query: what are the four official languages of nigeria?

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: Languages of Nigeria There are perhaps 500 languages spoken in Nigeria. The official language of Nigeria is English, the former language of colonial British Nigeria. As reported in 2003, Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin were spoken as a second language by 60 million people in Nigeria. Communication in the English language is much more popular in the country's urban communities than it is in the rural areas, due to colonisation. The major native languages, in terms of population, are Hausa (over 60 million, including L2), Yoruba (over 40 million), Igbo (about 30 million), Fulfulde (15 million), Ibibio (10 million), Kanuri

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: states, as well as Zarma or Zabarma and Dendi spoken in the northwestern state of Kebbi near the border with the neighbouring country of Niger. This is a non-exhaustive list of Languages in Nigeria. Languages of Nigeria There are perhaps 500 languages spoken in Nigeria. The official language of Nigeria is English, the former language of colonial British Nigeria. As reported in 2003, Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin were spoken as a second language by 60 million people in Nigeria. Communication in the English language is much more popular in the country's urban communities than it is in the rural

title: Official language

text: to the government in their native languages. In countries that do not formally designate an official language, a "de facto" national language usually evolves. English is the most common official language, with recognized status in 51 countries. Arabic, French, and Spanish are also widely recognized. An official language that is also an indigenous language is called "endoglossic", one that is not indigenous is "exoglossic". An instance is Nigeria which has three endoglossic official languages. By this the country aims to protect the indigenous languages although at the same time recognising the English language as its lingua franca. Around 500 BC,

title: Official languages of Puducherry

text: such notification"". Finally, it states that ""Notwithstanding anything contained in section 3, and from the commencement of this Act, the English language may be used for all or any of the official purposes of the Union Territory"". During the early twentieth century, Tamil has got equal status along with the existing French language. After the merger with India, Telugu and Malayalam also obtained the same status although with some restrictions. Though the status of each languages varies with respect to each district, when communicating in between districts of different languages, generally English is used for convenience. The three official languages

title: Languages with official status in India

text: at a higher level is entitled to use any of these languages as the medium in which he or she answers the paper. Via the 92nd Constitutional amendment 2003, four new languages – Dogri, Maithili, Santali and Bodo – were added to the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution. The table below lists the 22 languages set out in the Eighth Schedule as of May 2008, together with the regions where they are used. Even though the English language is not included in the Eighth Schedule (as it is a foreign language), it is one of the official languages of

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: failing to include other dialects and spurred debate as to what demarcates "genuine Yoruba". Linguistically speaking, all demonstrate the varying phonological features of the Niger–Congo family to which they belong, these include the use of tone, nasality, and particular consonant and vowel systems; more information is available here. The Afroasiatic languages of Nigeria divide into Chadic, Semitic and Berber. Of these, Chadic languages predominate, with 700+ languages. Semitic is represented by various dialects of Arabic spoken in the Northeast and Berber by the Tuareg-speaking communities in the extreme Northwest.The Hausa language is the most well-known Chadic language in Nigeria mampoza;

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: of those recorded in the 1970s have disappeared. However, unknown Chadic languages are still being reported, witness the recent description of Dyarim. Hausa, as well as other Afroasiatic languages like Bade (another West Chadic language spoken in Yobe State), have historically been written in a modified Arabic script known as "ajami", however, the modern official orthography is now a romanization known as "boko" first introduced by the British regime in the 1930s. The Nilosaharan language family is represented by Kanuri and Kanembu in the Northeastern part of Nigeria in the states of Borno, Yobe and parts of Jigawa and Bauchi

title: Official languages of the United Nations

text: just one official language, French. IFAD has four official languages: Arabic, English, French, and Spanish. The next largest international grouping after the UN is the Commonwealth of Nations which is exclusively English speaking. 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, closely followed by 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

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: (8 million), Tiv (4 million), and approx. 2 million each of Edo, Igala, Nupe, Izon and Berom. Nigeria's linguistic diversity is a microcosm of much of Africa as a whole, and the country contains languages from the three major African languages families: Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan and Niger–Congo. Nigeria also has several as-yet unclassified languages, such as Centúúm, which may represent a relic of an even greater diversity prior to the spread of the current language families. Niger–Congo predominates in the Central, East and Southern areas of Nigeria; the main branches represented in Nigeria are Mande, Atlantic, Gur, Kwa, Benue–Congo and Adamawa–Ubangi.

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: Mande is represented by the Busa cluster and Kyenga in the northwest. Fulfulde is the single Atlantic language, of Senegambian origin but now spoken by cattle pastoralists across the Sahel and largely in the northeastern states of Nigeria, especially Adamawa. The Ijoid languages are spoken across the Niger Delta and include Ịjọ (Ijaw), Kalabari, and the intriguing remnant language Defaka. The Efik language is spoken across the coastal southeastern part of Nigeria and includes the dialects Ibibio, Annang, and Efik proper. The single Gur language spoken is Baatọnun, in the extreme Northwest. The Adamawa–Ubangian languages are spoken between central Nigeria

text: 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. The United Nations has drawn criticism for relying too heavily on English, and not enough on the other five official languages. Spanish-speaking member nations formally brought this to the attention of the Secretary-General in 2001. Secretary-General Kofi Annan then responded that full parity of the six official languages was unachievable

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: languages mentioned above. The Idoma language is classified in the Akweya subgroup of the Idomoid languages of the Volta–Niger family, which include Alago, Agatu, Etulo and Yala languages of Benue, Nasarawa and Northern Cross River states. East Benue–Congo includes Kainji, Plateau (46 languages, notably Gamai language), Jukunoid, Dakoid and Cross River. Apart from these, there are numerous Bantoid languages, which are the languages immediately ancestral to Bantu. These include Mambiloid, Ekoid, Bendi, Beboid, Grassfields and Tivoid languages. The geographic distribution of Nigeria's Niger-Congo languages is not limited to the middle east and south-central Nigeria, as migration allows their spread to

text: 1948. 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. In 1973, the General Assembly made Chinese a working language and 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

