Official languages of the United Nations

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The official languages of the United Nations are the six languages used in United Nations (UN) meetings and in which the UN writes all its official documents. [1]

Contents

For the United Nations to select a language to be official, a majority of the 193 members need to vote in favor of it. Afterward, it is up to the respective country (or countries) of the new language to help financially support translation and interpretation services.[ citation needed ] [2] [ better source needed ]

Five languages were chosen in 1946 as official languages around when the United Nations was founded:

(Modern Standard) Arabic was later voted to be an additional official language in 1973.

Description

These languages are used at meetings of various UN organs, particularly the General Assembly (Article 51 of its Rules of Procedure), the Economic and Social Council 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 any official language into the other five official languages, via the United Nations Interpretation Service.

The six official languages are also used for the dissemination of official documents. Generally, the texts in each of the six languages are equally authoritative. Most UN councils use all six languages as official and working languages; however, as of 2023 the United Nations Secretariat uses only two working languages: English and French. [5]

The six official languages spoken at the UN are the first or second language of 2.8 billion people on the planet, less than half of the world population. The six languages are official languages in almost two-thirds of United Nations member states (over 120 states).[ citation needed ]

History

In 1920, the League of Nations was one of the first international institutions to promote the concept of international official languages to foster communication and spur global diplomacy in the aftermath of the brutality of World War I. The League of Nations selected English, French, and Spanish as official languages with English and French being the working languages. English and French were chosen due to the global reach of the British Empire and the French Empire. Spanish was selected due to the large number of first-language speakers in Latin America and the former Spanish Empire. There was an effort to select Esperanto as an additional language of the League, but that was rejected. [6]

In the 1940s, as the conclusion of World War II was nearing, the Allies held a multitude of conferences, including the London Declaration, the Arcadia Conference, the Cairo Conference, the Tehran Conference, the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference. These conferences were meant to coordinate and plan the post-war world, including how to promote world peace in the aftermath of the war, how to facilitate global communication through an international auxiliary language (such as Esperanto) or an existing group of languages, and how to handle the decolonization of Africa and Asia. Additionally, these conferences led to the establishment of the United Nations as the successor of the League of Nations.

In 1945, this culminated in the Charter of the UN, its constituent document signed at the San Francisco Conference, which did not expressly provide for official languages. The Charter was initially enacted in five languages (English, French, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish). The United Nations selected these original five languages because in addition to being utilized by the League of Nations, they were also the de facto official languages of the major Allied nations, including the Big Four: the British Empire, the United States, the Soviet Union and the Republic of China plus French which was the language of France and the French colonies. These nations: the UK, the US, the USSR, Republic of China, and France, became the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council. Unofficially, the UN held its operations in English and French; however, the Charter provided (in Article 111) that the five languages be equally authoritative. [7] [8]

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", formally setting out five (5) official languages and two (2) working languages (English and French). [9]

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. [7] 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. [7] [10]

In 1968, Russian was added as a working language of the General Assembly so that, of the GA's five official languages, four (all but Mandarin) were working. [11] [12]

In 1973, the General Assembly made Mandarin a working language and switched to using simplified Chinese characters. [13] They also 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. [14] [15] [16]

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 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. [17]

As of 1983, the Security Council (like the General Assembly) recognized six official and working languages: Arabic, English, French, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish. [18]

In the Economic and Social Council, as of 1992, there were six official languages (Arabic, English, French, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish) of which three were working languages (English, French, and Spanish). [19] Later, Arabic, Mandarin, and Russian were added as working languages in the Economic and Social Council. [20]

In 2001, the United Nations drew criticism for relying too heavily on English, and not enough on the other five official languages and Spanish-speaking member nations formally brought this to the attention of the secretary-general. [21] Additionally, there was a movement to consider adding official languages or creating a grouping of semi-official languages for languages with over 50 million speakers. This did not happen. Secretary General Kofi Annan responded to these criticisms 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 and worked to increase parity between the existing 6 official languages. [22]

On 8 June 2007, [23] resolutions concerning human resources management at the UN, the General Assembly had emphasized "the paramount importance of the equality of the six official languages of the United Nations" and requested that the secretary-general "ensure that vacancy announcements specified the need for either of the working languages of the Secretariat, unless the functions of the post required a specific working language".

