This is a list of official languages of international organizations. Different organizations sometimes refer to their principal languages of administration and communication as "working languages", while others refer to these as being "official". No distinction is made here, except where an organization itself, distinguishes between its official and working languages.
English and French are often regarded as the symbolic official languages, although the former has gained prominence in recent years.[1]
International
According to a recent study of multilingualism in 13 major international organizations (Commonwealth, ICC, ILO, IMF, IOC, IPU, ITU, OECD, UN, UPU, WB, WHO, and WTO), the English is an official language in almost all (12). This is followed by French (10); Spanish (6); and Arabic, Chinese, and Russian (3 each). Interpretation is offered in Japanese and German as well for 2 organizations.[2]
The six official languages of the United Nations reflects the languages of the permanent members of the Security Council (Chinese, English, French, and Russian), in addition to Arabic and Spanish. Another study found that the percentage of each language used at each United Nations meeting in 2010 was distributed as follows: English (98%), French (87%), Spanish (34%), Russian (10%), Arabic (7%), and Chinese (3%).[3]
The following is a list of major international and inter-governmental organizations.
Defunct
Institutions | Languages |
---|---|
Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) | Russian |
League of Nations | English and French |
Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) | Czech, German, Polish and Russian |
See also
Further reading
- Elena Aronova, "Russian and the Making of World Languages during the Cold War," Link
References
- ↑ The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History: From the Mid-19th Century to the Present Day. Palgrave Macmillan. 2016. p. 559.
- ↑ Coulmas, Florian (2017). An Introduction to Multilingualism: Language in a Changing World. Oxford University Press. p. 121.
- ↑ Fernández-Vítores, David. "Spanish in the United Nations System" (PDF). Instituto Cervantes.
- ↑ "Article 50 of Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court" (PDF). Retrieved 17 June 2009.
- ↑ "Basic Facts About The United Nations", By United Nations (2004) ISBN 92-1-100936-7
- ↑ "The ASEAN Charter" (PDF). ASEAN.
- ↑ TREATY REVISING THE TREATY ESTABLISHING THE BENELUX ECONOMIC UNION SIGNED ON 3 FEBRUARY 1958 Art. 38
- ↑ "Consolidated text of the Treaty of the Southern African Development Community, as amended". SADC. Retrieved 1 October 2011.