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Official languages of sovereign countries

There are approximately 105 languages in this category.
Afrikaans:
  • South Africa (with English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Albanian:

Arabic:

Armenian:

Assamese:

Aymara:

  • Bolivia (with Spanish and Quechua)
  • Peru (with Spanish and Quechua)

Azeri:

Bahasa Indonesia:

Belarusian:

Bengali:

Bislama:

Bosnian:

Bulgarian:

Catalan:

Chinese:

Croatian

Czech:

Danish

Dari:

Dhivehi:

Dutch:

Dzongkha:

English:

Estonian:

Fijian

Filipino:

Finnish:

French:

Frisian:

Georgian:

German:

Greek:

Guaraní

Gujarati:

Haitian Creole:

Hebrew:

Hindi

Hiri Motu:

Hungarian:

Irish Gaelic is the national and first official language of:

Italian:

Japanese:

  • Japan (de facto)
  • Palau (with Palauan and English)

Kannada:

Kashmiri:

Kazakh:

Khmer:

Korean:

Kurdish:

Kyrgyz:

Lao:

Latvian:

Lithuanian:

Luxembourgish:

Macedonian:

Malay:

Malayalam:

Malti:

Māori:

Marathi:

Moldovan (asserted by Moldova state representatives to be distinct from Romanian; most linguists remain skeptical):

Mongolian

Ndebele:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Nepali:

New Zealand Sign Language:

Northern Sotho:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Norwegian:

  • Norway (two official written forms - Bokmål and Nynorsk)

Oriya:

Pashtu:

Persian:

Polish:

Portuguese:

Punjabi:

Quechua

  • Bolivia (with Spanish and Aymara)
  • Peru (with Spanish and Aymara)

Romanian:

  • Moldova (known locally as Moldovan, and asserted by nationalists to be a separate language, an assertion disputed by most professional linguists)
  • Romania
  • part of Serbia
    • Vojvodina (with Croatian, Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak and Ruthenian)

Rhaeto-Romansh:

Russian:

Sanskrit:

Serbian:

Sindhi:

Sinhala:

  • Sri Lanka (with Tamil, and with English as a link language)

Slovak

Slovene:

Somali:

Sotho:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Spanish:

Swahili:

Swazi:

  • Swaziland (with English)
  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Swedish:

Tajik:

Tamil:

Telugu:

Tetum:

Thai:

Tok Pisin:

Tsonga:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Tswana:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu)

Turkish:

Turkmen:

Ukrainian:

Urdu:

Uzbek:

Venda:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Xhosa, Zulu)

Vietnamese:

Xhosa:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Zulu)

Zulu:

  • South Africa (with Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa)

Official languages of subnational entities

Aranese see Occitan

Basque:

Cantonese Chinese:

  • Hong Kong (for Chinese language, both Cantonese and Mandarin are spoken de facto; co-official with English)
  • Macao (for Chinese language, both Cantonese and Mandarin are spoken de facto; co-official with Portuguese)

Catalan:

Chipewyan:

Cree:

Dogrib:

English:

French:

  • Louisiana (co-official with English in the state of Louisiana)

Galician:

NOTE: Whether Galician is in fact a language, or a dialect of Portuguese, is a matter of debate among linguists.

Gwichʼin:

Hawaiian:

  • Hawai'i (co-official with English in the state of Hawai'i)

Inuktitut:

Inuvialuktun:

  • Nunavut (with English, French, and Inuktitut)
  • Northwest Territories (included in Inuktitut; with Chipewyan, Cree, Dogrib, English, French, Gwichʼin, and Slavey)

Occitan (Aranese):

Rusyn:

  • Vojvodina (with Croatian, Serbian, Romanian, Hungarian, Slovak)

Mazandarani:

Sami:

  • Finland (in four municipalities)
  • Norway (in six municipalities)
  • Sweden (in four municipalities and surrounding municipalities)

Slavey:

Spanish:

Tahitian:

Tibetan:

  • Tibet Autonomous Region (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Aba (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Garzê (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Diqing (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Wenshan (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Gannan (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Haibai (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Hainan (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Huangnan (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Golog (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Gyêgu (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Haixi (with Mongolian and Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Muli (with Chinese (Mandarin))
  • Tianzhu (with Chinese (Mandarin))

Uyghur:

Yiddish:

Zhuang:

A map of official languages: (note: source is CIA World Factbook. Countries that include several official languages only use one, often to avoid adding languages to the chart unnecessarily, preventing confusion. In showing de facto as well as de jure official languages, the map employs a looser definition of "official language" than that used in this article.) Official Languages Maps

See also

Lists of languages

Getalu ambihtlicra sprǣca | Llista de llingües oficiales | Списък на страните по официален език | Liste der Amtssprachen | Liste des langues officielles | 세계 나라의 공용어 | Molɔngɔ́ ya nkótá ya lɛ́ta mokili | Lijst van officiële talen | 公用語の一覧 | Lista de las lengas oficialas | Rozprzestrzenienie języków urzędowych | Lista de línguas oficiais | Список государственных языков | Luettelo virallisista kielistä | 官方语言列表

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "List of official languages".

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