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Official languages of the United Nations

January 13, 2023

The Official Languages of the United Nations are the six languages that are used in UN meetings and in which all official UN documents are written. In the six languages, four are the official language or national language of permanent members in the Security Council, while the remaining two are used due to the large number of their speakers. In alphabetical order of the Latin alphabet, they are:

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 the 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 2019 the United Nations Secretariat uses only two working languages: English and French.[3]

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.[4]

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 of global communication through an international auxiliary language (such as Esperanto) or an existing group of languages, and how 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 (Chinese, English, French, 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.[5][6]

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).[7]

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.[5] 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.[5][8]

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 Chinese) were working.[9][10]

In 1973, the General Assembly made Chinese a working language and switched to using Simplified Chinese characters.[11] 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.[12][13][14]

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.[15]

As of 1983, the Security Council (like the General Assembly) recognized six official and working languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.[16]

In the Economic and Social Council, as of 1992, there were six official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) of which three were working languages (English, French, and Spanish).[17] Later, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian were added as working languages in the Economic and Social Council.[18]

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.[19] 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.[20]

On 8 June 2007,[21] 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.[22][23]

The secretary-general's most recent report on multilingualism was issued on 4 October 2010.[24] 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.[25] 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.[26]

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.[27]

In July 2022, UN Swahili Language Day was created.[28] 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 language

League of Nations Official + Working Languages League of Nations Official Languages UN Official + Working Languages UN Official Languages Translation of UN News Website Available Translation 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.[29] 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,[30] 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 300 million speakers, after Chinese, Spanish, English and Hindi.[31] 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.[32]

Hindi

Hindi is the fourth most spoken native language in the world, after Chinese, Spanish, and English.[33] It is one of the official languages of India and Fiji (as Fiji Hindi) and its dialects are still being spoken by minorities in Nepal, Suriname and Mauritius (to a lesser extent). 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.[34][35] 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.[36]

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".[37] 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.[38][39] In 2015, Nepal's Vice President Parmananda Jha stated his firm support for the inclusion of Hindi as an official language of the UN.[40]

Indonesian / Malay

Indonesian / Malay is an Austronesian macrolanguage spoken throughout Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. It is an official language in Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore where it is known as Standard Malay or Bahasa Melayu, and is the official language of Indonesia where it is referred to as Indonesian or Bahasa Indonesia. It is used widely throughout Southeast Asia as a lingua franca. Spoken by more than 290 million people,[41] Indonesian is considered the 11th most commonly spoken language by Ethnologue, as of 2022. Indonesian and Malay is also prominent on the internet, with one estimate ranking it sixth by number of Internet users.[42]

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.[43]

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 five continents: Portugal 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 ten countries.

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 Eacu, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,[44] is an official language of the African Union and is officially recognised as a lingua franca of the East African Community.[45] It is one of the most commonly spoken languages in Africa, is a compulsory subject in all Kenyan 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,[46] already includes translations into Swahili.[29]

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.[47][48]

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".[49]

The first such coordinator was Federico Riesco of Chile, appointed on 6 September 2000.[50][51]

Following Riesco's retirement, Miles Stoby of Guyana was appointed Coordinator for Multilingualism, effective 6 September 2001.[50]

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.[52][53]

The current coordinator for multilingualism is Catherine Pollard of Guyana.[54] She replaces Kiyo Akasaka of Japan, who was also under-secretary-general for communications and public information.[55][56]

Language Days at the UN

See also: International Mother Language Day

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

UN specialized 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 nine official languages including Hindi, Italian, and Portuguese.[67] The Universal Postal Union has just one official language, French.[68] IFAD has four official languages: Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.[69][70]

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 the Organisation internationale de la francophonie which is exclusively French speaking (both organisations have 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

References

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External links

  • Information about Languages
  • 2017 Report of the Secretary-General on Multilingualism
  • Language Log
  • Multilingualism at the United Nations : Research Guide
  • Top UN official stresses need for Internet multilingualism to bridge digital divide

