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This is a list of official, or otherwise administratively-recognized, languages of sovereign countries, regions, and supra-national institutions. The article also lists lots of languages which have no administrative mandate as an official language, generally describing these as de facto official languages.
Abkhaz :
Afar :
Aja-Gbe :
Akan (Akuapem Twi, Asante Twi, Fante):
Albanian :
Amharic :
Anii :
Arabic (see also List of countries where Arabic is an official language):
Araona :
Armenian :
Assamese :
Aymara :
Balanta :
Bambara :
Bariba :
Basque :
Bassari :
Bedik :
Bengali :
Berber :
Biali :
Bislama :
Boko :
Bomu :
Bosnian :
Bozo :
Buduma :
Burmese :
Catalan :
Chichewa :
Chirbawe (Sena):
Corsican :
Croatian :
Czech :
Dagaare :
Dagbani :
Danish :
Dari :
Dendi :
Dhivehi :
Dioula :
Dogon :
Dutch :
Dzongkha :
English (see also List of countries where English is an official language):
Estonian :
Ewe-Gbe :
Fijian :
Filipino :
Finnish :
Fon-Gbe :
Foodo :
Formosan :
French (see also List of countries where French is an official language):
Fula :
Ga :
Gàidhlig :
Gbe :
Gen-Gbe :
Georgian :
German :
Gonja :
Greek :
Guaraní :
Gujarati :
Hakka :
Hausa :
Hebrew :
Hindi :
Igbo :
Irish :
Italian :
Japanese :
Javanese :
Jola :
Kabye :
Kalanga :
Kanuri :
Kasem :
Kazakh :
Khmer :
Kirundi :
" Koisan " (Tshuwau):
Korean :
Kpelle :
Kurdish :
Kyrgyz :
Lao :
Latvian :
Lukpa :
Malagasy :
Malay :
Malinke :
Maltese :
Mamara :
Mandinka :
Mandjak :
Mankanya :
Māori :
Mauritian Creole
Mbelime :
Meitei (officially known as Manipuri)
Mossi :
Nambya :
Nateni :
Ndau :
Ndebele (Northern):
Ndebele (Southern):
Nepali :
Noon :
Nzema :
Oniyan :
Oromo :
Ossetian :
Palauan :
Pashto :
Persian :
Polish :
Punjabi :
Quechua :
Romanian :
Romansh :
Russian :
Safen :
Sena :
Serbian :
Serer :
Shona :
Sinhala :
Slovak :
Slovene :
Somali :
Soninke :
Sotho :
Spanish :
Susu :
Swahili :
Swati :
Swedish :
Syenara :
Tajik :
Tagalog :
Tamasheq :
Tamil :
Tammari :
Tasawaq :
Tebu :
Telugu :
Tetum :
Thai :
Tigrinya :
Toma :
Tonga :
Tsonga :
Tswana :
Turkish :
Turkmen :
Urdu :
Uzbek :
Venda :
Waama :
Waci-Gbe :
Wamey :
Welsh :
Wolof :
Xhosa :
Yobe :
Yom :
Yoruba :
Zulu :
This is a ranking of languages by number of sovereign countries in which they are de jure or de facto official, co-official, an administrative or working language. [66]
| Language | Number of countries language spoken |
|---|---|
| English | 101 |
| French | 60 |
| Arabic | 51 |
| Standard Chinese | 33 |
| Spanish | 31 |
| Persian | 29 |
| German | 18 |
| Russian | 16 |
| Malay | 13 |
| Portuguese | 12 |
 |
Abaza :
Adyghe :
Aghul :
Aklanon :
Albanian :
Altay :
Arabic :
Aranesesee Occitan
Armenian :
Assamese :
Avar :
Azeri :
Balkar :
Bashkir :
Basque :
Bengali :
Bikol :
Bosnian :
Buryat :
Catalan :
Cebuano :
Chechen :
Cherkess :
Cherokee :
Chukchi :
Chuvash :
Cree :
Croatian :
Dargwa :
Dolgan :
Dutch :
English:
Erzya :
Even :
Evenki :
Faroese :
Finnish :
French :
Friulian :
Gagauz :
Galician :
German :
Greek :
Guaraní :
Gujarati :
Gwich'in :
Hawaiian :
Hindi :
Ibanag :
Ilocano :
Ingush :
Irish :
Italian :
Ivatan :
Japanese :
Kalmyk :
Kannada :
Karachay :
Karelian :
Kashmiri :
Kazakh :
Khakas :
Khanty :
Komi :
Korean :
Kumyk :
Kyrgyz :
Lak :
Lezgian :
Mansi :
Maranao :
Marathi :
Mari (Hill and Meadow):
Mayan :
Meitei (officially known as Manipuri):
Mi'kmaq :
Moksha :
Náhuatl :
Nenets :
Nepali :
Nogai :
Occitan :
Odia :
Ossetic (Digor and Iron dialects):
Punjabi :
Romanian :
Russian . Russian is fixed as a state language in the Constitutions of the republics of the Russian Federation:
Rusyn :
Rutul :
Sakha :
Sambal :
Sami :
Sanskrit :
Sarikoli :
Selkup :
Serbian :
Sindhi :
Slovak :
Slovene :
Spanish :
Tagalog :
Tahitian :
Tamil :
Tat :
Tatar :
Tausug :
Telugu :
Tibetan :
Tłįchǫ :
Tsakhur :
Tswana :
Turkish :
Tuvan :
Udmurt :
Urdu :
Uyghur :
Veps :
Waray :
Welsh :
Yakan :
Yiddish :
Yukaghir :
Zhuang :
Sesotho sa Leboa is a Sotho-Tswana language group spoken in the northeastern provinces of South Africa, most commonly in Mpumalanga, Gauteng and the Limpopo provinces. It is also known by Pedi or Sepedi and holds the status of an official language in South Africa.
