F

Faroese
Is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language spoken by about 80,000 people in two main groups, about 48,000 in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese in Denmark. There are also around 5,000 speakers in Iceland. It is one of three insular Scandinavian languages descended from the Old Norse language spoken in Scandinavia in the Viking Age, the others being Icelandic and the extinct Norn, which is thought to have been mutually intelligible with Faroese.

Fang
Is an African language spoken by the Fang people. It is related to the Bulu language of southern Cameroon. Fang is spoken in northern Gabon, southern Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.

Fars
Is a Southwestern Iranian language close to Lari spoken in the Central Fars province. The major dialects are Buringuni, Davani, Kondazi, Masarmi, Papuni, and Somguni. This language is not to be confused with Persian, the major language of Iran.

Fijian
Is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken in Fiji. It has 350,000 first-language speakers, which is less than half the population of Fiji, but another 200,000 speak it as a second language. The 1997 Constitution established Fijian as an official language of Fiji, along with English and Hindustani, and there is discussion about establishing it as the "national language," though English and Hindustani would remain official. Fijian is a VOS language.

Filipino
Is the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines—along with English—as designated in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. The language, a member of the Austronesian languages, is a standardized dialect of Tagalog. It is sometimes the generic name for all of several different languages of the Philippines.
On November 13, 1937, the First National Assembly created the National Language Institute, which selected Tagalog for the basis of a new national language. In 1961, this language became known as Pilipino, which was later renamed to Filipino in the 1972 Constitution.

Finnish
Is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92%) and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is also an official language in Finland and an official minority language in Sweden, in the form of standard Finnish as well as Meänkieli, and in Norway in the form of Kven.

Finnish Sign Language
Is the sign language most commonly used in Finland. There are 5000 (estimate) Finnish Deaf who have Finnish Sign Language as a mother tongue. Linguistically Finnish Sign Language is closest to Swedish Sign Language, from which it began to separate as an independent language in the middle of 19th century.

Fon
Is part of the Gbe language cluster and belongs to the Kwa sub-family of the Niger-Congo languages. Fon is spoken mainly in Benin by approximately 1.7 million speakers. Like the other Gbe languages, Fon is an isolating language with an SVO basic word order.

Franco-Provençal
Is a Romance language with several dialects in a linguistic sub-group separate from Langue d'Oïl and Langue d'Oc. The name Franco-Provençal was given to the dialect group in the 19th century because it shared features of French and Provençal without belonging to either. Although the name of the language is well established, there is some dissatisfaction with it. The modern name Arpitan has achieved some currency for the language in recent years.
Today, the largest number of Franco-Provençal speakers reside in the Aosta Valley Autonomous Region of Italy. The language also is spoken in alpine valleys in the Province of Turin, two isolated towns in the Province of Foggia, and rural areas of the Suisse-Romande region of Switzerland. It is classified as a regional language of France and constitutes one of the three great Romance languages of France although its use is low.

French
Is the third-largest of the Romance languages in terms of number of native speakers, after Spanish and Portuguese, being spoken by about 109 million people as a mother tongue [3], and altogether by some 264 million people (including second-language speakers and learners).

French Sign Language
Is the sign language of the deaf in the nation of France. According to Ethnologue, it has 50,000 to 100,000 native signers. French Sign Language is related to Dutch Sign Language (NGT), Flemish Sign Language (VGT), Belgian-French Sign Language (LSFB), American Sign Language (ASL), and Quebec Sign Language (LSQ).

Frisian
Is a Germanic group of closely related languages, spoken by about half a million members of an ethnic group living on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany. The ancient Frisians figured prominently in North European history. They were especially noted as traders and raiders during the Viking Age. Frisian is the closest related living language to the English language family.

Friulian
Is a Romance language belonging to the Rhaetian family, spoken in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northeastern Italy. Friulian has around 600,000 speakers, the vast majority of whom also speak Italian. It is sometimes called Eastern Ladin, since it comes from the same roots as the Ladin Language, although over the centuries it has diverged, under the influence of surrounding languages, including German, Italian, Venetian, and Slovenian. Documents in Friulian are attested from the 11th century, and poetry and literature dating as far back as 1300. By the 20th century there was a revival of interest in the language, which has continued to this day.

Fula
Is a language of West Africa, spoken by the Fula people from Senegal to Cameroon and Sudan. It belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger-Congo language family. There are many names for the Fula people and their language. The Hausa call them the Fulani, while the Wolof use Peul and the Mandinka people Fula. The Fula call themselves Fulbe (plural), Pullo (singular). Speakers of western dialects call their language Pulaar or Pular, while eastern dialects use Fulfulde.

Fur
Is the language of the Fur of Darfur in western Sudan. It belongs to the Fur branch of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. It has about 900,000 speakers (500,000 in 1983.)