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: and Arawa, while Zaria is a prominent Southern tongue version; Barikanchi is a pidgin formerly used in the military. Hausa is a highly atypical Chadic language, with a reduced tonal system and a phonology influenced by Arabic. Other well-known Chadic languages include Ngas, Goemai, Mwaghavul, Bole, Ngizim, Bade and Bachama. In the East of Nigeria and on into Cameroun are the Central Chadic languages, such as Bura, the Higi cluster and Marghi. These are highly diverse and remain very poorly described. Many Chadic languages are severely threatened; recent searches by Bernard Caron for Southern Bauchi languages show that even some

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: and the Central African Republic. Their westernmost representatives in Nigeria are the Tula-Waja languages. The Kwa languages are represented by the Gun group in the extreme southwest, which is affiliated to the Gbe languages in Benin and Togo. The classification of the remaining languages is controversial; Joseph Greenberg classified those without noun-classes, such as Yoruba, Igbo, and Ibibio (Efik, Ibibio, and Annang), as 'Eastern Kwa' and those with classes as 'Benue–Congo'. This was reversed in an influential 1989 publication and reflected on the 1992 map of languages, where all these were considered Benue–Congo. Recent opinion, however, has been to revert

text: Official languages of the United Nations 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 alphabetical order, they are: 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

text: 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. Official languages of the United Nations 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 alphabetical order, they are: 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

title: Official languages of Puducherry

text: are: As of 2001, number of people speaking in each official languages are, Official languages of Puducherry French was the official language of Puducherry under the Treaty of Cession 1956. The Pondicherry Official Language Act, 1965 without mentioning French added the Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu as the official languages along with English. French was the official language of the "Établissements français dans l'Inde" (French India) and it remained as de jure official language of Pondicherry U.T by the "Article XXVIII" of Traité de Cession which states that, As of today, still the official gazette of Puducherry is published with French;

text: to a lesser extent, Turkish, Bengali, or other languages as additional official languages. The most recent example being when the Deputy Secretary General was asked in January 2018 about the process of adding Hindi as an official language. Most proposed languages are spoken in more than one nation and/or have a large number of speakers. As of June 2018, the media branch of the United Nations, UN News (https://news.un.org/), includes website translations into Portuguese and Swahili in addition to the 6 official languages. Other UN documents and websites are already translated into Bengali (referred to as Bangla), Hindi, Urdu, Malay,

title: Official minority languages of Sweden

text: The Sami languages are actually not one language, even though they are commonly referred to as such. In Sweden, three Sámi languages are spoken, with the other 7 Sámi languages being spoken in Norway, Russia and Finland. The history of the Sami languages can be traced back at least 2,000 years. In total, they are spoken by a minimum of 40,000 people throughout the four countries. As a minority language, Sami is an official language and may be used in government agencies, courts, preschools and nursing homes in the municipalities where it is most common. Romani chib, the language of

text: endangered languages. In 2002, it was reportedly proposed to the then current UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the UN develops a 'Semi-Official' or 'Regional' language status for commonly spoken languages that do not have Official status so that a higher percentage of the worlds population could be familiar with UN actions. As of 2006, the six official languages are the first or second language of 2.8 billion people on the planet, which is less than half of the world population. The list of potential 'Semi-Official' or 'Regional' languages, many of which can be considered lingua francas in their areas,

text: less than half of the world population. The six languages are official languages in more than half the countries in the world (about one hundred). The Charter of the United Nations, its 1945 constituent document, did not expressly provide for official languages of the UN. The Charter was enacted in five languages (Chinese, French, Russian, English, and Spanish) and provided (in Article 111) that the five texts are equally authoritative. 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

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: the linguistically Afro-Asiatic northern regions of Nigeria, as well as throughout West Africa and abroad. Igbo words such as 'unu' for 'you people', 'sooso' for 'only', 'obia' for 'native doctoring', etc. are used in patois of Jamaica and many Central American nations, Yoruba is spoken as a ritual language in cults such as the Santeria in the Caribbean and South-Central America, and the Berbice Dutch language in Surinam is based on an Ijoid language. Even the above listed linguistic diversity of the Niger–Congo in Nigeria is deceptively limiting, as these languages may further consist of regional dialects that may not

title: Official Languages Ordinance

text: Official Languages Ordinance The Official Languages Ordinance is an ordinance of Hong Kong enacted for the purpose of specifying the status and use of official languages of the territory. Both Chinese and English are declared official languages with equal status in the ordinance, and are to be used in communication between the government and members of the public. It dictates that all ordinances would be enacted and published in both languages, and allows judicial officers the choice of using either language in court proceedings. While no law existed prior to 1974 to designate official languages in Hong Kong, by practice,

title: Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages

text: Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages of the Canadian government is responsible for achieving the objectives of, and promoting, Canada's Official Languages Act. Canada has two official languages: English and French. The 1988 Official Languages Act mandates this office and its commissioner, who holds office for seven years. Its mission has three main objectives: ensuring the equality of English and French within the Government of Canada and institutions subject to the Act; preserving and developing official language communities; and ensuring the equality of English and French in Canadian society at large.

text: Japan, who was also Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information. 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. The days and their historical significance are: 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. The Universal Postal Union has

title: Languages with official status in India

text:
the Union of India.