The number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages, one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world. The languages of Africa belong to many distinct language families, among which the largest are:
At least thirty-five languages are spoken in South Africa, twelve of which are official languages of South Africa: Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, South African Sign Language, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, and English, which is the primary language used in parliamentary and state discourse, though all official languages are equal in legal status. In addition, South African Sign Language was recognised as the twelfth official language of South Africa by the National Assembly on 3 May 2023. Unofficial languages are protected under the Constitution of South Africa, though few are mentioned by any name.
Mali is a multilingual country of about 21.9 million people. The languages spoken there reflect ancient settlement patterns, migrations, and its long history. Ethnologue counts more than 80 languages. Of these, Bambara, Bobo, Bozo, Dogon, Fula, Arabic, Kassonke, Maninke, Minyanka, Senufo, Songhay languages, Soninke and Tamasheq are official languages.
Atakora is the northwesternmost department of Benin. Externally it borders Togo to the west and Burkina Faso to the north; internally it borders the departments of Alibori, Borgou and Donga. Major towns in the Atakora include Natitingou and Tanguiéta, and the major tourist areas include the Tata Somba houses, Pendjari National Park, and various waterfalls. The department of Atakora was bifurcated in 1999, with its southern territory removed to form the newly created Donga Department. The capital of Atakora Department is Natitingou, which lies among the Atakora Mountains.
Elandspark is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is located in Region 9.
Atholl Gardens is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is located in Region E.
Sandown is an affluent suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, in Sandton. It is located in Region E of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. Sandown is both a residential and commercial area and is home to the offices of many major national and international corporations as well as the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in the area known as Sandton Central. The Gautrain rapid rail system's Sandton Station is located in Sandown, linking Sandton to O.R. Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg Central and the Capital City, Pretoria.
Waterkloof is an affluent suburb of the city of Pretoria in the Gauteng province of South Africa, located to the east of the city centre. It is named after the original farm that stood there when Pretoria was founded in the 19th Century.
The nine provinces of South Africa are divided into 52 districts, which are either metropolitan or district municipalities. They are the second level of administrative division, below the provinces and above the local municipalities.
South African Bantu-speaking peoples represent the majority indigenous ethno-racial group of South Africans. Occasionally grouped as Bantu, the term itself is derived from the English word "people", common to many of the Bantu languages. The Oxford Dictionary of South African English describes "Bantu", when used in a contemporary usage or racial context as "obsolescent and offensive", because of its strong association with the "white minority rule" with their Apartheid system. However, Bantu is used without pejorative connotations in other parts of Africa and is still used in South Africa as the group term for the language family.
ISO 3166-2:ZA is the entry for South Africa in ISO 3166-2, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which defines codes for the names of the principal subdivisions of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1.
David is a common masculine given name of Hebrew origin. Its popularity derives from the initial oral tradition and recorded use related to King David, a central figure in the Torah and foundational to Judaism, and subsequently significant in the religious traditions of Christianity and Islam.
The National Anthem of Zimbabwe, also known by its incipit in Shona, "Simudzai Mureza wedu WeZimbabwe", and the final line of each verse in Ndebele, "Kalibusiswe Ilizwe leZimbabwe", was introduced in March 1994 after a nationwide competition to replace the South African-derived "Ishe Komborera Africa" with a distinctly Zimbabwean song. The winning entry was a Shona song written by Professor Solomon Mutswairo and composed by Fred Changundega. It was translated into English and Ndebele, the two other main languages of Zimbabwe. The Ndebele version is mainly sung in the Matebeleland regions of Zimbabwe, while the English version is not commonly sung. Some schools in Matabeleland South have introduced the Sotho/Tswana version.
Many languages are spoken, or historically have been spoken, in Zimbabwe. Since the adoption of its 2013 Constitution, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, namely Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa. The country's main languages are Shona, spoken by over 70% of the population, and Ndebele, spoken by roughly 20%. English is the country's lingua franca, used in government and business and as the main medium of instruction in schools. English is the first language of most white Zimbabweans, and is the second language of a majority of black Zimbabweans. Historically, a minority of white Zimbabweans spoke Afrikaans, Greek, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese, among other languages, while Gujarati and Hindi could be found amongst the country's Indian population. Deaf Zimbabweans commonly use one of several varieties of Zimbabwean Sign Language, with some using American Sign Language. Zimbabwean language data is based on estimates, as Zimbabwe has never conducted a census that enumerated people by language.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to South Africa:
Mthwakazi is the traditional name of the proto-Ndebele people and Ndebele kingdom and is located in between Sanyati river and Limpopo River in the area of today's Zimbabwe. Mthwakazi is widely used to refer to inhabitants of Matebeleland Province in Zimbabwe.
Several braille alphabets are used in South Africa. For English, Unified English Braille has been adopted. Nine other languages have been written in braille: Afrikaans, Ndebele, Sesotho, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu. All print alphabets are restricted to the basic Latin alphabet, with diacritics in some cases; the braille alphabets are likewise basic braille with additional letters to render the diacritics.