In 2008 and 2009, 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. [24] [25]

The secretary-general's most recent report on multilingualism was issued on 4 October 2010. [26] In response, on 19 July 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. [27] The drive to improve parity and focus on multilingualism continued throughout the 2010s and led to the United Nations news and media website (https://news.un.org/en/) to begin including translations of its content into Hindi, Portuguese, and Swahili in 2018.

In 2020, UN Portuguese Language Day was created in addition to the UN Language Day's associated with the six official languages. [28]

In June 2022, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on multilingualism that encouraged UN organizations to disseminate important communication and messages in official as well as non-official languages, similar to the semi-official policies proposed to Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon. These languages included Bengali, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Swahili, and Urdu and the GA recognizes the efforts of the UN to use non-official languages too. [29]

In July 2022, UN Swahili Language Day was created. [30] Portuguese and Swahili are the only non-official UN languages to have a UN Language Day.

Timeline of official languages

Urdu languageHindi languageSwahili languagePortuguese languageModern Standard ArabicMandarin Chinese languageRussian languageSpanish languageFrench languageEnglish languageOfficial languages of the United Nations

League of Nations Official + Working LanguagesLeague of Nations Official LanguagesUN Official + Working LanguagesUN Official LanguagesTranslation of UN News Website AvailableTranslation Available + UN Language Day dedicated

UN News

As of June 2018, the media branch of the United Nations, UN News (https://news.un.org), includes website translations into Hindi, Portuguese, and Swahili in addition to the 6 official languages. [31] Other UN documents and websites are also translated into Bengali (referred to as Bangla), French Creole, Indonesian/Malay, Turkish, and Urdu, but not on an official or consistent basis.

Proposed additional languages

While there are no formal proposals before the General Assembly to add another official language, [32] various individuals and states have informally raised the possibility of adding a new official language to accommodate more of the world's population. It has been noted that the six official languages are mostly spoken in the Northern Hemisphere and therefore many of the proposed languages are spoken in the Southern Hemisphere. Most of the proposed languages are world languages and rank as Level 0 (International) on the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) and tend to be lingua francas that are either supra-regional or supercentral according to the global language system theory.

Bengali

Bengali is the fifth most spoken native language in the world, with over 237 million native speakers, after Mandarin, Spanish, English and Hindi and additional 41 million speak it as a second language. [33] [34] In April 2009, Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina argued in front of the United Nations General Assembly that the Bengali language should be made one of the official languages of the UN. This was backed by a resolution adopted unanimously by the assembly of the Indian state of West Bengal in December. [35]

Hindi

Hindi is the fourth most spoken native language in the world, after Mandarin, Spanish, and English. [36] It is one of the official languages of India and Fiji (as Fiji Hindi) and its related dialects are still being spoken by small minorities in Nepal. It is mutually intelligible to a high degree with Urdu which is official and spoken in Pakistan and together they are often considered the same language, referred to as Hindustani or Hindi–Urdu. Although very similar verbally, they do have different written scripts; Hindi is written in the Devanagari script and Urdu is written in the Nastaʿlīq script. Hindi has more than 550 million speakers in India alone, of whom 422 million are native, 98.2 million are second language speakers, and 31.2 million are third language speakers. [37] [38] Hindi is the lingua franca of the northern part of India, along with Pakistan (as Urdu), with its importance as a global language increasing day by day. [39]

In 2007, it was reported that the government of India would "make immediate diplomatic moves to seek the status of an official language for Hindi at the United Nations". [40] According to a 2009 press release from its Ministry of External Affairs, the Government of India has been "working actively" to have Hindi recognized as an official language of the UN. [41] [42] In 2015, Nepal's Vice President Parmananda Jha stated his firm support for the inclusion of Hindi as an official language of the UN. [43]

Indonesian

Indonesian is the official and national language of Indonesia. [44] It is a standardized variety of Malay, [45] an Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world, with over 279 million inhabitants of which the majority speak Indonesian, which makes it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. [46] Indonesian is considered the 11th most commonly spoken language by Ethnologue, as of 2022. Indonesian is also prominent on the internet, with one estimate ranking it sixth by number of Internet users. [47] As a standardised register of Malay, Indonesian is also mutually intelligible with the Malay spoken in Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore.

The Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemendikbud) has increasingly promoted Indonesian as an international language, with one targets aiming for official UN language status by 2045. [48]

Portuguese

Portuguese is the sixth most spoken language in the world. Many Lusophones have advocated for greater recognition of their language, which is widely spoken across four continents: Portugal (original place) in Europe; Brazil (the largest lusophone nation) in South America; Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe in Africa; Timor-Leste and Macau in Asia. It is an official language in nine countries and one autonomous territory.

In 2008, the President of Portugal announced that the then eight leaders of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) had agreed to take the necessary steps to make Portuguese an official language. The media branch of the UN, UN News, already includes translations into Portuguese.

Swahili

Swahili is a lingua franca throughout eastern Africa and is especially prevalent in the African Great Lakes region. Swahili, known as Kiswahili by its speakers, is an official language of Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, [49] is an official language of the African Union and is officially recognized as a lingua franca of the East African Community. [50] It is one of the most commonly spoken languages in Africa, is a compulsory subject in all Kenyan and Tanzanian schools and is increasingly being used in eastern Burundi.[ citation needed ]

With between 150 and 200 million speakers, the Swahili lexicon is similar to that of other eastern Bantu languages such as Comorian, which have differing levels of mutual intelligibility. Swahili is already used unofficially in many UN organizations as the UN has an office in Nairobi (the United Nations Office at Nairobi), in addition to other major UN global offices in New York City, Vienna, and Geneva). The media branch of the UN, UN News, [51] already includes translations into Swahili. [31]

Turkish

In September 2011, during a meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed a desire to see Turkish become an official UN language. [52] [53]

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." [54]

The first such coordinator was Federico Riesco of Chile, appointed on 6 September 2000. [55] [56]

Following Riesco's retirement, Miles Stoby of Guyana was appointed Coordinator for Multilingualism, effective 6 September 2001. [55]

In 2003, Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Shashi Tharoor of India 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. [57] [58]

The current Coordinator for Multilingualism is Catherine Pollard of Guyana. [59] She replaces Kiyo Akasaka of Japan, who was also under-secretary-general for communications and public information. [60] [61]

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. [62] In 2020 Portuguese Language Day was added and in 2022 Swahili Language Day was added. The days and their historical significance are:

UN specialised [72] 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 UNESCO has ten official languages including Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, and Portuguese. [73] The Universal Postal Union has just one official language, French. [74] IFAD has four official languages: Arabic, English, French, and Spanish. [75] [76]

Parallels with other multilingual institutions

The next largest international grouping after the UN is the Commonwealth of Nations [ citation needed ] which is exclusively English speaking and has 56 members, and the Organisation internationale de la francophonie which is exclusively French speaking and has 54 members. All other international bodies in commerce, transport and sport have tended to the adoption of one or a few languages as the means of communication. This is usually English and French (see: list of international organisations which have French as an official language). Regional groups have adopted what is common to other elements of their ethnic or religious background. Standard Arabic is usually adopted across Muslim nation groups. Most of non-Arab 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

