontario's Francophones live in Toronto, only 0.6% of the population reported French as a singular language spoken most often at home; meanwhile 64% reported speaking predominantly English only and 28.3% primarily used a non-official language; 7.1% reported commonly speaking multiple languages at home. The city's 9-1-1 emergency services are equipped to respond in over 150 languages.
There are more than 600,000 francophones residing in Ontario.[2] According to the 2016 Canadian census, there were 550,600 people living in Ontario who declared French their first official language spoken, 490,715 people who declared French their mother tongue, and 277,045 Ontarians who declared French as the language they speak most often at home.[1] Over 1.4 million Ontarians reported themselves as bilingual, and 1.3 million Ontarians reported partial or full French ethnic origins. French-speaking Ontarians constitute the largest French-speaking community in Canada outside Quebec, as well as the largest minority language group within Ontario, and French is the fourth most common ethnic background in the province after English, Scottish and Irish.
In Eastern Ontario, Canadian raising is not as strong as it is in the rest of the province. In Prescott and Russell, parts of Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry and Eastern Ottawa, French accents are often mixed with English ones due to the high Franco-Ontarian population there. In Lanark County, Western Ottawa and Leeds-Grenville and the rest of Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry, the accent spoken is nearly identical to that spoken in Central Ontario and the Quinte area. Phrases such as "got it" is often pronounced as . "Okay" is often pronounced as , while "hello" is often pronounced as .
According to some estimates, French is spoken by 75 to 99 percent of Abidjan's population, 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 as "français de Treichville" (after a working-class district of Abidjan) or "français de Moussa" (after a character in chronicles published by the magazine "Ivoire Dimanche" which are written in this colloquial Abidjan French). Finally, an Abidjan French slang called "nouchi" is spoken by people in gangs and also by young people copying them. New words usually appear in "nouchi" and then make their way into colloquial Abidjan French after some time. As of 2012, a crowdsourced dictionary of Nouchi is being written using mobile phones.
Dialects of the French language are spoken in France and around the world. The francophones of France generally use Metropolitan French (spoken in Paris and considered standard) although some also use regional dialects or varieties such as Meridional French. In Europe outside France there are Belgian French, Swiss French, and in Italy Aostan French. In Canada, French is an official language along with English; the two main dialects of French in Canada are Quebec French and Acadian French, but also another dialect commonly grouped as Canadian French, used by Anglophones speaking French as a second language or by Francophones in Canada using a different dialect. In Lebanon, French was an official language until 1941 and the main dialect spoken there is Lebanese French or Levantine French. Note that the discussion here refers to varieties of the French language, not to the Romance sister languages (sometimes considered dialects) of French spoken in France (e.g. Picard, Limousin, Gascon, etc.; for these languages see: Langues d'oïl, Francoprovençal, Occitan and languages of France). See also French-based creole languages, which are also considered separate languages.
Canadian French is a frequently used umbrella term for the varieties of French used in Canada including Quebec French. Formerly it was used to refer solely to Quebec French and the closely related varieties of Ontario and Western Canada, in contrast with Acadian French, which is spoken in some areas of eastern Quebec (Gaspé Peninsula), New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland & Labrador.
The often derogatory term "joual" is commonly used to refer to Quebec French (when considered a basilect on the Post-creole continuum) associated with the working class, characterized by certain features perceived as incorrect or bad. The equivalent in Acadian French is called Chiac.
Tây Bồi (Vietnamese: "tiếng Tây bồi"), or Vietnamese Pidgin French, was a pidgin spoken by non-French-educated Vietnamese, typically those who worked as servants in French households or milieux during the colonial era. Literally, it means "French (Tây) [of- or spoken by] male servants (Bồi)". During the French colonisation period, the majority of household servants for the French were male. The term is used by Vietnamese themselves to indicate that the spoken French language is poor, incorrect and ungrammatical.
As of the year 2000, English was spoken as a first language by 59.66% of the population, while Spanish was spoken by 19.50% of the populace. The "southernmost Canadian city" also had French spoken by 5.23% of the population, with the majority being Canadian French/Quebec French from French Canadians. Other languages included were Romanian at 2.71%, Italian at 1.96%, French Creole at 1.80%, Yiddish 1.70%, Russian 1.32%, German 1.27%, Hungarian at 1.17%, Polish at 0.85%, Hebrew at 0.77%, and Portuguese, spoken by 0.72% of all residents.
Other provinces have no official languages as such, but French is used as a language of instruction, in courts, and for other government services, in addition to English. Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec allow for both English and French to be spoken in the provincial legislatures, and laws are enacted in both languages. In Ontario, French has some legal status, but is not fully co-official. There are 11 indigenous language groups, composed of more than 65 distinct languages and dialects. Of these, only the Cree, Inuktitut and Ojibway languages have a large enough population of fluent speakers to be considered viable to survive in the long term. Several indigenous languages have official status in the Northwest Territories. Inuktitut is the majority language in Nunavut, and is one of three official languages in the territory.
Spoken Word Canada, also referred to as SpoCan, is an organization of spoken word performers and organizers. Formed from a committee of city representatives at the 2004 Canadian Spoken Wordlympics in Ottawa, Ontario, SpoCan's mission is to "nurture, develop and advance spoken word artists, the professional spoken word community and the art of spoken word in Canada." SpoCan is also responsible for producing the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word each fall.
