• the 1539 Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, which mandated the use of French in official documents, contributed to the rise of French nationalism?
• due to the insistence of Joseph-Hyacinthe Bellerose, the record of debates in the Senate of Canada was translated into French as early as 1877?
• despite plagiarizing a Chinese-French-Latin dictionary ordered by Napoleon, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes went on to become a member of the French Academy of Sciences?
• A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter A.D. 1697, based on the diary of Henry Maundrell, was translated into French, Dutch and German by 1792?
• the manhwa Recast was published not just in Korean, but also in German, French, and American English?
• the Murat Centre is the only Shrine temple with a French name, and is the largest Shrine temple in North America?
• the lyrics of one of the most popular French folk songs, Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre, which has the same melody as the English song For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, were written on a false rumour?
• the early 13th century romance Guillaume de Dole is the first extant French literary work combining narrative and lyric, a form which by the end of the century had become canonical?
• the Simca Aronde (pictured) was named after the French word for swallow, a bird which appeared on the Simca logo when the model was presented?
• Du battant des lames au sommet des montagnes (French for "From the beating of the waves to the summit of the mountains") is a legal description of the manner in which the island of Réunion was divided into parcels?
• Sabine Ehrenfeld, the Overstock.com spokesmodel, is fluent in German, French, English, and Italian and that she is an experienced pilot and equestrian?
• Avenue Charles de Gaulle in N'Djamena is a rare street in Chad to have retained its French name despite President François Tombalbaye's Authenticité Africanization program?
• Allen Bares, a former member of the Louisiana State Legislature, was awarded the Medal of Merit by France for promotion of the French language?
• "Comme Ci, Comme Ça" was performed in French at the Eurovision Song Contest 2007, despite being the Cypriot entry?
• Soviet literature declared Russian the "world language of internationalism", denouncing French as the "language of fancy courtiers" and English as the "jargon of traders"?
• charcuterie, derived from the French words for flesh (chair) and cooked (cuit), is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products primarily sourced from pork?
• HMS Fifi, a German warship captured and added to the Royal Navy during the First World War, was named to mean 'tweet-tweet' in French?
• Reinald, a 13th century Cistercian monk and Bishop of Ross, was nicknamed Macer, French for "skinny"?
• Merten de Keyser printed the first complete French and English Bibles in Antwerp?
• Joe M. Rodgers, who spent six hours a day for four months learning French after being named U.S. Ambassador to France, later became CEO of language school operator Berlitz International?
• Alabama lawyer and Republican Party pioneer John Grenier of Birmingham was self-taught in four foreign languages: French, Spanish, German, and modern Greek?

Facts on topics related to French language

Portuguese language

• Hindi, Bengali, and Portuguese have all recently been proposed as official languages of the United Nations?
• President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently launched TV Brasil Internacional, a Portuguese language television station aimed at 49 African nations?
• radio station KLBS broadcasts a Portuguese-language world music format to California's San Joaquin Valley?
• Quốc ngữ, the Vietnamese alphabet in general use today, was established by the 1651 trilingual Latin-Portuguese-Vietnamese dictionary Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum?
• the earliest Portuguese description of Malaysia, Tomé Pires's Suma Oriental, lay unpublished and presumed lost in an archive until 1944?

Romanian language

• the Silesian-born scholar Heimann Hariton Tiktin, one of the founders of modern Romanian linguistics was initially destined to become a rabbi?
• the Wallachian poet Ion Heliade Rădulescu (pictured) advocated a radical transformation of the Romanian language on the basis of Italian neologisms?
• the villagers of the Romanian village of Bigar largely speak Czech rather than Romanian?

Italian language

• British athlete Don Thompson was nicknamed "Il Topolino" (Italian for "Little Mouse") when he raced to victory in the 50km walk at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome while wearing a képi and sunglasses ?
• Sabine Ehrenfeld, the Overstock.com spokesmodel, is fluent in German, French, English, and Italian and that she is an experienced pilot and equestrian?
• Venetian, spoken in and around Venice, Italy, is not a dialect of Italian?
• Interrabang was an Italian television adventure series about a secret treasure hidden inside the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
• an Enoteca, from the Italian for wine library, is a shop that offers tourists and visitors the opportunity to sample local wines for a reasonable fee?
• the Wallachian poet Ion Heliade Rădulescu (pictured) advocated a radical transformation of the Romanian language on the basis of Italian neologisms?
• the Bovo-Bukh, a very popular chivalric romances written in Yiddish, was based on the Anglo-Norman romance of Sir Bevis of Hampton, by way of the Italian language romance of Buovo d'Antona?
• the children's anime series The Littl' Bits has aired in Japanese, English, Spanish, Polish, German, and Italian?
• the titles of the thirteen episodes of the Japanese animated television series Gunslinger Girl were given in Italian as well as Japanese?