Notes and references

    1. ↑ "Union Nation Official Languages". Archived from the original on 18 May 2018. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
    2. ↑ Careers, Human Rights (21 September 2019). "What Are The Official UN Languages?". Human Rights Careers. Retrieved 11 May 2023.
    3. ↑ Universal Declaration of Human Rights: translation into Chinese. Title Universal Declaration of Human Rights: translation into Chinese {...} Language(s) 中文 (Chinese){...}Alternate names: Beifang Fangyan, Guanhua, Guoyu, Hanyu, Huayu, Mandarin, Northern Chinese, Putonghua, Standard Chinese, Zhongguohua, Zhongwen
    4. ↑ "Spelling (United Nations Editorial Manual Online)". Department for General Assembly and Conference Management. Retrieved 29 July 2023. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, twelfth edition, is the current authority for spelling in the United Nations.
    5. ↑ "Multilingualism". United Nations. Archived from the original on 26 February 2019. Retrieved 25 February 2019.
    6. ↑ "League of Nations". United Nations Secretary-General. 4 October 2010. UN Doc ID A/65/488. Archived from the original on 16 April 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2024.
    7. 1 2 3 "Preparation of Multilingual Treaties: Memorandum by the Secretariat" (PDF). 1966. p. 4. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 October 2013. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
    8. ↑ Archived 9 January 2015 at the Wayback Machine
    9. ↑ General Assembly Resolution 2 (I) Archived 9 January 2015 at the Wayback Machine Rules of Procedure Concerning Languages, 1 February 1946.
    10. ↑ Resolution 262 (III) Archived 9 January 2015 at the Wayback Machine
    11. ↑ Robert Reford (18 December 1968). "Russian to be included as UN working language". Ottawa Citizen. Archived from the original on 30 January 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
    12. ↑ Resolution 2479 (XXIII) Archived 13 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine Inclusion of Russian among the working languages of the General Assembly (amendment to rule 51 of the rules of procedure of the General Assembly) and question of including Russian and Spanish among the working languages of the Security Council (21 December 1968)
    13. ↑ Archived March 30, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
    14. ↑ Resolution 3189 (XXVIII) Archived 13 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine Inclusion of Mandarin among the working languages of the General Assembly and the Security Council (18 December 1973)
    15. ↑ Resolution 3190 (XXVIII) Archived 13 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine Inclusion of Arabic among the official and the working languages of the General Assembly and its Main Committees (18 December 1973)
    16. ↑ Resolution 3191 (XXVIII) Archived 13 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine Inclusion of Mandarin among the working languages of the General Assembly, its committees and its subcommittees and inclusion of Arabic among the official and the working languages of the General Assembly and its Main Committees: amendments to rules 51 to 59 of the rules of procedure of the Assembly
    17. ↑ Resolution 35/219 Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine Use of Arabic in the subsidiary organs of the General Assembly, in the Security Council and in the Economic and Social Council: amendments to rules 51, 52, 54 and 56 of the rules of procedure of the Assembly (17 December 1980).
    18. ↑ Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council Archived 10 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine Rules 41 to 47.
    19. ↑ Rules of Procedure of the Economic and Social Council Archived 31 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine rules 32 to 35.
    20. ↑ Archived 14 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine
    21. ↑ "Plea to UN: 'More Spanish please'". BBC News. 21 June 2001. Archived from the original on 7 May 2010. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
    22. ↑ "Letter dated 18 June 2001" (PDF). 18 June 2001. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 26 January 2010.
    23. ↑ Resolution A/RES/61/266 Archived 15 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine Multilingualism 8 June 2007
    24. ↑ Resolution 63/100 Archived 14 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine Questions relating to information (5 December 2008).
    25. ↑ Resolution 63/306 Archived 3 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine Multilingualism (9 September 2009).
    26. ↑ "Multilingualism". United Nations Secretary-General. 4 October 2010. UN Doc ID A/65/488. Archived from the original on 27 February 2020. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
    27. ↑ "Adopting Resolution on Multilingualism, General Assembly Emphasises Importance of Equality Among Six Official United Nations Languages" (Press release). UN Department of Public Information. 19 July 2011. UN Doc ID GA/11116. Archived from the original on 16 January 2014. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
    28. 1 2 "World Portuguese Language Day". unesco.org. Archived from the original on 7 May 2020. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
    29. ↑ Archived 14 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine
    30. 1 2 "World Kiswahili Language Day". unesco.org. Archived from the original on 7 July 2022. Retrieved 9 August 2022. Alt URL
    31. 1 2 "Top UN official stresses need for Internet multilingualism to bridge digital divide". 14 December 2009. Archived from the original on 21 August 2020. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
    32. ↑ "Department for General Assembly and Conference Management: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)". United Nations. Archived from the original on 26 February 2019. Retrieved 25 February 2019.
    33. ↑ "What are the top 200 most spoken languages?". Ethnologue. 2024. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
    34. ↑ "Ethnologue". SIL International. Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 22 July 2012.
    35. ↑ "Bengali 'should be UN language'". BBC News. Archived from the original on 3 April 2012. Retrieved 2 January 2014.
    36. ↑ Mikael Parkvall, "Världens 100 största språk 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), in Nationalencyklopedin . Asterisks mark the 2010 estimates for the top dozen languages.
    37. ↑ ORGI. "Census of India: Comparative speaker's strength of Scheduled Languages-1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001". Archived from the original on 6 December 2019. Retrieved 20 December 2016.
    38. ↑ "Indiaspeak: English is our 2nd language". The Times of India . 14 March 2010. Archived from the original on 24 March 2015. Retrieved 20 December 2016.
