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What is the largest country with only one official language?

What is the largest country with only one official language?

What is the largest country with only one official language?

One major counrty with no official language is the United States. The US, at the federal level, has no official language. The United States is the largest country without an official language at the national level: 

  • ExplanationThe U.S. has many languages and an official language could limit the country’s cultural diversity. The U.S. also allows for continued growth and adaptability by not having an official language. 
  • Other countries without an official languageOther countries without an official language include Australia, Eritrea, Luxembourg, Sweden, and Tuvalu. 

Some countries have areas within their borders where an official language has been adopted. For example, 20 states in the U.S. have an official language. 

The largest country with only one official language is Portugal. It has Portuguese as its sole official language and covers an area of about 92,212 square kilometers (35,364 square miles). In terms of land area, it’s the largest country that recognizes just one official language, even though other languages may be spoken within its territories.

What is the largest country with only one official language?

What is the smallest country with its own language?

Besides the already mentioned Niue (associated with NZ), Nauru, the Isle of Man (associated with the UK), and Andorra, at least an honorable mention can go to the following:

Finally, Estonia (pop. 1,318,000) does not seem to be small at all in comparison with all the above examples. Still, let’s admire Estonians’ efforts in the preservation of development of their national language and literature!

Monaco (pop. 38,000), although mostly French-speaking these days, historically had its own Monégasque dialect. As elsewhere in the SE corner of today’s (post-1860) France, the dialect is sort of intermediate between Italian and Occitan (aka Provençal), the traditional language of South France. A written form of Monegasque exists, and can be seen e.g. on street signs in the principality; a version of Monaco’s anthem exists in the dialect.

South Ossetia (pop. 54,000), a “partially recognized country”, is the only country with Ossetian as its national language. (In parallel with the Andorra situation, while Catalan is also the official language’s in Spain’s Catalonia, Ossetian is also official in Russia’s North Ossetia). Although officially recognized only by Russia and a few of its friends (some of which are themselves only “partially recognized”), South Ossetia has been de facto independent for over 25 years, and is, arguably, more of an independent country than, say, Niue. (Probably on par with the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, or Palau).

The Faroe islands (pop. 48,000), a self-governing part of the Kingdom of Denmark, speak Faroese, which is considered a separate language from Danish or Norwegian.

Abkhazia (pop. 241,000), another “partially recognized state”, speaks the Abkhaz language. Unlike all of the above examples, Abkhaz is neither an official regional language (or even comonly spoken language) outside of its country (vs. Andorra + Catalonia for Catalan, or S.Ossetia + N.Ossetia for Ossetian), nor moribund/reconstructed (Manx), nor closely related (or, in fact, related at all) to languages that are official elsewhere (vs. the Micronesian and Polynesian islands of various Pacific Island states, Monegasque, Faroese, or Luxembourgish). So if not for the “limited recognition” bit, Abkhazia may perhaps fit the bill of the smallest (by population) country with a language that’s really unique. (Abkhaz is related, but not very closely, to a few languages that are official regional language in several autonomous republics of Russia’s North Caucasus).

Iceland (pop. 330,000), a fully recognized independent country and a member of the UN, is famous for preserving and maintaining the Icelandic language and its rich literary tradition, and using it in all domains of the nation’s life.

The Maldives (pop. 417,000), a fully recognized independent country and a member of the UN, speak the Maldivian language. Although closely related to the Sinhalese language of Sri Lanka, the Maldivian is said not to be mutually intelligible with Sinhalese. It uses its own alphabet, which, although of Indic origin, looks a bit like the Arabic script, and is very different visually from the scripts used by Sinhalese .

Malta (pop. 431,000), a fully recognized independent country and a member of the UN and the EU, speaks Maltese. Although fairly closely related to the Arabic of (e.g.) nearby Tunisia, the Maltese language has a very strong identity of its own, as its written in a Latin-based alphabet, is rich in Italian loanwords, and is spoken by the staunchly Catholic Maltese who don’t view themselves (or aren’t viewed by anybody) as Arabs.

Luxembourg, small in land area, but densely populated (pop. 570,000), has the Luxembourgish language (which may be viewed as a German dialect by some Germans) spoken by much of its population; it is co-official with the French and German (which, of course, are in practice much more used for writing).

Bhutan (pop. 775,000) speaks a bunch of languages, many of which are unique to Bhutan. The national language, Dzongkha, is related to, but different from, Tibetan.

What countries have no ‘official language’ at all, and why?

The USA has no “official language” because you have a right to speak any language you want once you are a citizen.

An archaic rule on the Citizenship requirements for immigrants reads “a working knowledge of English”.

This has no actual definition and has been interpreted as knowing how to answer where you are from and being able to say “yes” and “no”.

If they were to mandate the correct use of English for everyone here I’d say 90% of the people would be deported.

Why do most of the countries have their own official language?

Native language is like the biological parents to a child. They nourish it, look after its every need till it becomes an adult and stands on its own feet in life. Native language is rooted in the ground where one is born. It is around this language, the cultural and moral ethos of the people who live in a region for generations is built.

This language, in its literary form with a standardised script, is, therefore, the best medium for learning any subject under the sun. Most of the countries in the world carry the name of their native languages, therefore. It is, but, natural to declare the native literary language as the official language of any country.

What is the most powerful country that primarily speaks English and has it as its official language?

Let’s proceed in three steps.

