Official languages of the United Nations
Encyclopedia
The official languages of the United Nations are the six languages that are used in UN meetings, and in which all official UN documents are written. They are:
, particularly the General Assembly
(Article 51 of its Rules of Procedure) and the Security Council
(Article 41 of its Rules of Procedure). Each representative of a country may speak in any one of these six languages, or may speak in any language and provide interpretation into one of the six official languages. The UN provides simultaneous interpretation from the official language into the other five official languages.
The six official languages are also used for the dissemination of official documents. Until a document is available in all six official languages, it is not published. Generally, the texts in each of the six languages are equally authoritative.
The United Nations has drawn criticism for relying too heavily on English, and not enough on the other five official languages. Spanish-speaking member states formally brought this to the attention of the Secretary-General in 2001. (Secretary-General Kofi Annan
then responded that full parity of the six official languages was unachievable within current budgetary restraints, but he nevertheless attached great importance to improving the linguistic balance.) Over the last several years, resolutions of the General Assembly have urged the secretariat to respect the parity of the six official languages, especially in the dissemination of public information.
In several recent resolutions concerning human resources management at the UN, the General Assembly has stressed “the need to respect the equality of each of the two working languages of the Secretariat” and requested the Secretary-General “to ensure that vacancy announcements specify the need for either of the working languages [English and French] of the Secretariat unless the functions of the post require a specific working language.”
The Secretary-General's most recent report on multilingualism was issued on October 4, 2010. In response, on July 19, 2011, the General Assembly adopted Resolution No. A/RES/65/311 on multilingualism, calling on the Secretary-General, once again, to ensure that all six official languages are given equally favourable working conditions and resources. The resolution noted with concern that the multilingual development of the UN website had improved at a much slower rate than expected.
. The Charter was enacted in five languages (Chinese, French, Russian, English, and Spanish) and provided (in Article 111
) that the five texts are equally authentic.
In 1946, the first session of the United Nations General Assembly
adopted rules of procedure concerning languages that purported to apply to “all the organs of the United Nations, other than the International Court of Justice”, setting out five official languages and two working languages
(English and French).
The following year, the second session of the General Assembly adopted permanent rules of procedure, Resolution 173 (II). The part of those rules relating to language closely followed the 1946 rules, except that the 1947 rules did not purport to apply to other UN organs, just the General Assembly.
Meanwhile, a proposal had been in the works to add Spanish as a third working language in addition to English and French. This was adopted in Resolution 262 (III), passed on 11 December 1948.
In 1968, Russian was added as a working language of the General Assembly so that of the GA’s five official languages, four of them (all but Chinese) were working languages.
In 1973, the General Assembly made Chinese a working language and added Arabic as both an official language and working language of the GA. Thus all six official languages were also working languages. Arabic was made an official and working language of “the General Assembly and its Main Committees”, whereas the other five languages had status in all GA committees and subcommittees (not just the main committees). The Arab members of the UN had agreed to pay the costs of implementing the resolution, for three years.
In 1980, the General Assembly got rid of this final distinction, making Arabic an official and working language of all its committees and subcommittees, as of by 1 January 1982. At the same time, the GA requested the Security Council to include Arabic among its official and working languages, and the Economic and Social Council
to include Arabic among its official languages, by 1 January 1983.
As of 1983, the Security Council (like the General Assembly) recognized six official and working languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.
In the Economic and Social Council
, as of 1992, there are six official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) of which three are working languages (English, French, and Spanish).
The UN Secretariat uses two working languages: English and French. All Secretaries-General have had a working knowledge of both languages.
of 2.8 billion people on the planet, less than half of the world population. The six languages are official languages in more than half the states in the world (about one hundred).
and the Indian states of West Bengal
, Assam
, and Tripura
unanimously voted in resolutions calling for Bengali
to be made an official UN language. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
also put forward the proposal during her address to the 64th UN General Assembly Session, arguing that Bengali holds a "singular place as a symbol of people's faith in the power of languages to sustain cultures, and indeed the identity of nations".
be adopted as an official UN language, initially as a complement to the current six official languages, with the ultimate goal of making Esperanto the primary language so that only certain documents would be translated into others, thus saving on translation costs.