January 13, 2023
official, languages, united, nations, official, languages, united, nations, languages, that, used, meetings, which, official, documents, written, languages, four, official, language, national, language, permanent, members, security, council, while, remaining, . The Official Languages of the United Nations are the six languages that are used in UN meetings and in which all official UN documents are written In the six languages four are the official language or national language of permanent members in the Security Council while the remaining two are used due to the large number of their speakers In alphabetical order of the Latin alphabet they are Arabic Modern Standard Arabic official or national language several countries in Middle East and North Africa and used in the Arab world Chinese Mandarin Chinese in simplified Chinese characters official language of the People s Republic of China 1 2 English official language of the United Kingdom and de facto of the United States It is also the most popular language the most popular lingua franca and official in several other countries and territories French official language of France It is also official in Canada and several countries in Africa Russian official language of the Russian Federation It is also popular in several post Soviet states Spanish official or national language in 18 countries and one territory in the Americas mostly Latin America or Hispanic America Spain Equatorial Guinea Contents 1 Description 2 History 3 Timeline of Official Languages 4 UN News 5 Proposed additional languages 5 1 Bengali 5 2 Hindi 5 3 Indonesian Malay 5 4 Portuguese 5 5 Swahili 5 6 Turkish 6 Coordinator for Multilingualism 7 Language Days at the UN 8 UN specialized agencies 9 Parallels with other multilingual institutions 10 See also 11 References 12 External linksDescription EditThese 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 the 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 2019 the United Nations Secretariat uses only two working languages English and French 3 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 EditIn 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 4 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 of global communication through an international auxiliary language such as Esperanto or an existing group of languages and how 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 Chinese English French 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 5 6 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 7 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 5 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 5 8 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 Chinese were working 9 10 In 1973 the General Assembly made Chinese a working language and switched to using Simplified Chinese characters 11 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 12 13 14 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 15 As of 1983 the Security Council like the General Assembly recognized six official and working languages Arabic Chinese English French Russian and Spanish 16 In the Economic and Social Council as of 1992 there were six official languages Arabic Chinese English French Russian and Spanish of which three were working languages English French and Spanish 17 Later Arabic Chinese and Russian were added as working languages in the Economic and Social Council 18 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 19 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 20 On 8 June 2007 21 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 22 23 The secretary general s most recent report on multilingualism was issued on 4 October 2010 24 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 25 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 26 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 27 In July 2022 UN Swahili Language Day was created 28 Portuguese and Swahili are the only non official UN languages to have a UN Language Day Timeline of Official Languages EditLeague of Nations Official Working Languages League of Nations Official Languages UN Official Working Languages UN Official Languages Translation of UN News Website Available Translation Available UN Language Day dedicatedUN News EditAs 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 29 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 EditWhile there are no formal proposals before the General Assembly to add another official language 30 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 Edit Bengali is the fifth most spoken native language in the world with over 300 million speakers after Chinese Spanish English and Hindi 31 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 32 Hindi Edit Hindi is the fourth most spoken native language in the world after Chinese Spanish and English 33 It is one of the official languages of India and Fiji as Fiji Hindi and its dialects are still being spoken by minorities in Nepal Suriname and Mauritius to a lesser extent 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 Nastaʿliq 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 34 35 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 36 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 37 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 38 39 In 2015 Nepal s Vice President Parmananda Jha stated his firm support for the inclusion of Hindi as an official language of the UN 40 Indonesian Malay Edit Indonesian Malay is an Austronesian macrolanguage spoken throughout Brunei Indonesia Malaysia and Singapore It is an official language in Brunei Malaysia and Singapore where it is known as Standard Malay or Bahasa Melayu and is the official language of Indonesia where it is referred to as Indonesian or Bahasa Indonesia It is used widely throughout Southeast Asia as a lingua franca Spoken by more than 290 million people 41 Indonesian is considered the 11th most commonly spoken language by Ethnologue as of 2022 Indonesian and Malay is also prominent on the internet with one estimate ranking