 Of the 22 official languages, 15 are Indic, four are Dravidian, two are Tibeto-Burman, and one is Munda. Since 2003, a government committee has been looking into the feasibility of treating all languages in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution as "Official Languages of the Union". The language in which communications between different states, or from the union government to a state or a person in a state, shall be sent is regulated by the Official Languages Act and, for

text: and Théberge is the first Commissioner from Western Canada and from outside Ontario and Quebec. In 2009, Commissionner Graham Fraser created the Award of Excellence – Promotion of Linguistic Duality. The prise is given annually by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages to an individual or organization in Canada that is not subject to the federal "Official Languages Act" but that makes a difference by promoting linguistic duality in Canada or abroad, or by contributing to the development of official language minority communities. Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages

title: Languages of the Republic of the Congo

text: sign language is ASL from Nigeria, influenced by local gestures and conventions. Omer Massoumou et Ambroise Jean-Marc Queffélec, "Le français en République du Congo sous l'ère pluripartiste (1991-2006)", Paris, Éditions des archives contemporaines - Agence universitaire de la Francophonie, 2007, 451 p. Jean-Alexis Mfoutou, "La langue française au Congo Brazzaville Manifestation de l'activité langagière des sujets parlants", Éd. L'Harmattan, 2007, , 540 pages. Languages of the Republic of the Congo The official language of the Republic of Congo is French. Other languages are mainly Bantu languages, and the two national languages in the country are Kituba and Lingala (13%), followed

text: of the post required a specific working language". The Secretary-General's most recent report on multilingualism was issued on 4 October 2010. 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. The six official languages spoken at the UN are the first or second language of 2.8 billion people on the planet,

title: Official languages of Puducherry

text: Official languages of Puducherry French was the official language of Puducherry under the Treaty of Cession 1956. The Pondicherry Official Language Act, 1965 without mentioning French added the Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu as the official languages along with English. French was the official language of the "Établissements français dans l'Inde" (French India) and it remained as de jure official language of Pondicherry U.T by the "Article XXVIII" of Traité de Cession which states that, As of today, still the official gazette of Puducherry is published with French; albeit, with a marginal use . After independence, the new official languages got

title: Languages of the European Union

text: Luxembourgish, an official language of Luxembourg since 1984, and Turkish, an official language of Cyprus. All languages of the EU are also working languages. Documents which a member state or a person subject to the jurisdiction of a member state sends to institutions of the Community may be drafted in any one of the official languages selected by the sender. The reply is drafted in the same language. Regulations and other documents of general application are drafted in the twenty-four official languages. The "Official Journal of the European Union" is published in the twenty-four official languages. Legislation and documents of

title: Official Languages Act (Canada)

text: Official Languages Act (Canada) The Official Languages Act (Cree language: "Wetsuweten |Dené]]) "(French ("Inuvik: "Loi sur les langues officielles)) (the "Act)" is a Canadian law that came into force on September 9, 1969, which gives French and English equal status in the government of Canada. This makes them "official" languages, having preferred status in law over all other languages. Although the Official Languages Act is not the only piece of federal language law, it is the legislative keystone of Canada's official bilingualism. It was substantially amended in 1988. Both languages are equal in Canada's government and in all the services

title: Official Languages of the Union Act, 1925

text: the South Africa Act read: The single substantive provision of the Official Languages Act, section 1, read: The South Africa Act and the Official Languages Act were repealed by the Constitution of 1961, which reversed the position of Afrikaans and Dutch, so that English and Afrikaans were the official languages and Afrikaans was deemed to include Dutch. The Constitution of 1983 removed mention of Dutch. Official Languages of the Union Act, 1925 The Official Languages of the Union Act, 1925 (Act No. 8 of 1925) was an act of the Parliament of South Africa that included Afrikaans as a variety

text: UN had agreed to pay the costs of implementing the resolution, for three years. 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. As of 1983, the Security Council (like the General Assembly) recognized six official and working languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian,

text: at Nairobi, one of the four major UN global offices (in addition to offices in New York City, Vienna, and Geneva), is located in Nairobi, Kenya. The media branch of the UN, UN News (https://news.un.org/), already includes translations into Swahili. 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. Turkic family languages, among which there is high mutual intelligibility, are spoken in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Northern Cyprus, Iran, China, Russia, and Afghanistan. In a 1999 resolution, the General Assembly

text: and Spanish. 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). Later, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian were added as working languages in the Economic and Social Council. In 1996, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights was presented to UNESCO but has yet to be officially ratified. Many international linguistics still expect that the UN will eventually add new official languages such as Hindi, Swahili, and Malay to represent Asian and African populations and put more resources into assisting

title: Languages of Benin

text: of Benin's regionally powerful neighbor Nigeria. Spanish was studied by 412,515 persons in Benin in 2014. Languages of Benin Benin is a diverse country linguistically. A total of 55 languages are spoken in Benin, with 50 being indigenous. Of those, French is the official language, and all the indigenous languages are considered national languages. Of the Beninese languages, Fon (a Gbe language) and Yoruba are the most important in the south of the country. In the north there are half a dozen regionally important languages, including Bariba (once counted as a Gur language) and Fulfulde. Education for the deaf in

title: Official Languages Act (Canada)

text: nationalism. Six years later, the Parti Québécois came to power in the 1976 provincial election. From time to time, the Official Languages Commissioner draws attention to the fact that federal agencies subject to the law are failing to live up to their legal obligations regarding official languages. In a report published in 2004 on the 35th anniversary of the "Official Languages Act", Commissioner Dyane Adam noted that only 86% of posts designated "bilingual" in the federal public service were occupied by persons who had effectively mastered the two official languages. This nevertheless was an increase over the comparable figure of

title: Official Languages Act (Canada)

text: "Official Languages Act" and Quebec's "Charter of the French Language" (also known as "Bill 101") are fundamentally at cross-purposes with each other. However, that perspective is not universally accepted. For example, former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has stated that "Bill 101 and the "Official Languages Act" are not in opposition, they are complementary." In 1969, the law was adopted with all-party support in the House of Commons. Despite this, there was not universal support for the law. The premiers of the three Prairie provinces requested, early in 1969, that the Official Languages Bill be referred to the Supreme Court of