    39. ↑ "Hindi. Varanasi. Norwegians. What's the sambandh?". The Siasat Daily. 5 July 2016. Archived from the original on 21 December 2016. Retrieved 23 August 2019.
    40. ↑ "Hindi at UN: India to take action to get official status". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 15 July 2007. Archived from the original on 28 September 2010. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
    41. ↑ "Hindi in UNO". 11 December 2009. Archived from the original on 13 June 2010. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
    42. ↑ "Government working actively for Hindi as official language of UN: S M Krishna". 10 December 2009. Archived from the original on 29 September 2010. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
    43. ↑ "Hindi should be an official language in the UN: Nepal Vice President". Firstpost. 12 January 2015. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 23 August 2019.
    44. ↑ Article 36 of The 1945 Constitution of The Republic of Indonesia  – via Wikisource.
    45. ↑ Uri Tadmor (2008). "Grammatical borrowing in Indonesian". In Yaron Matras; Jeanette Sakel (eds.). Grammatical Borrowing in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Walter de Gruyter. p. 301. ISBN   978-3-11-019919-2.
    46. ↑ James Neil Sneddon. The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society. UNSW Press, 2004.
    47. ↑ "Top Ten Internet Languages in the World - Internet Statistics". Archived from the original on 26 April 2012. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
    48. ↑ "Bahasa Indonesia Ditargetkan Jadi Bahasa Resmi PBB di 2045". medcom.id (in Indonesian). 22 November 2019. Retrieved 30 September 2022.
    49. ↑ Prins 1961
    50. ↑ "Development and Promotion of Extractive Industries and Mineral Value Addition". Archived from the original on 21 October 2016. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
    51. ↑ "Front | UN News". Archived from the original on 8 June 2018. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
    52. ↑ "Erdogan meets U.N. SG Ban Ki-moon". Anadolu Agency. 23 September 2011. Archived from the original on 28 March 2012. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
    53. ↑ "Turkish emerges as candidate for official UN language". Sundays Zaman. 2 October 2011. Archived from the original on 15 November 2014. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
    54. ↑ Resolution 54/64 Archived 4 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine adopted 6 December 1999.
    55. 1 2 Multilingualism: Report of the Secretary-General Archived 2 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine Doc. A/56/656, para. 4.
    56. ↑ "Secretary-General Appoints Assistant Secretary-General Federico Riesco Coordinator for Multilingualism". 8 September 2000. Archived from the original on 2 October 2010. Retrieved 30 January 2010.
    57. ↑ "Secretary-General Appoints Under-Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor Coordinator for Multilingualism". 31 March 2003. Archived from the original on 9 March 2013. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
    58. ↑ Resolution 54/64 Archived 20 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine Multilingualism (6 December 1999).
    59. ↑ "Secretary-General Appoints Under-Secretary-General Catherine Pollard of Guyana Coordinator for Multilingualism" (Press release). 17 December 2015. SG/A/1619. Archived from the original on 21 July 2017. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
    60. ↑ "United Nations Information Centres Launch Redesigned Website Telling Organization's Story in 130 Languages" (Press release). United Nations Information Service. 24 October 2008. Archived from the original on 2 October 2010. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
    61. ↑ "Secretary-General Appoints Under-Secretary Kiyo Akasaka as Coordinator for Multilingualism" (Press release). United Nations Department of Public Information. 29 May 2008. Secretary-General SG/A/1138. Archived from the original on 9 March 2013. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
    62. ↑ "Department of Public Information to Launch 'Language Days at the United Nations'" (Press release). United Nations. 19 February 2010. UN Doc ID OBV/853 PI/1926. Archived from the original on 3 March 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
    63. 1 2 "First-ever French language day celebrated at UN". UN News Centre. 19 March 2010. Archived from the original on 3 November 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
    64. 1 2 3 "Multilingualism". United Nations Observances. Archived from the original on 2 October 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
    65. ↑ Chen Wen (15 November 2010). "UN Celebrates First Chinese Language Day". Beijing Review. Archived from the original on 20 November 2010. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
    66. ↑ "Liánhéguó zhōngwén rì" 联合国中文日 [United Nations Chinese Language Day] (in Chinese). United Nations. Archived from the original on 27 July 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
    67. ↑ "UN Celebrates Chinese Language Day with Art and Exhibitions". UN News Centre. 20 April 2011. Archived from the original on 3 November 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
    68. ↑ "English Language Day at the United Nations, 23 April 2011". United Nations. Archived from the original on 9 August 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
    69. ↑ "L'ONU célèbre la Journée de la langue française" [The UN Celebrates French Language Day] (in French). United Nations. 21 March 2011. Archived from the original on 3 November 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
    70. ↑ "Spanish Language Day to be Celebrated at HQ on Tuesday, 12 October 2010". deleGATE. 11 October 2010. Archived from the original on 27 September 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
    71. ↑ "Día del Idioma Español en las Naciones Unidas" [Spanish Language Day at the United Nations] (in Spanish). United Nations. Archived from the original on 31 July 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
    72. ↑ "Spelling | Department for General Assembly and Conference Management".
    73. ↑ United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2023), Recognition of Bahasa Indonesia as an official language of the General Conferention of UNESCO, Paris: UNESCO, retrieved 20 November 2023.
    74. ↑ "Languages". Universal Postal Union. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
    75. ↑ Rules of Procedure of the Governing Council (PDF), International Fund for Agricultural Development, archived from the original (PDF) on 1 July 2010, retrieved 3 August 2010, Rule 20
    76. ↑ Rules of Procedure of the Executive Board (PDF), International Fund for Agricultural Development, archived from the original (PDF) on 1 July 2010, retrieved 3 August 2010, Rule 26