In 1966, the Universal Esperanto Association proposed that the UN solve its language problem by supporting use of Esperanto.
Despite these attempts, consideration of adding Esperanto as an official language has never made the UN agenda.
recognized as an official language of the UN. In 2007, it was reported that the government would “make immediate diplomatic moves to see the status of an official language for Hindi at the United Nations”. However, there has been opposition to this from southern India, where Hindi is not widely spoken.
Although it has one of the largest number of speakers in the world (approximately 400 million), Hindustani
is not an official language of the UN. The linguistic community is overwhemingly concentrated in the Indian sub-continent and is the most spoken language there, but within its own sub-continent the language faces opposition from states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and to a lesser extent West Bengal in India, who view it as efforts on part of the Indian Government to impose Hindi on them. English remains the link language between Hindi and non-Hindi states to this day in India. The many variants of Hindustani complicate its recognition as an official language.
in Europe
, Brazil
in South America
, Angola
, Mozambique
, Equatorial Guinea
, Cape Verde
, Guinea-Bissau
, and São Tomé and Príncipe
in Africa
, and Timor-Leste and Macau
in Asia
. Thus, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries demands official status of the language (with 240 million people using the language fluently), while the use of Portuguese is growing strongly with the increase of the Brazilian population. It has also been noted that Portuguese “is not an international language, used in diplomacy and business the way that French is”.
In 2008 the President of Portugal
announced that the eight leaders of the CPLC had agreed to take the necessary steps to make Portuguese an official language. This followed a decision by Portugal's legislators to adopt a standardization of Portuguese spelling that leans toward Brazilian Portuguese.
, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
expressed a desire to see Turkish
become an official UN language.
The first such coordinator was Federico Riesco, appointed on 6 September 2000.
Following Riesco's retirement, Miles Stoby of Guyana was appointed Coordinator for Multilingualism, effective 6 September 2001.
In 2003, Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Shashi Tharoor
as Coordinator for Multilingualism. This responsibility was in addition to Tharoor's role as Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, head of the Department of Public Information
.
The current coordinator for multilingualism is Kiyo Akasaka, who is also Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information.
has nine official languages including Hindi, Italian, and Portuguese. The Universal Postal Union
has just one official language, French. IFAD has four official languages: Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.
The next largest international grouping after the UN is the Commonwealth of Nations
which is exclusively English speaking. All other international bodies in commerce, transport and sport have tended to the adoption of one language as the means of communication. This is usually English, closely followed by French. Regional groups have adopted what is common to other elements of their ethnic or religious background; classical Arabic
is usually adopted across Muslim nation groups. Most of non-Muslim Africa is either Francophone or Anglophone because of their imperial past, but there is also a Lusophone grouping of countries for the same reason.
- ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
- ChineseChinese languageThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
(Mandarin) - EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
- FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
- RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
- SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
Description
These languages are used at meetings of various UN organsUnited Nations System
The United Nations system consists of the United Nations, its subsidiary organs , the specialized agencies, and affiliated organizations...
, particularly the General Assembly
United Nations General Assembly
For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...
(Article 51 of its Rules of Procedure) and the Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
(Article 41 of its Rules of Procedure). Each representative of a country may speak in any one of these six languages, or may speak in any language and provide interpretation into one of the six official languages. The UN provides simultaneous interpretation from the official language into the other five official languages.
The six official languages are also used for the dissemination of official documents. Until a document is available in all six official languages, it is not published. Generally, the texts in each of the six languages are equally authoritative.