title: Official minority languages of Sweden

text: Official minority languages of Sweden In 1999, the Minority Language Committee of Sweden formally declared five official minority languages: Finnish, Sami, Romani, Yiddish, and Meänkieli (Tornedal Finnish). The Swedish language dominates commercial and cultural life in Sweden but did not officially become the country's main language until 2009, when a new language law entered into effect. The need for this legal status had been the subject of protracted debate and proposed legislation was narrowly defeated in 2005. The minority languages have been legally recognized to protect the cultural and historical heritage of their respective speech communities. These communities are given

title: Official minority languages of Sweden

text: Stockholm. Romani and Yiddish have minority language status throughout the country and are covered by government obligations regarding their preservation. Official minority languages of Sweden In 1999, the Minority Language Committee of Sweden formally declared five official minority languages: Finnish, Sami, Romani, Yiddish, and Meänkieli (Tornedal Finnish). The Swedish language dominates commercial and cultural life in Sweden but did not officially become the country's main language until 2009, when a new language law entered into effect. The need for this legal status had been the subject of protracted debate and proposed legislation was narrowly defeated in 2005. The minority languages

text: Official Languages of the Union Act, 1925 The Official Languages of the Union Act, 1925 (Act No. 8 of 1925) was an act of the Parliament of South Africa that included Afrikaans as a variety of Dutch. It had the effect of making Afrikaans an official language of the Union of South Africa. It commenced on 27 May 1925 but was deemed to have had effect from the creation of the Union in 1910. The South Africa Act, 1909, which was the constitution of the Union, had made English and Dutch the official languages of the country. Section 137 of

text: within current budgetary restraints, but he nevertheless attached great importance to improving the linguistic balance. 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. On 8 June 2007, 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

title: Official Languages Act (Canada)

text: more mixed in the online portion of the poll, where 78% of respondents said they "strongly support" or "somewhat support" the aims of the "Official Languages Act", and 73% said they personally "strongly support" or "somewhat support" official bilingualism. In another poll conducted on this topic in the same year, 67% of respondents across Canada answered "yes" to the question "Are you personally in favour of bilingualism for all of Canada?" while 31% said "no". Official Languages Act (Canada) The Official Languages Act (Cree language: "Wetsuweten |Dené]]) "(French ("Inuvik: "Loi sur les langues officielles)) (the "Act)" is a Canadian law

title: Nigeria

text: merchants and missionaries in these cities. There are 521 languages that have been spoken in Nigeria; nine of them are now extinct. In some areas of Nigeria, ethnic groups speak more than one language. The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation that ended in 1960. Many French speakers from surrounding countries have influenced the English spoken in the border regions of Nigeria and some Nigerian citizens have become fluent enough in French to work in the surrounding countries. The French spoken in

title: Nigeria

text: English as the official language is widely used for education, business transactions and for official purposes. English as a first language is used only by a small minority of the country's urban elite, and it is not spoken at all in some rural areas. Hausa is the most widely spoken of the three main languages spoken in Nigeria itself (Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba) but unlike the Yorubas and Igbos, the Hausas tend not to travel far outside Nigeria itself. With the majority of Nigeria's populace in the rural areas, the major languages of communication in the country remain indigenous languages.

title: Languages with official status in India

text: speakers is about 25% of the total Indian population; however, including dialects of Hindi termed as Hindi languages, the total is around 44% of Indians, mostly accounted from the states falling under the Hindi belt. Other Indian languages are each spoken by around 10% or less of the population. States specify their own official language(s) through legislation. The section of the Constitution of India dealing with official languages therefore includes detailed provisions which deal not just with the languages used for the official purposes of the union, but also with the languages that are to be used for the official

text: French Creole, Portuguese, and Swahili but not on an official or consistent basis. Bengali is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, ranking seventh, with over 240 million speakers. 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, and support was also given by the states of Assam and Tripura. Hindi is one

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: Fulani following the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate by the Fulani Uthman dan Fodio in the 19th century. Hausa is the official language of a number states in Northern Nigeria and the most important dialect is generally regarded as that spoken in Kano, an Eastern Hausa dialect, which is the standard variety used for official purposes. Eastern dialects also include some dialects spoken in Zaria, and Bauchi; Western Hausa dialects include Sakkwatanchi spoken in Sokoto, Katsinanchi in Katsina Arewanchi in both Gobir and Adar, Kebbi, and Zamfara. Katsina is transitional between Eastern and Western dialects. Northern Hausa dialects include Arewa

title: Minister responsible for Official Languages (Canada)

text: Minister responsible for Official Languages (Canada) The Minister responsible for Official Languages is the Minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet who is entrusted with the enforcement of the Official Languages Act, ensuring that government services are available in both English and French, protecting minority language rights, particularly in the area of education, and promoting bilingualism throughout Canada. The last Minister responsible for Official Languages was Shelly Glover in Stephen Harper's Cabinet. Moore held that role since 2013-07-15. Other previous Ministers have been James Moore, Josée Verner and Mauril Bélanger. In 2003 the first Minister responsible for Official Languages

title: Kwa languages

text: to the various Lagoon languages of southern Ivory Coast and to what are now called the Volta–Niger languages of southern Nigeria. Greenberg (1963) added the Kru languages of Liberia, the Ghana–Togo Mountain languages which Westermann and Bryan had specifically excluded, and Ijaw of the Niger delta; West Kwa included the languages from Liberia to Dahomey (Republic of Benin), and East Kwa the languages of Nigeria. Bennett & Sterk (1977) proposed that the Yoruboid and Igboid languages belonged in Benue–Congo rather than in Kwa. Stewart (1989) removed Kru, Ijaw, and Volta–Niger (East Kwa), but kept the Ghana–Togo Mountain and Lagoon languages,

