New York State offers voter registration forms in the following five languages: Bengali, Chinese, English, Korean and Spanish. The same languages are also on the ballot in some parts of the state (i.e. New York). [45] The choice of an official language (or the absence of an official language) is often controversial. [14] An alternative to a single official language is “official multilingualism,” where a government recognizes multiple official languages. Under this system, all government services are available in all official languages. Every citizen can choose their preferred language when doing business. Most countries are multilingual[15] and many are officially multilingual. Taiwan, Canada, the Philippines, Belgium, Switzerland and the European Union are examples of official multilingualism. This has been called controversial, and in other areas where it has been proposed, the idea has been rejected. [14] It has also been described as necessary for the recognition of different groups[16] or as an advantage for the country to present itself to foreigners.
[17] English official legislation provides reasonable exceptions allowing the use of languages other than English for public health and safety services, court proceedings, foreign language teaching and tourism promotion. An official language is the language or one of the languages that has legal status in a particular legally constituted political entity used in the treaty or before the courts, etc. English is the de facto national language of the United States. Although there is no official language at the federal level, 32 of the 50 U.S. states[42] and the five inhabited U.S.[42] territories have designated English as one or only official language, while the courts have found that residents of all 50 states are not entitled to state services in the language of their choice. [43] In recent decades, public debate has focused on whether Spanish should be recognized by the government or whether all business should be conducted in English. [14] The pro-English website U.S. English considers a multilingual government to be one in which its “services really promote the growth of linguistic enclaves. [and] contributes to racial and ethnic conflicts.” [46] Opponents of the official languages policy in the United States argue that it would “impair the government`s ability to assist people in the event of a natural or man-made disaster, such as a hurricane, pandemic or […] another terrorist attack.” [43] Political science professor Alan Patten argues that withdrawal (officially ignoring the issue) works well on religious issues, but is not possible on language issues because it must provide public services in a particular language. Even if it makes a conscious effort not to establish an official language, a de facto official language or the “national language” will emerge. [14] In fact, two-thirds of Americans believe that English is the official language of the United States. [47] Mandarin is the most widely used language in government.
After World War II, the government led by mainland China made Mandarin the official language, and it was used in schools and government. According to the National Language Development Law, political participation can be conducted in any national language defined as the “natural language of an ethnic group of Taiwan,”[38] which includes the Formosan languages, Hakka and Taiwanese Hokkian. According to Taiwan`s Legislative Yuan, amendments have been made to the Basic Hakka Law to make Hakka an official language of Taiwan. [39] 178 countries recognize an official language, of which 101 recognize several. The Italian government did not formalize Italian until 1999,[4] and some countries (such as the United States, Mexico and Australia) have never de jure declared the official languages at the national level. [5] Other nations reported non-Indigenous official languages. South Africa has eleven official languages,[12] most of which are indigenous. However, due to limited resources, the government rarely produces documents in most languages. Allegations of mismanagement and corruption have been made against the Pan South African Language Board,[37] which was established to promote multilingualism, develop the 11 official languages and protect language rights in the country. [13] An official language is a language that receives the highest status in a given country, state or other jurisdiction. Usually, the term “official language” does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g., judicial, legislative and/or administrative).
[1] [2] [3] According to the Finnish Constitution, Finnish and Swedish are the official languages of the Republic. Citizens have the right to communicate with government agencies in both languages. Around 500 B.C. When Darius the Great annexed Mesopotamia to the Persian Empire, he chose a form of Aramaic language (Aramaic called Official Aramaic or Imperial Aramaic) as a vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages. [ref. needed] The Aramaic script was widespread from Egypt in the southwest to Bactria and Sogdia in the northeast. The texts were dictated in local dialects and written in Aramaic, then read aloud in the mother tongue at the reception venues. [10] Belarusian and Russian have official status in the Republic of Belarus.
In most public schools, the main language of instruction is Hebrew, English is taught as a second language, and most students learn a third language, usually Arabic, but not necessarily. Other public schools have Arabic as their main language of instruction, and they teach Hebrew as a second language and English as a third language. There are also bilingual schools that aim to teach Hebrew and Arabic equally. German is the official language of Germany. However, minority languages include Sorbian (Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian), Romani, Danish and North Frisian, which are officially recognised. Migrants` languages such as Turkish, Russian and Spanish are widely spoken, but not officially recognized languages. The Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India lists 22 languages[27] that have been designated as planned languages and have received official recognition, status and encouragement. In addition, the Government of India has awarded the Classical Language Prize to Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Odia. Russian is the official language of the Russian Federation and, in all federal matters, however, many minority languages have official status in the territories where they are indigenous. A kind of federal subject in Russia, the republics, are allowed to include other official languages in their constitutions in addition to Russian. Republics are often based on certain indigenous ethnic groups and are often areas where ethnic Russians and native Russian speakers are a minority.
The first emperor of Qin standardized the written language of China after the unification of the country in 221 BC. [11] Classical Chinese would remain the standard written language for the next 2000 years. The standardization of the spoken language received less political attention, and Mandarin evolved ad hoc from the dialects of the various imperial capitals until it was officially standardized in the early twentieth century. Some countries – such as Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States – do not have an official language recognized as such at the national level. On the other hand, Bolivia officially recognizes 37 languages, the largest number of any country in the world. In second place after Bolivia is India with 22 official languages. South Africa is the third country with 11 official languages, all of which have the same status; [12] Bolivia gives priority to Spanish and India gives priority to English and Hindi. [13] The province of Quebec with the Official Languages Act (Quebec) and the Charter of the French Language defines French, the language of the majority of the population, as the official language of the provincial government. The numerical value of the official language in Chaldean numerology is: 5 Some languages other than Hebrew and Arabic, such as English, Russian, Amharic, Yiddish and Ladino, enjoy a special status but are not official languages.
For example, at least 5% of the airtime of private TV channels must be translated into Russian (a similar privilege is granted to Arabic), warnings must be translated into several languages, and the characters are mostly trilingual (Hebrew, Arabic and English), and the government supports Yiddish and Ladin culture (in addition to Hebrew and Arabic culture). In accordance with chapter 1, article 16, of the Afghan Constitution, the Government of Afghanistan grants Pashto and Dari equal status as official languages. Sometimes, an official language definition may be motivated more by national identity than by language concerns. Before its dissolution in 1991, the SFR of Yugoslavia had four official languages: Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Albanian and Macedonian. Serbo-Croatian was used as a lingua franca for mutual understanding and was also the language of the army. Ethiopia has five official languages (Amharic alone until 2020): Amharic, Oromo, Somali, Tigrinya and Afar. [23] In 1996, U.S.ENGLISH was instrumental in the passage of H.R. 123, “The Bill Emerson English Language Empowerment Act of 1996.” The bill, which makes English the official language of the U.S. government, passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 259 to 169. Unfortunately, the Senate did not vote on the bill before the end of the session.
Currently, U.S.ENGLISH is working with Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas and Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma to bring official English to the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. The Committee has before it H.R. 997 and page 678, respectively. After Bangladesh`s independence in 1971, the then head of state, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, adopted the “one state, one language” policy. [18] The de facto national language Bengali is the only official language of Bangladesh according to the third article of the Constitution of Bangladesh. [19] The Government of Bangladesh introduced the Bengali Language Implementation Act in 1987 to ensure the mandatory use of Bengali in all government affairs. [20] Urdu and English are the official languages in Pakistan.