Official Languages

An official language is used by the government to enact legislation, publish documents, and conduct other public business. In some cases, the official language is the only one that is used in public schools. A working language is designated by an international organization or corporation as its primary means of communication for daily correspondence and conversation.

The United Nations has six official and working languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. Europe has a large number of official languages. The European Union recognizes 24 official and working languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish.

Europe’s Official and Minority Languages

The official languages of the European Union are written in black. Languages that the European Union wishes to see preserved and protected are in purple.

Pause & Reflect 5.3.1

Name a language in Europe that is not an official language. Why might that be the case?

English is an official language in 56 countries, more than any other language. Two billion people live in a country where English is an official language, even if they cannot speak it. In addition, English is the predominant but not official language in several of the most prominent English-speaking countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As the primary language of the United States, English is used for all official documents, but it does not have an official status. American Sign Language is an official language in some Canadian provinces.

English-Speaking Countries

English is an official language in 56 countries and the predominant language in several other countries.

Informal Languages

New languages are being created through mixing English with other languages. The next page has several examples.

Franglais is the mix of French and English. French is an official language in 29 countries and for hundreds of years served as the lingua franca for international diplomats. Traditionally, language has been an especially important source of national pride and identity in France. For this reason, the French government officially encourages the use of terms that are purely French rather than terms that borrow from English.

Spanglish is the mix of Spanish and English. English is diffusing into the Spanish language spoken by 34 million Hispanics in the United States. New words have been invented in Spanglish that do not exist in English but would be useful if they did. For example, textear (texting) is a verb derived from the English and is less awkward than the Spanish mandar un mensajito (send a short message).

Denglish is the mix of German and English. The D stands for Deutsch, the German word for German. For example, the German telephone company Deutsche Telekom uses the German word Deutschlandverbindungen for “long distance” and the Denglish word Cityverbindungen for “local” (rather than the German word Ortsverbindungen).

A group that learns English or another lingua franca may learn a simplified form, called a pidgin language. To communicate with speakers of another language, two groups construct a pidgin language by learning a few of the grammar rules and words of a lingua franca and mixing in some elements of their own languages. A pidgin language has no native speakers; it is always spoken in addition to one’s native language.

English is the de facto (predominant) language of the United States, but it is not official. However, 32 of the 50 states have laws that make English official. And at home, many Americans speak a language other than English.

Status of English in U.S. States