The United Nations has drawn criticism for relying too heavily on English, and not enough on the other five official languages. Spanish-speaking member states formally brought this to the attention of the Secretary-General in 2001. (Secretary-General Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
then responded that full parity of the six official languages was unachievable within current budgetary restraints, but he nevertheless attached great importance to improving the linguistic balance.) Over the last several years, resolutions of the General Assembly have urged the secretariat to respect the parity of the six official languages, especially in the dissemination of public information.
In several recent resolutions concerning human resources management at the UN, the General Assembly has stressed “the need to respect the equality of each of the two working languages of the Secretariat” and requested the Secretary-General “to ensure that vacancy announcements specify the need for either of the working languages [English and French] of the Secretariat unless the functions of the post require a specific working language.”
The Secretary-General's most recent report on multilingualism was issued on October 4, 2010. In response, on July 19, 2011, the General Assembly adopted Resolution No. A/RES/65/311 on multilingualism, calling on the Secretary-General, once again, to ensure that all six official languages are given equally favourable working conditions and resources. The resolution noted with concern that the multilingual development of the UN website had improved at a much slower rate than expected.
History
The Charter of the United Nations, its 1945 constituent document, did not expressly provide for official languages of the UNUnited Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
. The Charter was enacted in five languages (Chinese, French, Russian, English, and Spanish) and provided (in Article 111
Chapter XIX of the United Nations Charter
Chapter XIX of the United Nations Charter deals with ratification and signature of the UN Charter. It provided that the Charter would enter into force once ratified by the Permanent Five members of the UN Security Council and a majority of the other signatory states...
) that the five texts are equally authentic.
In 1946, the first session of the United Nations General Assembly
United Nations General Assembly
For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...
adopted rules of procedure concerning languages that purported to apply to “all the organs of the United Nations, other than the International Court of Justice”, setting out five official languages and two working languages
Working language
A working language is a language that is given a unique legal status in a supra-national company, society, state or other body or organization as its primary mean of communication...
(English and French).
The following year, the second session of the General Assembly adopted permanent rules of procedure, Resolution 173 (II). The part of those rules relating to language closely followed the 1946 rules, except that the 1947 rules did not purport to apply to other UN organs, just the General Assembly.
Meanwhile, a proposal had been in the works to add Spanish as a third working language in addition to English and French. This was adopted in Resolution 262 (III), passed on 11 December 1948.
In 1968, Russian was added as a working language of the General Assembly so that of the GA’s five official languages, four of them (all but Chinese) were working languages.
In 1973, the General Assembly made Chinese a working language and added Arabic as both an official language and working language of the GA. Thus all six official languages were also working languages. Arabic was made an official and working language of “the General Assembly and its Main Committees”, whereas the other five languages had status in all GA committees and subcommittees (not just the main committees). The Arab members of the UN had agreed to pay the costs of implementing the resolution, for three years.
In 1980, the General Assembly got rid of this final distinction, making Arabic an official and working language of all its committees and subcommittees, as of by 1 January 1982. At the same time, the GA requested the Security Council to include Arabic among its official and working languages, and the Economic and Social Council
United Nations Economic and Social Council
The Economic and Social Council of the United Nations constitutes one of the six principal organs of the United Nations and it is responsible for the coordination of the economic, social and related work of 14 UN specialized agencies, its functional commissions and five regional commissions...
to include Arabic among its official languages, by 1 January 1983.
As of 1983, the Security Council (like the General Assembly) recognized six official and working languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.
In the Economic and Social Council
United Nations Economic and Social Council
The Economic and Social Council of the United Nations constitutes one of the six principal organs of the United Nations and it is responsible for the coordination of the economic, social and related work of 14 UN specialized agencies, its functional commissions and five regional commissions...
, as of 1992, there are six official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) of which three are working languages (English, French, and Spanish).
The UN Secretariat uses two working languages: English and French. All Secretaries-General have had a working knowledge of both languages.
Other proposed languages
The six official languages spoken at the UN are the mother tongue or second languageSecond language
A second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas ....
of 2.8 billion people on the planet, less than half of the world population. The six languages are official languages in more than half the states in the world (about one hundred).
