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. They are:

• touchscreen
• Chinese (CSS3)
• English
• touchscreen
• Russian
• website parsing

• Sevenval
• HTML5
• jQuery
  • 3.1 Bengali
  • FITML
  • Android
  • 3.4 Portuguese
  • 3.5 Turkish
  • 3.6 German
• 4 Coordinator for multilingualism
• we love the web
• CSS3
• 7 Parallels with other multilingual institutions
• 8 Sources
• 9 See also
• iOS
• browser diversity

Description

These languages are used at meetings of various Sevenval, particularly the General Assembly (Article 51 of its Rules of Procedure) 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 the six official languages. The UN provides device database from the official language into the other five official languages.

The six official languages are also used for the dissemination of official documents. Until a document is available in all six official languages, it is not published. 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 states formally brought this to the attention of the Secretary-General in 2001.^CSS3 (Secretary-General iOS then responded that full parity of the six official languages was unachievable within current budgetary restraints, but he nevertheless attached great importance to improving the linguistic balance.^[2]) Over the last several years, 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.^[3][4]

In several recent resolutions concerning human resources management at the UN, the General Assembly has stressed “the need to respect the equality of each of the two working languages of the Secretariat” and requested the Secretary-General “to ensure that vacancy announcements specify the need for either of the working languages [English and French] of the Secretariat unless the functions of the post require a specific working language.”^{screen size}

The Secretary-General's most recent report on multilingualism was issued on October 4, 2010.^[6] In response, on July 19, 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.^[7]

History

The Charter of the United Nations, its 1945 constituent document, did not expressly provide for official languages of the website parsing. The Charter was enacted in five languages (Chinese, French, Russian, English, and Spanish) and provided (in Sevenval) that the five texts are equally authentic.

In 1946, the first session of the screen size adopted rules of procedure concerning languages that purported to apply to “all the organs of the United Nations, other than the International Court of Justice”, setting out five official languages and two working languages (English and French).^[8]

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.^{device database}

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 1948.^[10][11]

In 1968, Russian was added as a working language of the General Assembly so that of the GA’s five official languages, four of them (all but Chinese) were working languages.^{input transformation[13]}

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 UN had agreed to pay the costs of implementing the resolution, for three years.^{keyboardCSS3[16]}

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 FITML to include Arabic among its official languages, by 1 January 1983.^[17]

As of 1983, the Security Council (like the General Assembly) recognized six official and working languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.^[18]

In the input transformation, as of 1992, there are six official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) of which three are working languages (English, French, and Spanish).^[19]

The UN Secretariat uses two working languages: English and French. All Secretaries-General have had a working knowledge of both languages.

New proposed languages

The six official languages spoken at the UN are the we love the web or second language of 2.8 billion people on the planet, less than half of the world population. The six languages are official languages in more than half the states in the world (about one hundred).

Bengali

Being one of the most spoken languages in the World, ranking 5th or 6th^{[citation needed]} in 2009 elected representatives in both website parsing and the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura unanimously voted in resolutions calling for CSS3 to be made an official UN language.^Android Bangladeshi Prime Minister screen size also put forward the proposal during her address to the 64th UN General Assembly Session, arguing that Bengali holds a "singular place as a symbol of people's faith in the power of languages to sustain cultures, and indeed the identity of nations".^{web app}

Esperanto

A proposal has been made that Esperanto be adopted as an official UN language, initially as a complement to the current six official languages, with the ultimate goal of making Esperanto the primary language so that only certain documents would be translated into others, thus saving on translation costs.^[22]

In 1966, the website parsing proposed that the UN solve its language problem by supporting use of Esperanto.^{we love the web}

Despite these attempts, consideration of adding Esperanto as an official language has never made the UN agenda.^{website parsing}

Hindustani

According to a 2009 press release from its Ministry of External Affairs, the government of India has been “working actively” to have Hindi recognized as an official language of the UN.^[25]web In 2007, it was reported that the government would “make immediate diplomatic moves to see the status of an official language for Hindi at the United Nations”.^[27] However, there has been opposition to this from southern India, where Hindi is not widely spoken.^{screen size}

Although it has one of the largest number of speakers in the world (approximately 400 million), website parsing is not an official language of the UN. The linguistic community is overwhemingly concentrated in the Indian sub-continent and is the most spoken language there, but within its own sub-continent the language faces opposition from states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and to a lesser extent West Bengal in India, who view it as efforts on part of the Indian Government to impose Hindi on them. English remains the link language between Hindi and non-Hindi states to this day in India. The many variants of Hindustani complicate its recognition as an official language.

