Standard French in the context of "Belgium"

A natural language or ordinary language is any spoken language or signed language used organically in a human community, first emerging without conscious premeditation and subject to: replication across generations of people in the community, regional expansion or contraction, and gradual internal and structural changes. The vast majority of languages in the world are natural languages. As a category, natural language includes both standard dialects (ones with high social prestige) as well as nonstandard or vernacular dialects. Even an official language with a regulating academy such as Standard French, overseen by the Académie Française, is still classified as a natural language (e.g. in the field of natural language processing), as its prescriptive aspects do not make it regulated enough to be considered a constructed or controlled natural language. Linguists broadly consider writing to be a static visual representation of a particular natural language, though, in many cases in highly literate modern societies, writing itself can also be considered natural language.

Excluded from the definition of natural language are: artificial and constructed languages, such as those developed for works of fiction; languages of formal logic, such as those in computer programming; and non-human communication systems in nature, such as whale vocalizations or honey bees' waggle dance. The academic consensus is that particular key features prevent animal communication systems from being classified as languages at all. Certain human communication or linguistic systems with no native speakers, as sometimes used in cross-cultural contexts, are also not natural languages.

The Bretons (/ˈbrɛtɒnz, -ənz, -ɒ̃z/; Breton: Bretoned or Vretoned, Breton pronunciation: [breˈtɔ̃nɛt]) are an ethnic group native to Brittany, north-western France. Originally, the demonym designated groups of Brittonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain, particularly Cornwall and Devon, mostly during the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. They migrated in waves from the 3rd to 9th century (most heavily from 450 to 600) to the west of Armorica. That western part of Armorica was subsequently named after them, as were the inhabitants.

The main traditional language of Brittany is Breton (Brezhoneg), spoken in Lower Brittany (i.e., the western part of the peninsula). Breton is spoken by around 206,000 people as of 2013. The other principal minority language of Brittany is Gallo, a Romance language; Gallo is spoken only in Upper Brittany, where Breton used to be spoken as well but it has seen a decline and has been less dominant in Upper Brittany since around the year 900. Currently, most Bretons' native language is standard French.

French of France (French: français de France [fʁɑ̃sɛ də fʁɑ̃s]) is the predominant variety of the French language in France, Andorra and Monaco, in its formal and informal registers. It has, for a long time, been associated with Standard French. It is now seen as a variety of French alongside Acadian French, Belgian French, Canadian/Quebec French, Swiss French, etc.

This is a list of bodies that consider themselves to be authorities on standard languages, often called language academies. Language academies are motivated by, or closely associated with, linguistic purism and prestige, and typically publish prescriptive dictionaries, which purport to officiate and prescribe the meaning of words and pronunciations. A language regulator may also have a more descriptive approach, however, while maintaining and promoting (but not imposing) a standard spelling. Many language academies are private institutions, although some are governmental bodies in different states, or enjoy some form of government-sanctioned status in one or more countries. There may also be multiple language academies attempting to regulate and codify the same language, sometimes based in different countries and sometimes influenced by political factors.

Many world languages have one or more language academies or official language bodies. However, the degree of control that the academies exert over these languages does not render the latter controlled natural languages in the sense that the various kinds of "simple English" (e.g., Basic English, Simplified Technical English) or George Orwell's fictional Newspeak are. They instead remain natural languages to a considerable extent and are thus not formal languages such as Attempto Controlled English. They have a degree of standardization that allows them to function as standard languages (e.g., standard French). The English language has never had a formal regulator in any country.

Patois (/ˈpætwɑː/, pl. same or /ˈpætwɑːz/) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, patois can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon or slang, which are vocabulary-based forms of cant.

In colloquial usage of the term, especially in France, class distinctions are implied by the very meaning of the term, since in French, patois refers to any sociolect associated with uneducated rural classes, in contrast with the dominant prestige language (Standard French) spoken by the middle and high classes of cities or as used in literature and formal settings (the "acrolect"). Sociolinguistics is the discipline that studies the relationship between these language varieties, how they relate to the dominant culture and, in the case of France, to national language policy.