New official « Dictionnaire des francophones » will compile the varieties of French spoken around the world

Every French-speaking traveller knows it better than anyone else: the French language is the same, but each time different, on the five continents where it is spoken.

Accordingly, one of the projects arising from the « quinquennat », or term, of France’s president Emmanuel Macron is a new online dictionary and collaborative platform called The Dictionary of Francophones, which aims to capture, codify and present hundreds of thousands of French colloquialisms from around the world.

This video explains the project in more detail, and introduces collaborators from Québec, Canada; the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa); Belgium; and Côte d’Ivoire:

The dictionary redefining what French is represents a partnership between France’s Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the French Institute, the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF) and the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF); and the work itself is being produced by the International Institute for Francophonie (2IF) of the University of Lyon.

It is scheduled to go online later this year, with more than 400,000 words and 600,000 definitions included.

You can send suggestions for inclusion of your own here:

vosidees@dictionnairedesfrancophones.org

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