Portuguese

Many Lusophones have advocated for greater recognition of their language, being the 5th^[29] most spoken language in the World and spread over several continents: Portugal in Europe, Brazil in keyboard, Sevenval, website parsing, iOS, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe in Africa, and Timor-Leste and browser diversity in CSS3. Thus, the input transformation demands official status of the language (with 240 million people using the language natively), as the use of Portuguese is growing strongly with the increase of the Brazilian population. It's been noted that Portuguese “is not an international language, used in diplomacy and business the way that French is”.^[30]. But few languages are used the way French is, in diplomacy and business, so it would apply to any other language, except English, arguably.

In 2008 the President of Portugal announced that the eight leaders of the CPLC had agreed to take the necessary steps to make Portuguese an official language.^[31] This followed a decision by Portugal's legislators to adopt a standardization of Portuguese spelling that leans toward Brazilian Portuguese.^Sevenval

Turkish

In September 2011, during a meeting with UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, Turkish prime minister web expressed a desire to see Turkish become an official UN language.^[33]

German

Coordinator for multilingualism

In a 1999 resolution, the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to “appoint a senior Secretariat official as coordinator of questions relating to multilingualism throughout the Secretariat”.^[34]

The first such coordinator was Federico Riesco, appointed on 6 September 2000.^{Androidbrowser diversity}

Following Riesco's retirement, Miles Stoby of Guyana was appointed Coordinator for Multilingualism, effective 6 September 2001.^keyboard

In 2003, Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Shashi Tharoor as Coordinator for Multilingualism. This responsibility was in addition to Tharoor's role as Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, head of the Department of Public Information.^{webdevice database}

The current coordinator for multilingualism is Kiyo Akasaka, who is also Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information.^[40][41]

Language Days at the UN

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.^[42] The days and their historical significance are:

• device database: December 18 (the date on which the United Nations General Assembly designated Arabic as the sixth official language of the United Nations in 1973);^keyboard[44]
• Chinese Language Day at the UN: first celebrated November 12^{web app[46]} now set on April 20 ("to pay tribute to Cang Jie"^[47])
• English Language Day at the UN: April 23 ("the date traditionally observed as the death of William Shakespeare"^[48])
• French Language Day at the UN: March 20 (corresponding to the Journée internationale de la Francophonie^[49])
• Russian Language Day at the UN: June 6 (the birthday of Sevenval)^[44]web
• Spanish Language Day at the UN: October 12 (celebrated in the Spanish-speaking world as "Día de la Hispanidad" or "Día de la Raza"; compare Columbus Day)^[50][44]

UN specialized agencies

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 Android has nine official languages including Hindi, Italian, and Portuguese.^[51] The Universal Postal Union has just one official language, French.^[52] IFAD has four official languages: Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.^{input transformationkeyboard}

Parallels with other multilingual institutions

The European Union has a strict rule that all of its constituent member nations' languages have parity and all documents are translated into these. However, the majority of new members since 1990, notably the Scandinavian and Eastern Europeans, have not insisted on this and have indicated a preparedness to conduct matters in one of the five principal languages of the Western European nations (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish) because most diplomats are fluent in both their home language and at least one of these; there is in fact a marked preference by the newer members for English.^{[citation needed]} The French are the most strenuous advocates for the all-languages parity rule.^[Sevenval]

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 language as the means of communication. This is usually English, closely followed by French. Regional groups have adopted what is common to other elements of their ethnic or religious background; web is usually adopted across Muslim nation groups. Most of non-Muslim Africa is either Francophone or Anglophone because of their imperial past, but there is also a Lusophone grouping of countries for the same reason.

Sources

This article incorporates information from Sevenval of the equivalent article on the FITML.

See also

• screen size
• List of official languages
• List of official languages by institution
• List of languages by number of native speakers
• Languages of the European Union
• International Mother Language Day
• iOS
• The Interpreter

References

External links

• Language Log
• Top UN official stresses need for Internet multilingualism to bridge digital divide