"Quebec French" is spoken in Quebec. Closely related varieties are spoken by francophone communities in Ontario, Western Canada and the New England region of the United States, differing only from Quebec French primarily by their greater conservatism. The term "Laurentian French" has limited applications as a collective label for all these varieties, and "Quebec French" has also been used for the entire dialect group. The overwhelming majority of francophone Canadians speak this dialect.
Peterborough's population is predominantly white, with only 3.1% of the population identifying as Aboriginal and 2.7% identifying as a visible minority; made up of 0.6% South Asian, 0.6% Chinese, 0.5% Black, 0.1% Filipino, 0.2% Latin American and 0.2% Southeast Asian. Peterborough is also primarily an English-speaking city, with 92.5% of the population speaking it as their mother tongue. French is spoken by 1.1% of the population, and other languages are spoken by 5.9% of the population.
Ontario French is often divided into two categories: North and South. The further north the more French is spoken and the closer the dialect and culture is to Quebec French. The further south, the French becomes a more pronounced French with a more English cultural influence as well as a Parisian grammar and dialect structure, as both Parisian and Canadian French are taught in the French immersion schools.
Canadian French is an umbrella term for the distinct varieties of French spoken by francophone Canadians: Québécois (Quebec French), Acadian French, Métis French, and Newfoundland French. Unlike Acadian French and Newfoundland French, the French of Ontario, the Canadian West, and New England all originate from what is now Quebec French and do not constitute distinct varieties from it, though there are some regional differences. French Canadians may also speak either Canadian English or American English, especially if they live in overwhelmingly English-speaking Canadian provinces or in the United States.
The mining boom of the early twentieth century attracted many francophones to Northeastern Ontario, and French is still widely spoken there. While the Canadian constitution never required the province of Ontario to recognize French as an official language, the government provides full services in the French language to any citizen, resident, or visitor wishing it including communications, schools, hospitals, social services, and in the courts, under the French Language Services Act of 1986. Bilingualism is higher than the Canadian average – in 2011, 180,020 people, or 24.6% of the population, spoke both English and French. There were also 8,910 people, or 1.2% of the population, who only spoke French. All of Northeastern Ontario, with the technical exception of Manitoulin Island, is designated as a French language service area, as are a few individual municipalities in the Northwest; Manitoulin Island, while not officially designated as a French language service area, effectively functions as one anyway since it receives most provincial government services from the designated Sudbury District seat in Espanola rather than functioning as its own jurisdictional area.
The principal language of Ontario is English, the province's de facto official language, which is spoken natively by about 70% of the province's population, according to the 2011 census. There is also a French-speaking population concentrated in the northeastern, eastern, and extreme Southern parts of the province, where under the "French Language Services Act", provincial government services are required to be available in French if at least 10% of a designated area's population report French as their native language. Roughly 4% of Ontarians speak French as their mother tongue, and 11% are bilingual, speaking both English and French, according to the 2011 census. Other languages spoken by residents include Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Dutch, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Malayalam, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Sinhalese, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Tibetan, Urdu and Vietnamese.
Outside Europe, French is spoken natively most in the Canadian province of Quebec, and in parts of New Brunswick and Ontario. Canada is officially bilingual, with French and English being the official languages. In parts of the Caribbean, such as Haiti, French has official status, but most people speak creoles such as Haitian Creole as their native language. French also has official status in much of Africa, but relatively few native speakers. In France's overseas possessions, native use of French is increasing.
Louisiana French, the largest of the groupings, is spoken mostly in Louisiana and derives from the forms of the language spoken by the colonists of lower French Louisiana. Louisiana French is traditionally into three dialects: Colonial French, Modern Louisiana French or "Acadian" French, and Louisiana Creole French. Colonial French was originally the dialect spoken by the land-holding educated classes. Acadian, the dialect of the Acadians who came to French Louisiana in droves following their expulsion from Acadia during the French and Indian War, was spoken largely by the white lower classes. Louisiana Creole, a creole that developed long before Haitian immigrants arrived in Louisiana, largely developed as the tongue of the Louisiana Creole community and a significant portion of self-identified Cajuns. However, linguists now believe that the Colonial and Acadian dialects have largely merged into modern Louisiana French but remain distinct from Louisiana Creole.
Franglais is commonly spoken in French immersion schools in Ontario and Alberta as well as in DSFM (Division scolaire Franco-Manitobaine) schools in Manitoba, where most students speak either French or English as their first or preferred language, yet know school-related terms in French specifically (e.g. "Let's go to la bibliothèque", instead of "Let's go to the library"). As many French immersion classes and French schools have a strict "French-only" policy, such Franglais is used discreetly between students, or out of class.
Although Ontario as a whole is not officially bilingual, the Ontario government's French Language Services Act designates 25 areas of the province where provincial ministries and agencies are required to provide local French-language services to the public. An area is designated as a French service area if the francophone population is greater than 5,000 people or 10% of the community's total population. Due to the 5,000 population threshold, large cities that are actually overwhelmingly anglophone (and may also have several widely-spoken immigrant languages) with virtually no obvious francophone element due to very low percentages, such as Toronto (population 2,731,571) or Brampton (population 593,638) are nevertheless still subject to the Act.