An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, the establishment of an official language might also place restrictions on the use of other languages in those capacities. Designated rights of an official language can be created in written form or by historic usage."Official Language", Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language, Ed. Tom McArthur, Oxford University Press, 1998.Pueblo v. Tribunal Superior, 92 D.P.R. 596 (1965). Translation taken from the English text, 92 P. R. R. 580 (1965), p. 588–589. See also LOPEZ-BARALT NEGRON, "Pueblo v. Tribunal Superior: Español: Idioma del proceso judicial", 36 Revista Juridica de la Universidad de Puerto Rico. 396 (1967), and VIENTOS-GASTON, "Informe del Procurador General sobre el idioma", 36 Rev. Col. Ab. (P.R.) 843 (1975).
An official language is recognized by 178 countries, of which 101 recognize more than one. The government of Italy made Italian their official language in 1999, and some nations (such as Mexico and Australia) have never declared de jure official languages at the national level. Other nations have declared non-indigenous official languages.
Many of the world's constitutions mention one or more official or national languages. Some countries use the official language designation to empower indigenous groups by giving them access to the government in their native languages. In countries that do not formally designate an official language, a de facto national language usually evolves. English is the most common official or co-official language, with recognized status in 52 countries. Arabic, French, and Spanish are official or co-official languages in several countries.
An official language that is also an indigenous language is called endoglossic, one that is not indigenous is exoglossic.endoglossic and exoglossic on OxfordDictionaries.com. An instance is Nigeria, which has three endoglossic official languages. By this, the country aims to protect the indigenous languages although at the same time recognising the English language as its lingua franca. In spatial terms, indigenous (endoglossic) languages are mostly employed in the function of official languages in Europe and Asia, while mainly non-indigenous (exoglossic) languages are official in the rest of the world.Tomasz Kamusella. 2020. Global Language Politics: Eurasia versus the Rest (pp. 118–151). Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics. Vol 14, No 2.
History Around 500 BC, when Darius the Great annexed Mesopotamia to the Achaemenid Empire, he chose a form of the Aramaic language (the so-called Official Aramaic or Imperial Aramaic) as the vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages. Aramaic script was widely employed from Egypt in the southwest to Bactria and Sogdiana in the northeast. Texts were dictated in the native dialects and written down in Aramaic, and then read out again in the native language at the places they were received.
Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, standardized the written language of China after unifying the country in 221 BC. Literary Chinese would remain the standard written language for the next 2000 years. Standardization of the spoken language received less political attention, and Mandarin developed on an ad hoc basis from the dialects of the various imperial capitals until being officially standardized in the early twentieth century.
Statistics
The following languages are official (de jure or de facto) in two or more sovereign states. In some cases, a language may be defined as different languages in different countries. Examples are Hindi and Urdu, Malay and Indonesian, Serbian and Croatian, Persian and Tajik. English: 58 UN states and 31 dependencies French: 26 UN states and 10 dependencies Arabic: 23 UN states and Palestine, 2 non-UN states on the same territory, and 1 dependency Spanish: 20 UN states and 1 dependency Portuguese: 9 UN states and 1 dependency German: 6 UN states Russian: 5 UN and 3 unrecognized states Serbo-Croatian: 4 UN states and 1 partially recognized state on the same territory Malay: 4 UN states and 1 dependency Swahili: 4 UN states (5 counting Comorian) Italian: 3 UN states and Vatican City Persian: 3 UN states and 1 dependency Dutch: 3 UN states (4 counting Afrikaans) Somali: 3 UN states and 1 unrecognized state on the same territory Sotho: 3 UN states Standard Chinese (Mandarin): 2 UN states and Taiwan Tamil: 2 UN states and 2 States in India Hindustani: 2 UN states (counting Fijian Hindi) and 10 states in India Bengali: 2 UN states (counting Bangladesh) and 1 state in India Greek: 2 UN states Turkish: 2 UN states and 1 partially recognized state Some countries—like Australia and the United Kingdom—have no official language recognized as such at a national level. On the other extreme, Bolivia officially recognizes 37 languages, the most of any country in the world. Second to Bolivia is India with 22 official languages. Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, Mali has 13, and South Africa is the country with the fifth lead with 12 official languages that all have equal status; Bolivia gives primacy to Spanish, and India gives primacy to English and Hindi .
