Working language

Last updated

A working language (also procedural language) is a language that is given a unique legal status in a supranational company, society, state or other body or organization as its primary means of communication. It is primarily the language of the daily correspondence and conversation, since the organization usually has members with various differing language backgrounds.

Contents

Most international organizations have working languages for their bodies. For a given organization, a working language may or may not also be an official language.

United Nations working languages

Originally, English and French were the working languages at the UN. Later, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish were added as working languages in the General Assembly and in the Economic and Social Council. Currently, Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish are the working languages of the Security Council. [1]

Examples of common international organizations

English and French

The International Criminal Court has two working languages: English and French. [2] The Council of Europe, [3] the OECD, and NATO also have English and French as their two working languages.[ citation needed ]

The World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) has English and French as official languages, [4] with Arabic, Russian, and Spanish as additional working languages. [5]

Portuguese and Spanish

The Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), Mercosur, and the Latin American Integration Association have two working languages: Portuguese and Spanish.

Other groups with one or two working languages

English, French, and Spanish

The World Trade Organization, the International Federation of Journalists, the International Telecommunication Union, the International Maritime Organization, the International Labour Organization, NAFTA, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas all have three working languages: English, French, and Spanish.

Other groups with three or more working languages

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portuguese language</span> Romance language

Portuguese is a Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe, while having co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation is referred to as "Lusophone". As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and has kept some Celtic phonology in its lexicon.

A lingua franca, also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers' native languages.

An official language is a language having certain rights to be used in defined situations. These rights can be created in written form or by historic usage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Latin Union</span> Former international organization of Romance-language countries

The Latin Union is an international organization of nations that use Romance languages, whose activities have been suspended since 2012. Headquartered in Paris, France, its aim is to protect, project, and promote the common cultural heritage of Romance peoples and unifying identities of the Romance, and Romance-influenced, world. It was created in 1954 in Madrid, Spain. It started to operate in 1983 and its membership rose from 12 to 36 states, including countries in North America, South America, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ibero-America</span> Countries in the Americas which were formerly colonies of Spain or Portugal

Ibero-America or Iberian America is generally considered to be the region in the Americas comprising countries or territories where Spanish or Portuguese are predominant languages. Portugal and Spain are themselves included in some definitions, such as that of the Ibero-American Summit and the Organization of Ibero-American States. The Organization of Ibero-American States also includes Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea, in Central Africa, but not the Portuguese-speaking African countries. The Latin Recording Academy, the organization responsible for the Latin Grammy Awards, also includes Spain and Portugal as well as the Latino population of Canada and the United States in their definition of Ibero-America.

A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Organization of Ibero-American States</span> International organization of Iberophone nations

The Organization of Ibero-American States, formally the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture, is an international organization made up of 23 members states of Iberophone nations in Europe and the Americas, as well as one member in Africa. The OEI's membership is composed of all of the sovereign states of Ibero-America and the Iberian Peninsula, as well as Equatorial Guinea. All members are Portuguese and Spanish speaking nations, in addition to Andorra, which is predominantly Catalan speaking, though the organization does not include all the Iberophone nations of the world.

A pluricentric language or polycentric language is a language with several interacting codified standard forms, often corresponding to different countries. Many examples of such languages can be found worldwide among the most-spoken languages, including but not limited to Chinese in mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore; English in the United Kingdom, the United States, India, and elsewhere; and French in France, Canada, and elsewhere. The converse case is a monocentric language, which has only one formally standardized version. Examples include Japanese and Russian. In some cases, the different standards of a pluricentric language may be elaborated until they become autonomous languages, as happened with Malaysian and Indonesian, and with Hindi and Urdu. The same process is under way in the Serbo-Croatian family.

An endonym is a common, native name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate themselves, their homeland, or their language.

A national language is a language that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the territory of a country may be referred to informally or designated in legislation as national languages of the country. National languages are mentioned in over 150 world constitutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European Scout Region (World Organization of the Scout Movement)</span>

The European Scout Region is one of six geographical subdivisions of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with a satellite office in Brussels, Belgium.

In linguistics, a sprachraum is a geographical region where a common first language, with dialect varieties, or group of languages is spoken.

The official languages of the United Nations are the six languages used in UN meetings and in which the UN writes all its official documents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages in censuses</span>

Many countries and national censuses currently enumerate or have previously enumerated their populations by languages, native language, home language, level of knowing language or a combination of these characteristics.

References

  1. Archived August 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  2. Article 50 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Accessed 16 October 2007.
  3. "Did you know?" . Retrieved 1 November 2022. English and French are the official languages of the Council of Europe.
  4. WOSM constitution, ARTICLE XXIV, 1
  5. SCOUTS brand manual PROFESSIONAL VERSION, page 49, retrieved from
  6. "De nordiske sprog | Nordisk Samarbejde". www.norden.org (in Danish). Retrieved 2021-01-30.