title: Languages of the Philippines

text: of becoming extinct because of speakers favoring the more prevalent regional language. Moreover, most of the users of these languages are illiterate and as expected, there is a chance that these languages will no longer be revived due to lack of written records. Aside from the two official nationwide languages used in the Philippines, namely, Filipino and English, other languages have been proposed as additional nationwide languages. Among the most prominent proposals are Japanese, and Spanish. According to Ethnologue, a total of 182 native languages are spoken in the nation and four languages have been classified as extinct: Dicamay Agta,

title: Languages of Chad

text: teachers for the deaf train in Nigeria. ("Ethnologue" lists 54 Chadic languages in Chad altogether, many of them small.) Languages of Chad Chad has two official languages, French and Modern Standard Arabic, and over 120 indigenous languages. A vernacular version of Arabic, Chadian Arabic, is the lingua franca. Of the two official languages, French has the most speakers in Chad (though Chadian Arabic has more speakers in Chad than both French and Standard Arabic) . Chad submitted an application to join the Arab League as a member state on 25 March 2014, which is still pending. Chadian Sign Language is

title: Official Languages Ordinance

text: English was the sole language used in all branches of the British colonial government. Under public pressure, the Official Languages Ordinance was enacted in 1974 to declare that both English and Chinese may be used in communication between the government and the public. Despite the usage of different dialects in spoken Chinese, the government chose not to specify a dialect as an official language, instead indicating "Chinese" as an official language, allowing any dialect to be used. Since most of the local population spoke Cantonese, it became the most frequently used dialect in official communication. Official Languages Ordinance The Official

text: of the official languages of India and Fiji and is also spoken in Suriname, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. It is mutually intelligible to a high degree with Urdu which is 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

title: Official Languages Act 2003

text: sector customer phone lines and state-run websites. The Act also allowed for the introduction of bilingual automated speaker announcements on public transport and other less prominent instances of a bilingual policy in respect of the two official national languages. The only state-area not to be covered by the Official Languages Act in the Republic of Ireland to date is road signage whose policy falls under the Department of Transport. The Official Languages Act 2003 does not cover the business or private sectors. On 30 October 2003, Part 5 of the Official Languages Act came into effect. Under Part 5, the

title: Timeline of official languages policy in Canada

text: Timeline of official languages policy in Canada Because the country contains two major language groups and numerous other linguistic minorities, in Canada official languages policy has always been an important and high-profile area of public policy. In an exhaustive 1971 study of Canadian language law prepared for the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Claude-Armand Sheppard offered this definition for the term “official language”: “[An] official language is a language in which all or some of the public affairs of a particular definition are, or can be, conducted, either by law or custom. We take public affairs to comprise the

text: Canadian Heritage the specific responsibility of taking measures to advance the equality of status and use of English and French in Canadian society; under section 44 of that Act, the Minister must submit annual reports to Parliament on the matters relating to official languages for which the Minister is responsible. Minister responsible for Official Languages (Canada) The Minister responsible for Official Languages is the Minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet who is entrusted with the enforcement of the Official Languages Act, ensuring that government services are available in both English and French, protecting minority language rights, particularly in

title: Official Languages Act 2003

text: Official Languages Act 2003 The Official Languages Act 2003 (OLA; ) is an Act of the Oireachtas of Ireland. The Act sets out rules regarding use of the Irish language by public bodies; established the office of An Coimisinéir Teanga to monitor and enforce compliance by public bodies with the provisions of the Official Languages Act; and made provision for the designation of official Irish language versions of placenames and the removal of the official status of English placenames in the Gaeltacht. The Act is being implemented on a phased basis. According to the Act the provision of services by

title: Official Languages Act 2003

text: the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010–2030 to have at least 250,000 daily speakers of Irish by 2030. Official Languages Act 2003 The Official Languages Act 2003 (OLA; ) is an Act of the Oireachtas of Ireland. The Act sets out rules regarding use of the Irish language by public bodies; established the office of An Coimisinéir Teanga to monitor and enforce compliance by public bodies with the provisions of the Official Languages Act; and made provision for the designation of official Irish language versions of placenames and the removal of the official status of English placenames in the

text: was sworn in, on the creation of the "Official Languages Branch of Intergovernmental Affairs" within the Privy Council Office. In 2006, responsibility was shifted from the Privy Council Office to the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the branch was renamed the "Official Languages Secretariat". As minister responsible for official languages, Moore's portfolio included the Official Languages Support Programs Branch (which supports the Minister in implementing Part VII of the Official Languages Act) and the Official Languages Secretariat (which coordinates the Government of Canada's activities in official languages). Sections 42 and 43 of the Official Languages Act give the Minister of

title: Languages of Singapore

text: recognized as a script in any of Singapore's official languages, even though English is less widely used in Thailand than standard Thai. Out of the eight general hospitals overseen by Singapore's Ministry of Health, only Singapore General Hospital has signages in the four official languages. Along Hospital Drive (where Singapore General Hospital is located) and various national medical centres, road directories are entirely in English. Within the hospital itself, signs for individual blocks, wards, Accident and Emergency department, Specialist Outpatient Clinics, National Heart Centre and National Cancer Centre have signs written in the four official languages. The English titles are

title: Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a multilingual country where an estimated total of 242 languages are spoken. Ethnologue lists 215 living languages. The official language, inherited from the colonial period, is French. Four indigenous languages have the status of national language: Kituba (called "Kikongo"), Lingala, Swahili and Tshiluba. When the country was a Belgian colony, it had already instituted teaching and use of the four national languages in primary schools, making it one of the few African nations to have had literacy in local languages during the European colonial period.