Bengali
Being one of the most spoken languages in the World, ranking 5th or 6th, in 2009 elected representatives in both BangladeshBangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
and the Indian states of West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
, Assam
Assam
Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...
, and Tripura
Tripura
Tripura is a state in North-East India, with an area of . It is the third smallest state of India, according to area. Tripura is surrounded by Bangladesh on the north, south, and west. The Indian states of Assam and Mizoram lie to the east. The capital is Agartala and the main languages spoken are...
unanimously voted in resolutions calling for Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
to be made an official UN language. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
Sheikh Hasina
Sheikh Hasina is a Bangladeshi politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Awami League, a major political party, since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh and widow of a reputed nuclear...
also put forward the proposal during her address to the 64th UN General Assembly Session, arguing that Bengali holds a "singular place as a symbol of people's faith in the power of languages to sustain cultures, and indeed the identity of nations".
Esperanto
A proposal has been made that EsperantoEsperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
be adopted as an official UN language, initially as a complement to the current six official languages, with the ultimate goal of making Esperanto the primary language so that only certain documents would be translated into others, thus saving on translation costs.
In 1966, the Universal Esperanto Association proposed that the UN solve its language problem by supporting use of Esperanto.
Despite these attempts, consideration of adding Esperanto as an official language has never made the UN agenda.
Hindustani
According to a 2009 press release from its Ministry of External Affairs, the government of India has been “working actively” to have HindiHindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
recognized as an official language of the UN. In 2007, it was reported that the government would “make immediate diplomatic moves to see the status of an official language for Hindi at the United Nations”. However, there has been opposition to this from southern India, where Hindi is not widely spoken.
Although it has one of the largest number of speakers in the world (approximately 400 million), Hindustani
Hindustani language
Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...
is not an official language of the UN. The linguistic community is overwhemingly concentrated in the Indian sub-continent and is the most spoken language there, but within its own sub-continent the language faces opposition from states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and to a lesser extent West Bengal in India, who view it as efforts on part of the Indian Government to impose Hindi on them. English remains the link language between Hindi and non-Hindi states to this day in India. The many variants of Hindustani complicate its recognition as an official language.
Portuguese
Many Lusophones have advocated for greater recognition of their language, as it is spoken several continents: PortugalPortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
, Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
, Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea where the capital Malabo is situated.Annobón is the southernmost island of Equatorial Guinea and is situated just south of the equator. Bioko island is the northernmost point of Equatorial Guinea. Between the two islands and to the...
, Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
, Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau
The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....
, and São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe, officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, is a Portuguese-speaking island nation in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. It consists of two islands: São Tomé and Príncipe, located about apart and about , respectively, off...
in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, and Timor-Leste and Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
in Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
. Thus, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries demands official status of the language (with 240 million people using the language fluently), while the use of Portuguese is growing strongly with the increase of the Brazilian population. It has also been noted that Portuguese “is not an international language, used in diplomacy and business the way that French is”.
In 2008 the President of Portugal
President of Portugal
Portugal has been a republic since 1910, and since that time the head of state has been the president, whose official title is President of the Portuguese Republic ....
announced that the eight leaders of the CPLC had agreed to take the necessary steps to make Portuguese an official language. This followed a decision by Portugal's legislators to adopt a standardization of Portuguese spelling that leans toward Brazilian Portuguese.
Turkish
In September 2011, during a meeting with UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moonBan Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon is the eighth and current Secretary-General of the United Nations, after succeeding Kofi Annan in 2007. Before going on to be Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he...
, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been Prime Minister of Turkey since 2003 and is chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party , which holds a majority of the seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Erdoğan served as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He graduated in 1981 from Marmara...
expressed a desire to see Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
become an official UN language.
Coordinator for multilingualism
In a 1999 resolution, the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to “appoint a senior Secretariat official as coordinator of questions relating to multilingualism throughout the Secretariat”.The first such coordinator was Federico Riesco, appointed on 6 September 2000.
