#jc7660

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mental wyvernBOT
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Please be patient

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brisk wren
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These aren't varieties of French but rather varieties of Gallo-Romance. Gallo-Romance refers to the various languages spoken in where the Roman province of Gaul used to be, more-or-less modern day French.

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This is Roman Gaul in the imperial era

GallicEmpire262_700.png
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This is the division of the three types

0i9v3sumrn551.png
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Each of the three formed dialect continua where languages next to each other are intelligible to each other but the ends don't. The terms oïl and oc are derived from their words for yes as Latin had no dedicated word for yes: oïl from hoc ille (this [is] it) and oc from hoc (this). French, the language of France, is a part of the langue d'oïl as the Gallo-Roman language spoken around Paris.
Historically, these languages used to be a lot more prominent but that's no longer the case now. The French kingdom imposed the Parisian language (French) all over by making it the administrative and official language, and then later the republic stamped the other languages out through public education. Nowadays in most of France, they speak, well, French. The influence of these languages reside in vocabulary but also local phonology. Some of the languages did survive; Norman, Jérriais, and Picard of the langues d'oïl survive but they're threatened. For most of the others, they've been replaced by Standard French.

native furnace
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Oh this is very insightful thank you!
Sorry for my misunderstanding.

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So the french today is mostly standard french?

Especially those spoken in Quebec, Belgium, Haiti, Swiss Africa etc?
Just different pronunciations and little vocabulary changes?

brisk wren
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Well when you bring it out of France, that's where it gets more complicated

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But yes the French of today spoken in France is mostly based off of the Parisian variety

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That's a result of the Paris-centred French state imposing its will but also Paris has the most people, that's where the media work, etc

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For Quebec, most of the original colonists came from the regions around Paris so Quebec French is basically Parisian as well. The difference is that Quebec then got severed from France after the Seven Years War, causing there to be mixing from other colonists who did not originate from Paris as well as other languages like indigenous languages from the First Nations as well as English from the British. However, it's also important to add that in the age of media, Quebec French – or rather the elites who spoke Quebec French – made a deliberate choice to align themselves closer to Metropolitan France. That's why a lot, if not most, Quebec French speakers have the guttural R even though the guttural R only originated in France in the 19th to 20th centuries. A lot of older speakers and more rural people tend to roll their Rs.

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For Belgium, their Francophone elites were never severed from France so as Belgian national identity developed, they used the prestige variety (Parisian French) as their own though ultimately they would still be influenced by local Gallo-Romance languages like Wallonian and Picard.

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The rest, no idea.

bold yarrow
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Just a note that "american indian" is at least poorly viewed from a canadian context
Indigenous or first nations would generally be the way to go

brisk wren