Ever heard of Francophone countries?

No connection to any mobile phone brand or wireless carrier, of course, so to speak.

The word “Francophone” might sound like the name of a mobile phone brand or a wireless communications service provider, possibly in/from France or maybe even owned/promoted by one, two or all three of the Franco brothers.

The Franco brothers - Left: James Franco (photo by Angela George under CC BY-SA 3.0); middle: Dave Franco (photo by dominick D under CC BY-SA 2.0); right: Tom Franco (photo by Cindy171 under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Quite frankly, such a Francophone would be cool (depending on you). But the actual francophone also is (again, depending on you).

According to Merriam-Webster, the word “francophone” is both a noun and an adjective. As noun it means “French speaker” and as adjective it means “of, having, or belonging to a population using French as its first or sometimes second language.”

“Francophone” is a relatively new word, with its first known usage surfacing in 1962 and in the meaning defined above.

Francophones even have an international organization of their own. It’s called the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), sometimes shortened to the Francophonie (French: La Francophonie) but also called International Organisation of La Francophonie in English (obviously British) language context. The organization represents countries and regions where French is a lingua franca or customary language, where a significant proportion of the population are francophones, or where there is a notable affiliation with French culture.

There are 54 states and governments that are full members of the organization. 7 are associate members and 27 are observers. The organization was created in 1970.

Just today, the organization and the World Health Organization (WHO) signed a memorandum of understanding to scale up collaboration and boost access to health services in Francophone countries. Key elements of the memorandum include promoting COVID-19 vaccine equity, fighting malaria and advancing universal health coverage.

For a list of the Francophone organization member states, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_Organisation_internationale_de_la_Francophonie#List_of_member_states

If you’d never heard of Francophone countries, now you do.