title: Languages with official status in India

text: offices. In 2016, the Modi government announced plans to promote Hindi in government offices in Southern and Northeast India. The Indian constitution does not specify the official languages to be used by the states for the conduct of their official functions, and leaves each state free to, through its legislature, adopt Hindi or any language used in its territory as its official language or languages. The language need not be one of those listed in the Eighth Schedule, and several states have adopted official languages which are not so listed. Examples include Kokborok in Tripura and Mizo in Mizoram. The

title: Official minority languages of Sweden

text: certain rights on that basis, such as school education in their language, and its use in dealing with governmental agencies. These are the criteria established by the Minority Language Committee, influenced by the directives from the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 1997. To be accorded official minority status, a language must have been spoken in Sweden for a significant amount of time. A precise figure has not been revealed, but qualified estimations consider 100 years to be reasonable, based on the included and excluded languages. A significant immigration to Sweden did not start until after World War

text: Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is an official language of the African Union and is officially recognised as a lingua franca of the East African Community. 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 and northern Mozambique. With between 50 – 100 million speakers, Swahili is lexiconically similar to 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 United Nations Office

text: than the International Court of Justice", setting out five official languages and two working languages (English and French). 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. 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

title: Official Languages Act (Canada)

text: be discriminated against based on ethnic origin or first language learned when it comes to employment opportunities and advancement. The law also created the Commissioner of Official Languages, an officer of Parliament charged with receiving complaints from the public, undertaking inquiries, and making recommendations regarding the status of the two official languages. Section 32 of the "Official Languages Act" authorizes the Governor in Council ("i.e.", the federal cabinet) to issue regulations defining the geographic regions in which services will be offered by the federal government in the relevant minority language (English in Quebec and French elsewhere). This provides a legal

title: Languages of Ethiopia

text: Languages of Ethiopia The languages of Ethiopia refers to the various spoken forms of communication in Ethiopia. It includes the nation's official languages, its national and regional languages, as well as its minority and foreign languages. There are 88 individual languages of Ethiopia according to Ethnologue, with the 1994 Ethiopian census indicating that some 77 tongues were spoken locally. Most of these languages belong to the Afroasiatic family (Semitic and Cushitic languages; Omotic languages are also spoken, though their classification is uncertain). Additionally, Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by what the government calls the "Nilotic" people, though scholars distinguish Nilotic from

title: Languages of the European Union

text: determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community" of 1958, are: The number of member states exceeds the number of official languages, as several national languages are shared by two or more countries in the EU. Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, and Swedish are all official languages at the national level in multiple countries (see table above). In addition, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Slovak, and Slovene / Slovenian are official languages in multiple EU countries at the regional level. Furthermore, not all national languages have been accorded the status of official EU languages. These include

text: to have Hindi recognized as an official language of the UN. In 2015, Nepal's Vice President Parmananda Jha stated his firm support for the inclusion of Hindi as an official language of the UN. Because of the linguistic diversity in India, the expansion of Hindi has become political and has led to a rise of English in the post-British colonial period. This is why English is included along with Hindi on Indian passports. If the Indian government is able to grant more federal-level protection for other languages such as Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, as a compromise then

title: Languages of Ghana

text: branch of the Niger–Congo family, the Akan languages appear in a diverse number of dialects. With regard to official status however, only three (3) are recognised; Asante Twi, Fante and Akuapem Twi. It is the most-widely spoken language in Ghana. Ewe is a Gbe language, part of the Volta–Niger branch of the Niger–Congo family. The Ewe Language is spoken in Ghana, Togo and Benin with a trace of the language in West Nigeria. Dagbani is one of the Gur languages. It belongs to the larger Mole-Dagbani ethnic group found in Ghana and Burkina Faso. It is spoken by Dagombas in

title: Languages of Colombia

text: Languages of Colombia More than 99.2% of Colombians speak the Spanish language; also 65 Amerindian languages, 2 Creole languages and the Romani language are spoken in the country. English has official status in the San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands. The overwhelming majority of Colombians speak Spanish (see also Colombian Spanish), but in total 101 languages are listed for Colombia in the Ethnologue database. The specific number of spoken languages varies slightly since some authors consider as different languages what others consider to be varieties or dialects of the same language. Best estimates recorded 71 languages that are spoken

title: Official Languages Commission

text: House of the People and ten shall be members of the Council of States to be elected respectively by the members of the House of the People and the members of the Council of States in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote." Official Languages Commission Official Languages Commission ("India") is a commission which was constituted by the President of India in pursuance to the provisions stated in the Article-344 of the Indian Constitution. This commission was constituted on June 7, 1955 vide a notification of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of

title: Official Languages Commission

text: Official Languages Commission Official Languages Commission ("India") is a commission which was constituted by the President of India in pursuance to the provisions stated in the Article-344 of the Indian Constitution. This commission was constituted on June 7, 1955 vide a notification of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. As defined in the Article-344 of the Constitution, it shall be the duty of the Commission to make recommendations to the President as to: As defined in the articles of the Constitution of India, "the committee shall consist of thirty members, of whom twenty shall be members of the

title: Languages of Catalonia

text: Languages of Catalonia There are four languages with official status in Catalonia (an autonomous community of Spain): Catalan; Spanish- which is official throughout Spain; Aranese, a dialect of Occitan spoken in the Aran Valley; and Catalan Sign Language. Many other languages are spoken in Catalonia as a result of recent immigration from all over the world. Catalan has enjoyed special status since the approval of the Statute of Autonomy of 1979 which declares it to be the language "proper to Catalonia". Spanish had been the only official language for most of the period between the 18th century and 1975. According

title: Languages of Catalonia

text: not accept the use of documents written in Catalan, though it is a co-official language in Catalonia. Languages of Catalonia There are four languages with official status in Catalonia (an autonomous community of Spain): Catalan; Spanish- which is official throughout Spain; Aranese, a dialect of Occitan spoken in the Aran Valley; and Catalan Sign Language. Many other languages are spoken in Catalonia as a result of recent immigration from all over the world. Catalan has enjoyed special status since the approval of the Statute of Autonomy of 1979 which declares it to be the language "proper to Catalonia". Spanish had