Following Riesco's retirement, Miles Stoby of Guyana was appointed Coordinator for Multilingualism, effective 6 September 2001.
In 2003, Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Shashi Tharoor
Shashi Tharoor
Shashi Tharoor is an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala...
as Coordinator for Multilingualism. This responsibility was in addition to Tharoor's role as Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, head of the Department of Public Information
United Nations Department of Public Information
The United Nations Department of Public Information helps non-governmental organizations gain access to and disseminate information about United Nations issues so the public can better understand the aims and objectives of the organizations...
.
The current coordinator for multilingualism is Kiyo Akasaka, who is also Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information.
Language Days at the UN
In 2010, the UN's Department of Public Information announced an initiative of six "language days" to be observed throughout the year, one for each official language, with the goal of celebrating linguistic diversity and learning about the importance of cross-cultural communication. The days and their historical significance are:- Arabic Language Day at the UN: December 18 (the date on which the United Nations General Assembly designated Arabic as the sixth official language of the United Nations in 1973);
- Chinese Language Day at the UN: first celebrated November 12 now set on April 20 ("to pay tribute to Cang Jie")
- English Language Day at the UN: April 23 ("the date traditionally observed as the birthday of William Shakespeare")
- French Language Day at the UN: March 20 (corresponding to the Journée internationale de la FrancophonieInternational Francophonie DayInternational Francophonie Day, , which commemorates the founding of the Francophonie, is celebrated in the organization's member states every March 20....
) - Russian Language Day at the UN: June 6 (the birthday of Aleksandr PushkinAleksandr PushkinAlexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature....
) - Spanish Language Day at the UN: October 12 (celebrated in the Spanish-speaking world as "Día de la Hispanidad" or "Día de la Raza"; compare Columbus DayColumbus DayMany countries in the New World and elsewhere celebrate the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, which occurred on October 12, 1492, as an official holiday...
)
UN specialized agencies
UN independent agencies have their own sets of official languages that sometimes are different from that of the principal UN organs. For example, the General Conference of UNESCOUNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
has nine official languages including Hindi, Italian, and Portuguese. The Universal Postal Union
Universal Postal Union
The Universal Postal Union is an international organization that coordinates postal policies among member nations, in addition to the worldwide postal system. The UPU contains four bodies consisting of the Congress, the Council of Administration , the Postal Operations Council and the...
has just one official language, French. IFAD has four official languages: Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.
Parallels with other multilingual institutions
The European Union has a strict rule that all of its constituent member nations' languages have parity and all documents are translated into these. However, the majority of new members since 1990, notably the Scandinavian and Eastern Europeans, have not insisted on this and have indicated a preparedness to conduct matters in one of the five principal languages of the Western European nations (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish) because most diplomats are fluent in both their home language and at least one of these; there is in fact a marked preference by the newer members for English. The French are the most strenuous advocates for the all-languages parity rule.The next largest international grouping after the UN is the Commonwealth of Nations
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
which is exclusively English speaking. All other international bodies in commerce, transport and sport have tended to the adoption of one language as the means of communication. This is usually English, closely followed by French. Regional groups have adopted what is common to other elements of their ethnic or religious background; classical Arabic
Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic , also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times . It is based on the Medieval dialects of Arab tribes...
is usually adopted across Muslim nation groups. Most of non-Muslim Africa is either Francophone or Anglophone because of their imperial past, but there is also a Lusophone grouping of countries for the same reason.
See also
- Official languageOfficial languageAn official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
- List of official languages
- List of official languages by institution
- List of languages by number of native speakers
- Languages of the European UnionLanguages of the European UnionThe languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. They include the twenty-three official languages of the European Union along with a range of others...
- League of Nations#Languages and symbols
- The InterpreterThe InterpreterThe Interpreter is a 2005 political thriller film starring Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, and Catherine Keener. It was the final film to be directed by Sydney Pollack.-Plot:...