Political alternatives
The selection of an official language (or the lack thereof) is often contentious. An alternative to having a single official language is "official multilingualism", where a government recognizes multiple official languages. Under this system, all government services are available in all official languages. Each citizen may choose their preferred language when conducting business. Most countries are multilingual and many are officially multilingual. India, Taiwan, Canada, the Philippines, Belgium, Switzerland, and the European Union are examples of official multilingualism. This has been described as controversial and, in some other areas where it has been proposed, the idea has been rejected. It has also been described as necessary for the recognition of different groups or as an advantage for the country in presenting itself to outsiders.
Official languages by country and territory
Afghanistan
According to the Taliban, the Afghan government gives equal status to Pashto and Dari as official languages.
Azerbaijan
Article 21 of Azerbaijani Constitution designates the official language of the Republic of Azerbaijan as Azerbaijani Language.The Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan
Bangladesh After the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first President of Bangladesh adopted the policy of 'one state one language'. The de facto national language, Bengali, is the sole official language of Bangladesh according to the third article of the Constitution of Bangladesh. The government of Bangladesh introduced the Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987 to ensure the mandatory use of Bengali in all government affairs.
Belarus
Belarusian and Russian have official status in the Republic of Belarus.
Belgium Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German.Belgium, a federal state: The communities
Bulgaria Bulgarian is the sole official language in Bulgaria.
Canada
Following the Constitution Act, 1982 the (federal) Government of Canada gives equal status to English and French as official languages. The Province of New Brunswick is also officially bilingual, as is Yukon. Nunavut has four official languages: English, French, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun. The Northwest Territories has eleven official languages: Chipewyan/Dené, Cree, English, French, Gwich’in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey, and Tłı̨chǫ (Dogrib). All provinces, however, offer some necessary services in both English and French.
The Province of Quebec with the Official Language Act (Quebec) and Charter of the French Language defines French, the language of the majority of the population, as the official language of the provincial government.
Ethiopia
Ethiopia has five official languages (Amharic alone until 2020) Amharic, Oromo, Somali, Tigrinya, and Afar, but Amharic is the de facto sole official language which is used by the government for issuing driving licenses, business licenses, passport, and foreign diplomacy with the addition that Court documents are in Amharic, and the constitution is written in Amharic, making Amharic a higher official language in the country.
Finland According to the Finnish constitution, Finnish and Swedish are the national languages of the republic, giving their speakers the right to communicate with, and receive official documents from, government authorities in either of the two languages in any part of the country – making those languages de facto official. Speakers of Sámi languages have those same rights in their native area (Sámi homeland).
Germany
Its minority languages include Sorbian (Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian), Romani, Danish and North Frisian, which are officially recognised.
Hong Kong
According to the Basic Law of Hong Kong and the Official Languages Ordinance, both Chinese and English are the official languages of Hong Kong with equal status. The variety of Chinese is not stipulated; however, Cantonese, being the language most commonly used by the majority of Hongkongers, forms the de facto standard. Similarly, Traditional Chinese characters are most commonly used in Hong Kong and form the de facto standard for written Chinese, however, there is an increasing presence of Simplified Chinese characters particularly in areas related to tourism. In government use, documents written using Traditional Chinese characters are authoritative over ones written with Simplified Chinese characters.
India
The Constitution of India (part 17) designates the official language of the Government of India as Hindi written in the Devanagari script. Although the original intentions of the constitution were to phase out English as an official language, provisions were provided so that "Parliament may by law provide for the use ... of ... the English language".
The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists has 22 languages,Languages Included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian which have been referred to as scheduled languages and given recognition, status and official encouragement. In addition, the Government of India has awarded the distinction of classical language to Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali and Odia.
Indonesia
The official language of Indonesia is the Indonesian language (Bahasa Indonesia). Bahasa Indonesia is regulated in Chapter XV, 1945 Constitution of Indonesia.
Israel
On 19 July 2018, the Knesset passed a basic law under the title Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, which defines Hebrew as "the State's language" and Arabic as a language with "a special status in the State" (article 4). The law further says that it should not be interpreted as compromising the status of the Arabic language in practice before the enactment of the basic law, namely, it preserves the status quo and changes the status of Hebrew and Arabic only nominally.
Before the enactment of the aforementioned basic law, the status of official language in Israel was determined by the 82nd paragraph of the "Palestine Order in Council" issued on 14 August 1922, for the British Mandate of Palestine, as amended in 1939:The Palestine Gazette, No. 898 of 29 June 1939, Supplement 2, pp. 464–465.
"All Ordinances, official notices and official forms of the Government and all official notices of local authorities and municipalities in areas to be prescribed by order of the High Commissioner, shall be published in English, Arabic, and Hebrew."