title: Languages of Zimbabwe

text: a language database maintained by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, lists seven varieties of indigenous Zimbabwean sign language: Manicaland Sign, Mashonaland Sign, Masvingo School Sign, Matabeleland Sign, Midlands Sign, Zimbabwe Community Sign, and Zimbabwe School Sign. American Sign Language is also reportedly used, though it is not clear to what extent. "Sign language", without further specificity, became one of Zimbabwe's official languages in the 2013 Constitution. Languages of Zimbabwe Many languages are spoken, or historically have been spoken, in Zimbabwe. Since the adoption of its 2013 Constitution, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, namely

title: Languages with official status in India

text: Languages with official status in India The Constitution of India designates the official language of the Government of India as Hindi written in the Devanagari script, as well as English. There is no national language as declared by the Constitution of India. Hindi is used for official purposes such as parliamentary proceedings, judiciary, communications between the Central Government and a State Government. States within India have the liberty and powers to specify their own official language(s) through legislation and therefore there are 22 officially recognized languages in India of which Hindi is the most used. The number of native Hindi

title: Languages with official status in India

text: continues to be used today, in combination with other (at the central level and in some states) State official languages at the state level. The legal framework governing the use of languages for official purpose currently includes the Constitution, the Official Languages Act, 1963, Official Languages (Use for Official Purpose of the Union) Rules, 1976, and various state laws, as well as rules and regulations made by the central government and the states. The Indian constitution, in 1950, declared Hindi in Devanagari script to be the official language of the union. Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of English for

title: Languages with official status in India

text:
the Supreme Court. In 2006, the law ministry said that it would not object to Tamil Nadu state's desire to conduct Madras High Court proceedings in Tamil. In 2010, the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court allowed lawyers to argue cases in Tamil. List of official languages of states of India
 List of official languages of Union Territories of India
 The Eighth Schedule to the Indian Constitution contains a list of 22 scheduled languages. At

title: Official Languages Act (Canada)

text: 1978, when only 70% of the incumbents in posts that had been designated "bilingual" were capable of speaking both languages at accepted levels. In January 2017, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages had received 14 complaints related to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's use of English and French during public town hall meetings. Eleven of the reports came following a session in Sherbrooke, Quebec, where Trudeau, whose father had enacted the "Official Languages Act" fifty years prior, answered in French when he was asked in English to address a lack of government-provided mental health services for English-speaking persons. The

title: Official Languages Act (Canada)

text: definition for the otherwise vague requirement that services be provided in the minority official languages wherever there is "significant demand." The definition used in the regulations is complex, but basically an area of the country is served in both languages if at least 5,000 persons in that area, or 5% of the local population (whichever is smaller), belongs to that province's English or French linguistic minority population. The regulations were first promulgated in 1991. The "Official Languages Act" was one of the cornerstones of the government of Pierre Trudeau. The law was an attempt to implement some of the policy

title: Languages of Singapore

text: is one of the four official languages of Singapore, it should be used to reflect Singapore's multi-racial background. In 2014, there were reports of erroneous translations on road signs of popular tourist attractions such as Lau Pa Sat and Gardens by the Bay made by the Singapore Tourism Board, mostly involving English to Tamil translations. According to "The Straits Times", rectifications are underway to ensure that the translations are now correct. The free-to-air channels in Singapore are run by MediaCorp and each channel is aired in one of the four official languages of Singapore. For example, Channel U and Channel

title: Languages of the European Union

text: Finnish Lapland. Furthermore, legislation specifically concerning the Sami must be translated to these languages. Bilingualism with Finnish is universal, though. Three different Sami languages are spoken in Sweden, but "Sami language" (undifferentiated) is recognised as an official minority language in Sweden, and is co-official with Swedish in four municipalities in Norrbotten County (Swedish Lapland). Most of Sami speakers speak Northern Sami (5,000–6,000 speakers), although there are ca. 1,000–2,000 Lule Sami speakers and 600 Southern Sami speakers. For millennia, Latin has served as a "lingua franca" for administrative, scholarly, religious, political, etc. purposes in the area of the present-day European Union.

title: Bible Society of Nigeria

text: [BFBS] which had operated in Nigeria as far back as 1807. Then the Bible House, Apapa was serving as a distribution centre to other neighbouring West African countries. The society has it headquarters at Office Address 18, Wharf Road, Apapa, Lagos State, Nigeria. It has Bible Distribution centres in other Nigerian cities: The organization has translated the Bible into 26 Nigerian Languages. Among the twenty-six (26) different languages the Holy Bible has been translated are: The bible society of Nigeria has three guest houses located in three Nigerian cities (Lagos, Ibadan and Abuja). Bible Society of Nigeria The Bible Society

title: Languages of the European Union

text: languages, Latvian and Lithuanian; the Celtic languages, including Irish; and Greek are also Indo-European. Outside the Indo-European family, Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian are Uralic languages while Maltese is the only Afroasiatic language with official status in the EU. The Basque language, a language isolate whose roots are unknown, is an official language in some parts of northern Spain, but not an official language of the EU. Most official EU languages are written in the Latin script. The two exceptions are Greek, which is written in the Greek script, and Bulgarian, which is written in Cyrillic script. With the accession of

title: Languages of Ghana

text: Languages of Ghana Ghana is a multilingual country in which about eighty languages are spoken. Of these, English, which was inherited from the colonial era, is the official language and lingua franca. Of the languages indigenous to Ghana, Akan is the most widely spoken. Ghana has more than seventy ethnic groups, each with its own distinct language. Languages that belong to the same ethnic group are usually mutually intelligible. The Dagbanli and Mampelle languages of Northern Region, for instance, are mutually intelligible with the Frafra and Waali languages of the Upper East Region of Ghana. These four languages are of

