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.
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.
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 ,
English and
Hindi in
Odisha state of India|200x150px 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, 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: :"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." This law, like most other laws of the British Mandate, was adopted in the State of Israel, subject to certain amendments published by the provisional legislative branch on 19 May 1948. The amendment states that: :"Any provision in the law requiring the use of the English language is repealed." In most
public schools, the main teaching language is Hebrew, English is taught as a second language, and most students learn a third language, usually Arabic but not necessarily. Other public schools have Arabic as their main teaching language, and they teach Hebrew as a second language and English as a third one. There are also bilingual schools which aim to teach both Hebrew and Arabic equally. Some languages other than Hebrew and Arabic, such as English, Russian,
Amharic,
Yiddish and
Ladino enjoy a somewhat special status but are not official languages. For instance, at least 5% of the broadcasting time of privately owned TV channels must be translated into Russian (a similar privilege is granted to Arabic), warnings must be translated to several languages, and signs are mostly trilingual (Hebrew, Arabic and English), and the government supports Yiddish and Ladino culture (alongside Hebrew culture and Arabic culture).
Latvia on "Lenin Street" in the two official languages at the time of the 1945–1991
Soviet occupation of Latvia:
Latvian (above) and
Russian (below, in
Cyrillic alphabet) The Official Language Law recognizes
Latvian as the sole official language of Latvia, while
Latgalian is protected as "a historic variant of Latvian" and
Livonian is recognized as "the language of the indigenous (autochthonous) population". Latvia also provides national minority education programmes in
Russian,
Polish,
Hebrew,
Ukrainian,
Estonian,
Lithuanian, and
Belarusian. In 2012 there was a
constitutional referendum on elevating
Russian as a co-official language, but the proposal was rejected by nearly three-quarters of the voters.
Malaysia The official language of Malaysia is the
Malay (
Bahasa Melayu), also known as Bahasa Malaysia or just Bahasa for short. Bahasa Melayu is being protected under Article 152 of the Constitution of Malaysia.
Netherlands Dutch is the official language of the
Netherlands (a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands). In the province of
Friesland,
Frisian is the official second language. While Dutch is therefore the official language of the
Caribbean Netherlands (the islands
Bonaire,
Saba and
Sint Eustatius), it is not any of the three islands' main spoken language:
Papiamento is the most often spoken language on Bonaire, while
English is on both Saba and Sint Eustatius. These languages can be used in official documents (but do not have the same status as Frisian).
Low Saxon and
Limburgish, languages acknowledged by the
European Charter, are spoken in specific regions of the Netherlands.
New Zealand New Zealand has three official languages. English is the
de facto official language, accepted as such in all situations. The
Māori language and
New Zealand Sign Language both have restricted
de jure official status under the
Māori Language Act 2016 and
New Zealand Sign Language Act 2006. In 2018,
New Zealand First MP
Clayton Mitchell introduced a bill to parliament to
statutorily recognise English as an official language. As of May 2020, the bill had not progressed. During the
2023 New Zealand general election, New Zealand First leader
Winston Peters campaigned to make English an official language, and in 2026
a relevant bill received its first reading.
Nigeria The official language of Nigeria is English, which was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country.
British colonial rule ended in 1960.
Norway Pakistan Urdu and English both are official languages in Pakistan. Pakistan has more than 60 other languages. Among these,
Sindhi exists as an official language in the province of
Sindh.
Philippines Filipino and English both are official languages of the Philippines.
Poland Polish is the official language of
Poland.
Russia Russian is the official language of the
Russian Federation and in all
federal subjects, however many minority languages have official status in the areas where they are indigenous. One type of federal subject in Russia,
republics, are allowed to adopt additional official languages alongside Russian in their constitutions. Republics are often based around particular native ethnic groups and are often areas where ethnic
Russians and native Russian-language speakers are a minority.
South Africa South Africa has twelve official languages that are mostly indigenous. Due to limited funding, however, the government rarely produces documents in most languages. Accusations of mismanagement and
corruption have been leveled against the
Pan South African Language Board, established to promote multilingualism, develop the 11 official languages, and protect language rights in the country. In practice, government is conducted in English.
Switzerland The four national languages of
Switzerland are
German,
French,
Italian and
Romansh. At the federal level German, French and Italian are official languages, the official languages of individual cantons depend on the languages spoken in them.
Taiwan Mandarin is the most common language used in government. After
World War II the mainland Chinese-run government made Mandarin the official language, and it was used in the schools and government. Under the Development of National Languages Act, political participation can be conducted in any national language, which is defined as a "natural language used by an original people group of Taiwan", which also includes
Formosan languages, the
Taiwanese variety of Hokkien and
Hakka. According to Taiwan's Legislative Yuan, amendments were made to the Hakka Basic Act to make
Hakka an official language of
Taiwan.
Timor-Leste According to the
constitution of Timor-Leste,
Tetum and
Portuguese are the official languages of the country, and every official document must be published in both languages;
Indonesian and
English hold "working language" status in the country.
Ukraine The official language of
Ukraine is
Ukrainian.
United Kingdom The de facto official language of the United Kingdom is
English. In
Wales, the
Welsh language, spoken by approximately 20% of the population, has
de jure official status, alongside English. as of November 30, 2025 Gaelic and Scots have become official languages of Scotland alongside the earlier declared official language of English.
United States English is the predominant language of
the United States. While the U.S. has no
de jure official language as no legislation has been passed to recognize English as the nation's official language,
Executive Order 14224 of 2025 declares English official. Most states have passed legislation to designate English as their official language; 32 of the 50
U.S. states and all five inhabited
U.S. territories have designated English as one, or the only, official language, while courts have found that residents in the 50 states do not have a right to government services in their preferred language.
California allows people to take their
driving test in the following 32 languages: Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Chinese, Croatian, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian,
Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Laotian,
Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Spanish, Tagalog/Filipino, Thai, Tongan, Turkish, and Vietnamese.
New York state provides voter-registration forms in the following five languages:
Bengali,
Chinese,
English,
Korean and
Spanish. The same languages are also on ballot papers in certain parts of the state (namely,
New York City). Opponents of an official English language policy in the United States argue that it would hamper "the government's ability to reach out, communicate, and warn people in the event of a natural or man-made disaster such as a hurricane, pandemic, or...another terrorist attack". Professor of politics
Alan Patten argues that disengagement (officially ignoring the issue) works well in religious issues but that it is not possible with language issues because it must offer public services in some language.
Yugoslavia Sometimes an official language definition can be motivated more by national identity than by linguistic concerns. Prior to the
breakup in early 1990s, although
SFR Yugoslavia had no official language on the federal level, its six constituent republics including two autonomous provinces accounted for four official languages—
Serbo-Croatian,
Slovene,
Macedonian and
Albanian. Serbo-Croatian served as the
lingua franca for mutual understanding and was also the language of
the military, as official in four republics and taught as a
second language in the other two. When
Croatia declared independence in 1991, it defined its official language as
Croatian, while the confederate union of
Serbia and Montenegro likewise defined its official language as
Serbian in 1992.
Bosnia and Herzegovina defined three official languages:
Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. From the linguistic point of view, the different names refer to national varieties of the same language, which is known under the appellation of Serbo-Croatian. The language used in
Montenegro became standardized as the
Montenegrin language upon Montenegro's declaration of independence from
Serbia and Montenegro in 2006.
Zimbabwe Since the adoption of the
2013 Constitution, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, namely == See also ==