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    The indigenous languages of Malaysia belong to the Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian families. The national, or official, language is Malay which is the mother tongue of the majority Malay ethnic group. The main ethnic groups within Malaysia are the Malays, Chinese and Tamils, with many other ethnic groups represented in smaller numbers, each with its own languages. The largest native languages spoken in East Malaysia are the Iban, Dusunic, and Kadazan languages. English is widely understood and spoken within the urban areas of the country; the English language is a compulsory subject in primary and secondary education. It is also the main medium of instruction within most private colleges and private universities. English may take precedence over Malay in certain official contexts as provided for by the National Language Act, especially in the states of Sabah and Sarawak, where it may be the official working language. Furthermore, the law of Malaysia is commonly taught and read in English, as the unwritten laws of Malaysia continue to be partially derived from pre-1957 English common law, which is a legacy of past British colonisation of the constituents forming Malaysia. In addition, authoritative versions of constitutional law and statutory law are continuously available in both Malay and English.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">UN Arabic Language Day</span> International event

    UN Arabic Language Day is observed annually on December 18. The event was established by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2012 seeking "to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six of its official working languages throughout the organization". December 18 was chosen as the date for the Arabic language as it is "the day in 1973 when the General Assembly approved Arabic as an official UN language".

    UN English Day is observed annually on 23 April. The event was established by UN's Department of Public Information in 2010 "to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six official languages throughout the Organization".

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

    Many countries, through the use of censuses, enumerate their populations by languages and by their level of competence in using those languages.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Seventy-third session of the United Nations General Assembly</span> 73rd United Nations Assembly

    The Seventy-third session of the United Nations General Assembly was opened on 18 September 2018. The President of the United Nations General Assembly was from the GRULAC group.

    World Swahili Language Day is observed annually on 7 July. This began when UNESCO declared 7 July as Swahili Language Day in 2022. On 7 July 1954, Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) leader Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the future first president of Tanzania, adopted the Swahili language as a unifying language for African independence struggles. Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya, followed suit and also used the Swahili language to mobilize and unify the people of Kenya in the struggle against colonialism through the use of the popular "Harambee" slogan.

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