  1. Make a list of countries whose majority language is English.
  2. Narrow our list down by eliminating any country that doesn’t have English as its official language — or, at least, one of its official languages.
  3. Decide which of those countries is the most powerful.

(1) The countries with populations of at least 4 million whose majority language is English are:

  • Australia
  • Canada
  • Ireland
  • New Zealand
  • United Kingdom
  • United States

(2) Of these countries, the ones that have adopted English as at least one of their official languages at the federal level are:

  • Canada — Official languages are English and French
  • Ireland — Official languages are English and Irish
  • New Zealand — Official languages are English, Maori, and New Zealand Sign Language

(Australia, the UK, and the US have not adopted official languages at the federal level.)

(3) Which of these countries is the most powerful?

My vote goes to Canada. It has almost ten times the population of either Ireland or New Zealand. And it’s GDP is 4-1/2 times the GDP of both Ireland and New Zealand combined.

Why do countries have official languages and others don’t?

Q: Why do countries have official languages and others don’t?

I assume you meant to ask “why do some countries…”, else your question doesn’t make much sense.

I was originally going to reply that “huh? every country has an official language”, and it’s true that every sovereign state has one or more de facto official languages, used for local statutes and government communications.

Then I did some digging, and it seems there are several countries that don’t have de jure official languages (i.e. nowhere in their constitutions does it say that “XYZ shall be our official language(s), so say we all”).

So, unlike my country’s constitution, which bluntly states that:

Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English shall be the 4 official languages in Singapore.

the constitutions of 10 countries (at least on Wikipedia11) do not list an official language:

  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Chile
  • Japan
  • Mexico
  • Palestine
  • United Kingdom
  • United States of America22
  • Uruguay

But then, dear OP, you asked why, not which. For countries which do list official languages, the reason is inevitably one variant or another of “we think it’s a good idea to be explicit about this”, i.e. inclusion as political necessity.

As for the above 10 countries, I can speculate:

As for the rest, probably some combination of “we have several languages with significant user bases, so let’s play fair and not favor one over the other”…and “we have several languages with significant user bases, so let’s not stick our necks out by declaring language X über alles”.

Japan is “effectively monolingual”—all but one of the languages considered “native” to Japan are either endangered or spoken by a handful of people. When you have only one language to worry about, why make a big deal of it in your constitution?

I wouldn’t be surprised if the constitutions of some other countries also failed to mention an official language in their original form, and for the same reason. Notably, and not ironically, the two beginning with “United” above still have constitutions that hail from a time and internal worldview where “English is good enough, why bother with the rest?”

Palestine doesn’t have a codified constitution, but their Basic Law specifies Arabic as the official language, so…technicality?

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Which countries have multiple official languages?

  1. Afghanistan : Pashto and Persian
  2. Algeria : Arabic and Berber
  3. Belarus : Belarusian and Russian
  4. Burundi : French and Kirundi
  5. Cameroon : English and French
  6. Canada : English and French
  7. Central African Republic : French and Sango
  8. Chad : Arabic and French
  9. Cyprus : Greek and Turkish
  10. Djibouti : Arabic and French
  11. East Timor : Portuguese and Tetum
  12. Finland : Finnish and Swedish
  13. Haiti : French and Haitian Creole
  14. India : English and Hindi
  15. Ireland : English and Irish
  16. Israel : Arabic and Hebrew
  17. Kazakhstan : Kazakh and Russian
  18. Kenya : English and Swahili
  19. Kiribati : English and Gilbertese
  20. Kosovo : Albanian and Serbian
  21. Kyrgyzstan : Kyrgyz and Russian
  22. Lesotho : English and Sotho
  23. Madagascar : French and Malagasy
  24. Malawi : Chewa and English
  25. Malta : English and Maltese
  26. Marshall Islands : English and Marshallese
  27. Morocco : Arabic and Berber
  28. Nauru : English and Nauruan
  29. Pakistan : English and Urdu
  30. Palau : English and Palauan
  31. Paraguay : Guarani and Spanish
  32. Philippines : English and Filipino
  33. Samoa : English and Samoan
  34. Somalia : Arabic and Somali
  35. Sri Lanka : Sinhala and Tamil
  36. Sudan : Arabic and English
  37. Swaziland : English and Swazi
  38. Tanzania : English and Swahili
  39. Tonga : English and Tongan
  40. Tuvalu : English and Tuvaluan
  41. Uganda : English and Swahili

Sovereign countries with 3 official languages:

  1. Belgium : Dutch, French and German
  2. Bolivia : Aymara. Quechua and Spanish
  3. Bosnia and Herzegovina : Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian
  4. Comoros : Arabic, Comorian and French
  5. Equatorial Guinea : French, Portuguese and Spanish
  6. Fiji : English, Fijian and Fiji hindi
  7. Luxembourg : French, German and Luxembourgish
  8. New Zealand : English, Maori and New Zealand Sign Language
  9. Rwanda : English, French and Kinyarwanda
  10. Seychelles : English, French and Seychellois Creole
  11. Vanuatu : Bislama, English and French
  12. Zimbabwe : English, Northern Ndebele and Shona

Sovereign countries with 4 official languages:

  1. Papua New Guinea : English, Hiri Motu, Papua New Guinean Sign Language and Tok Pisin
  2. Singapore : Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil
  3. Switzerland : French, German, Italian and Romansh

Sovereign country with 11 official languages:

  1. South Africa : Afrikaans, English, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Southern Ndebele, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu

So, total 41+12+3+1 = 57 sovereign countries have more than one official language.

What is the largest country with only one official language?