List of official languages

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Contents


[edit] Official languages of supra-national institutions

See List of official languages by institution.

[edit] Official languages of sovereign countries

There are approximately 105 languages in this category.

Contents: Top - 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Afrikaans:

  • South Africa (with English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Amharic:

Albanian:

Arabic:

Armenian:

Assamese:

Aymara:

Azeri:

Belarusian:

Bengali:

Bislama:

Bosnian:

Bulgarian:

Catalan:

Chinese (see also List of Chinese dialects):

Croatian

Czech:

Danish

Dari:

Dhivehi:

Dutch:

Dzongkha:

English (see also List of countries where English is an official language):

Estonian:

Fijian

Filipino:

Finnish:

French (see also List of countries where French is an official language):

Frisian:

Georgian:

German:

Greek:

Guaraní

Gujarati:

Haitian Creole:

Hebrew:

Hindi

Hiri Motu:

Hungarian:

Icelandic:

Indonesian:

Irish Gaelic is the national and first official language of:

Italian:

Japanese:

  • Japan (de facto)
  • Palau (with Palauan and English)

Kannada:

Kashmiri:

Kazakh:

Khmer:

Korean:

Kurdish:

  • Iraq (with Arabic)

Kyrgyz:

Lao:

Latin:

Latvian:

Lithuanian:

Luxembourgish:

Macedonian:

Malay:

Malayalam:

Maltese:

Māori:

  • New Zealand (with English and New Zealand Sign Language)

Marathi:

Moldovan (asserted by Moldova state representatives to be distinct from Romanian; most linguists remain skeptical):

Mongolian

Ndebele:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Nepali:

New Zealand Sign Language:

Northern Sotho:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Norwegian:

  • Norway (two official written forms - Bokmål and Nynorsk)

Oriya:

Pashtu:

Persian:

Polish:

Portuguese:

Punjabi:

Quechua

  • Bolivia (with Spanish and Aymara)
  • Peru (with Spanish and Aymara)

Romanian:

  • Moldova (known locally as Moldovan, and asserted by nationalists to be a separate language, an assertion disputed by most professional linguists)
  • Romania
  • part of Serbia
    • Vojvodina (with Croatian, Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak and Ruthenian)

Rhaeto-Romansh:

Russian:

Sanskrit:

Serbian:

Sindhi:

Sinhala:

  • Sri Lanka (with Tamil, and with English as a link language)

Slovak

Slovene:

Somali:

Sotho:

  • Lesotho (with English)
  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Spanish:

Swahili:

Swazi:

  • Swaziland (with English)
  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Swedish:

Tajik:

Tamil:

Telugu:

Tetum:

Thai:

Tok Pisin:

Tsonga:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Tswana:

  • Botswana
  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Turkish:

Turkmen:

Ukrainian:

Urdu:

Uzbek:

Venda:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Xhosa, Zulu)

Vietnamese:

Welsh:

Xhosa:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Zulu)

Zulu:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa)

[edit] Ranking of languages by number of sovereign countries in which they are official


In Africa:

In the Americas:

In Asia:

In Europe:

In Oceania:

  • 12 countries: English
  • 1 country: numerous languages

By number of continents:

  • All 5 continents:
    • English (Africa: 19 countries; The Americas: 14 countries; Oceania: 12 countries; Asia: 4 countries; Europe: 3 countries)
  • 4 continents:
    • French (Africa: 21 countries; Europe: 5 countries; The Americas: 2 countries; Oceania: 1 country)
    • Portuguese (Africa: 5 countries; The Americas: 1 country; Europe: 1 country; Asia: 1 country)
  • 3 continents:
    • Spanish (The Americas: 18 countries; Europe: 1 country; Africa: 1 country)
  • 2 continents:
    • Arabic (Africa: 12 countries; Asia: 12 countries)
    • Russian (Europe: 2 countries; Asia: 2 countries)
    • Dutch (Europe: 2 countries; The Americas: 1 country)
    • Urdu (Asia: 2 countries; Oceania: 1 country)
    • Hindi (Asia: 1 country; Oceania: 1 country)
    • Japanese (Asia: 1 country; Oceania: 1 country)
  • 1 continent: numerous other languages, of which German (6 countries) and Italian (4 countries) spoken in the most countries

[edit] Official languages of subnational entities

Albanian:

  • Kosovo (with Serbian and English; Turkish is official in the Prizren District only).

Aranese see Occitan

Armenian:

Basque:

Cantonese Chinese:

  • Hong Kong (for Chinese language, both Cantonese and Mandarin are spoken de facto; co-official with English)
  • Macao (for Chinese language, both Cantonese and Mandarin are spoken de facto; co-official with Portuguese)

Catalan:

Chipewyan:

Cree:

Dogrib:

English:

French:

Galician:

NOTE: Whether Galician and Portuguese are variants of the same language, is a matter of debate among linguists. However both Governments and their speakers regard them as distinct but close languages

Gwichʼin:

Hawaiian:

  • Hawai'i (co-official with English in the state of Hawai'i)

Inuktitut:

Inuvialuktun:

  • Nunavut (with English, French, and Inuktitut)
  • Northwest Territories (included in Inuktitut; with Chipewyan, Cree, Dogrib, English, French, Gwichʼin, and Slavey)

Occitan (Aranese):

Rusyn:

  • Vojvodina (with Croatian, Serbian, Romanian, Hungarian, Slovak)

Mazandarani:

Sami:

  • Finland (in four municipalities)
  • Norway (in six municipalities)
  • Sweden (in four municipalities and surrounding municipalities)

Slavey:

Spanish:

Tahitian:

Tibetan:

  • Tibet Autonomous Region (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Aba (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Garzê (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Diqing (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Wenshan (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Gannan (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Haibai (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Hainan (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Huangnan (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Golog (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Gyêgu (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Haixi (with Mongolian and Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Muli (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Tianzhu (with Chinese (Mandarin))

Uyghur:

Yiddish:

Zhuang:

A map of official languages: (note: source is CIA World Factbook. Countries that include several official languages only use one, often to avoid adding languages to the chart unnecessarily, preventing confusion. In showing de facto as well as de jure official languages, the map employs a looser definition of "official language" than that used in this article.) Official Languages Maps

[edit] See also

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