Saturday, June 27, 2015

Francaphone Facts


As I’m eating this chocolate croissant, I’m reminded of the saying Buraidah is Paris of Najd. So are you guys ready to know interesting facts about France?
1.     French people are the second biggest consumers of alcohol per capita in the Western world. This explains a lot about their attitude…
2.     French people cheek-kiss to greet each other between family & friends, even between men. The number of kisses varies according to the region, from 1 kiss (e.g. in the tip of Brittany) to 4 kisses (e.g. Paris and most of the North), and occasionally up to 5 in Corsica. Still, we Saudis are unbeatable in this area
3.     Until 1964 French women weren’t allowed to open a bank account or get a passport without their husband's permission. To my Saudi ladies… Any comments? J
4.     Although French language is a direct descent of Latin, French people have some of the most diversified genetic make-up Europe, with genes inherited from the Celts (or Gauls), the Basques, the Romans, the Franks (originally from the Benelux) and the Normands (originally from Denmark), which explains the wide physical diversity in French facial traits, as well as hair and eye colors. In Saudi, when someone points at a stranger, stating he/she is my cousin, believe him!
5.     French used to be the language of nobility and diplomacy all across Europe and in the Ottoman Empire. Then, it was the world's first international language until English replaced it in the mid-20th century
6.     French language is spoken by 270 million people worldwide, of which 120 million are native or fluent (almost as much as the number of curse words my grandma cusses per minute). There is less than 60 million White Caucasian native speakers of standard French worldwide. We Saudi Frenchies weren’t included in these statistics by the way

Source: Eupedia

No comments:

Post a Comment