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: be mutually intelligible. As such some languages, particularly those with a large number of speakers, have been standardized and received a romanized orthography. Nearly all languages appear in a Latin alphabet when written. The Efik, Igbo, and Yoruba languages are notable examples of this process. The more historically recent standardization and romanization of Igbo have provoked even more controversy due to its dialectical diversity, but the Central Igbo dialect has gained the widest acceptance as the standard-bearer. Many such as Chinua Achebe have dismissed standardization as colonial and conservative attempts to simplify a complex mosaic of languages. Such controversies typify

title: Languages with official status in India

text: exact extent to which, and the areas in which, the Union government uses Hindi and English, respectively, is determined by the provisions of the Constitution, the Official Languages Act, 1963, the Official Languages Rules, 1976, and statutory instruments made by the Department of Official Language under these laws. The Indian constitution draws a distinction between the language to be used in Parliamentary proceedings, and the language in which laws are to be made. Parliamentary business, according to the Constitution, may be conducted in either Hindi or English. The use of English in parliamentary proceedings was to be phased out at

title: Culture of Nigeria

text: Culture of Nigeria The culture of Nigeria is shaped by Nigeria's multiple ethnic groups. The country has 527 languages, seven of them are extinct. Nigeria also has over 1150 dialects and ethnic groups. The six largest ethnic groups are the Hausa and Fulani in the north, the Igbo in the southeast, and the Yoruba predominate in the southwest, the Tiv people of North Central Nigeria and the Efik - Ibibio. The Edo people are most frequent in the region between Yorubaland and Igboland. Many of the Edo tend to be Christian. This group is followed by the Ibibio/Annang/Efik people of

title: Indigenous languages of the Americas

text: 18th and 19th centuries, Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, and Dutch, brought to the Americas by European settlers and administrators, had become the official or national languages of modern nation-states of the Americas. Many indigenous languages have become critically endangered, but others are vigorous and part of daily life for millions of people. Several indigenous languages have been given official status in the countries where they occur, such as Guaraní in Paraguay. In other cases official status is limited to certain regions where the languages are most spoken. Although sometimes enshrined in constitutions as official, the languages may be used infrequently

title: Chadic languages

text: Adamawa languages are spoken adjacently to Chadic languages, interaction between Chadic and Adamawa is limited. Chadic languages The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, Central African Republic and northern Cameroon. The most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, a lingua franca of much of inland Eastern West Africa. Newman (1977) classified the languages into the four groups which have been accepted in all subsequent literature. Further subbranching, however, has not been as robust; Blench (2006), for

title: Languages of Syria

text: Languages of Syria Arabic is the official language of Syria and is the most widely spoken language in the country. Several modern Arabic dialects are used in everyday life, most notably Levantine in the west and Mesopotamian in the northeast. According to "The Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics", in addition to Arabic, the following languages are spoken in the country, in order of the number of speakers: Kurdish, Turkish, Neo-Aramaic (four dialects), Circassian, Chechen, Armenian, and finally Greek. None of these languages have official status. Historically, Aramaic was the lingua franca of the region before the advent of Arabic

title: Languages of Italy

text: Languages of Italy There are approximately thirty-four native living spoken languages and related dialects in Italy, most of which are indigenous evolutions of Vulgar Latin, and are therefore classified as Romance languages. Although they are sometimes referred to as regional languages, there is no uniformity within any Italian region, and speakers from one locale within a region are typically aware of the features distinguishing their local tongue from the one of other places nearby. The official and most widely spoken language across the country is Standard Italian, a direct descendant of Tuscan. Almost all the Romance languages native to Italy,

title: Languages of Canada

text: same extent, with constitutional entrenchment. Quebec's official language is French, although, in that province, the Constitution requires that all legislation be enacted in both French and English, and court proceedings may be conducted in either language. Similar constitutional protections are in place in Manitoba. Canada's Official Languages Commissioner (the federal government official charged with monitoring the two languages) has stated, "[I]n the same way that race is at the core of what it means to be American and at the core of an American experience and class is at the core of British experience, I think that language is at

title: Languages of Indonesia

text: Indonesia were ruled by the Dutch East India Company and subsequently the whole of what is now Indonesia was in the Dutch East Indies, the Dutch language has no official status there and the small minority that can speak the language fluently are either educated members of the oldest generation, or employed in the legal profession, as certain law codes are still only available in Dutch. Several prominent languages spoken in Indonesia sorted by language family are: There are many additional small families and isolates among the Papuan languages. Indonesian languages are generally not rendered in native-invented systems, but in

title: Nigeria

text: Nigeria may be mixed with some native languages but is mostly spoken like the French spoken in Benin. French may also be mixed with English as it is in Cameroon. Most of the population speaks English as their native language. The major languages spoken in Nigeria represent three major families of languages of Africa: the majority are Niger-Congo languages, such as Igbo, Yoruba and Fulfulde; Kanuri, spoken in the northeast, primarily in Borno and Yobe State, is part of the Nilo-Saharan family; and Hausa is an Afroasiatic language. Even though most ethnic groups prefer to communicate in their own languages,

title: Official names of South Africa

text: Official names of South Africa There are eleven official names of South Africa, one in each of its eleven official languages. The number is surpassed only by India. These languages include English, Afrikaans, the Nguni languages (Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, and Swazi), as well as the Sotho languages, which include Tswana, Sotho and Northern Sotho. The remaining two languages are Venda and Tsonga. There are smaller but still significant groups of speakers of Khoi-San languages which are not official languages, but are one of the eight unofficially recognised languages. There are even smaller groups of speakers of endangered languages, many of