it sixth by number of Internet users 42 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 43 Portuguese Edit 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 five continents Portugal in Europe Brazil the largest lusophone nation in South America Angola Mozambique Cape Verde Guinea Bissau Equatorial Guinea Sao Tome and Principe in Africa Timor Leste and Macau in Asia It is an official language in ten countries 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 Edit 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 Eacu Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo 44 is an official language of the African Union and is officially recognised as a lingua franca of the East African Community 45 It is one of the most commonly spoken languages in Africa is a compulsory subject in all Kenyan 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 46 already includes translations into Swahili 29 Turkish Edit In September 2011 during a meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki moon Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed a desire to see Turkish become an official UN language 47 48 Coordinator for Multilingualism EditIn 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 49 The first such coordinator was Federico Riesco of Chile appointed on 6 September 2000 50 51 Following Riesco s retirement Miles Stoby of Guyana was appointed Coordinator for Multilingualism effective 6 September 2001 50 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 52 53 The current coordinator for multilingualism is Catherine Pollard of Guyana 54 She replaces Kiyo Akasaka of Japan who was also under secretary general for communications and public information 55 56 Language Days at the UN EditSee also International Mother Language Day 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 57 In 2020 Portuguese Language Day was added and in 2022 Swahili Language Day was added The days and their historical significance are UN Arabic Language Day 18 December the date on which the United Nations General Assembly designated Modern Standard Arabic MSA as the fourth official language of the United Nations in 1973 58 59 UN Chinese Language Day first celebrated 12 November 60 61 now set on 20 April to pay tribute to Cang Jie 62 UN English Language Day 23 April the date traditionally observed as the birthday of William Shakespeare 63 UN French Language Day 20 March corresponding to the Journee internationale de la Francophonie 64 UN Portuguese Language Day 5 May the date in 2009 that the Community of Portuguese Language Countries CPLP was established to represent the Lusophone countries 26 UN Russian Language Day 6 June the birthday of Alexander Pushkin 58 59 UN Spanish Language Day first celebrated on 12 October celebrated in the Spanish speaking world as Dia de la Hispanidad compare Columbus Day 59 65 now set on 23 April in honor of Miguel de Cervantes who died on the same day in 1616 66 UN Swahili Language Day 7 July the date Julius Nyerere adopted the Swahili Language as a unifying language for independence struggles 28 UN specialized agencies EditUN 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 nine official languages including Hindi Italian and Portuguese 67 The Universal Postal Union has just one official language French 68 IFAD has four official languages Arabic English French and Spanish 69 70 Parallels with other multilingual institutions EditThe next largest international grouping after the UN is the Commonwealth of Nations citation needed which is exclusively English speaking and the Organisation internationale de la francophonie which is exclusively French speaking both organisations have 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 Edit Language portal Politics portalList of official languages List of official languages by institution List of languages by number of native speakers List of languages by total number of speakers Languages of the European Union International Mother Language Day League of Nations Languages and Symbols The Interpreter Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Warning messages for future humansReferences Edit 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 Union Nation Official Languages Archived from the original on 18 May 2018 Retrieved 9 May 2018 Multilingualism United Nations Archived from the original on 26 February 2019 Retrieved 25 February 2019 League of Nations United Nations Secretary General 4 October 2010 UN Doc ID A 65 488 Archived from the original on 27 February 2020 Retrieved 12 August 2022 a b c 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 1 Archived 9 January 2015 at the Wayback Machine General Assembly Resolution 2 I Archived 9 January 2015 at the Wayback Machine Rules of Procedure Concerning Languages 1 February 1946 Resolution 262 III Archived 9 January 2015 at the Wayback Machine 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 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 2 Archived March 30 2012 at the Wayback Machine Resolution 3189 XXVIII Archived 13 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine Inclusion of Chinese among the working languages of the General Assembly and the Security Council 18 December 1973 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 Resolution 3191 XXVIII Archived 13 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine Inclusion of Chinese 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 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International Fund for Agricultural Development archived from the original PDF on 1 July 2010 retrieved 3 August 2010 Rule 26External links EditInformation about Languages 2017 Report of the Secretary General on Multilingualism Language Log Multilingualism at the United Nations Research Guide Top UN official stresses need for Internet multilingualism to bridge digital divide Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Official languages of the United Nations amp oldid 1132776357, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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