# Do other countries have an official language?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 30, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762 "2006-05-30T17:45:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/21 "2006-05-31T04:52:44Z")
> [@Cerowyn](#):
>
> Could you possibly construe _Loi 101_ in any other light? Such a discussion is clearly beyond the scope of GQ, but it’s disingenuous to suggest that the Quebec government had any other purpose than suppressing other languages in favour of French in enacting it.
I’ve been in discussions about Quebec policies with you before, and yes, I think we’ll have to go to GD with this at some point. But for now, it suffices to say that no, I don’t think any law of my government has had the goal of “suppressing” other languages than French. Their goal was always to recognize that French is the majority language here, and should therefore be our common language and the language in which the majority of business is conducted. It has never been their intention to eliminate other languages, even from the public sphere. Sorry, I know you’re not very warm towards Quebec, but I ask you to believe that all these laws have been promulgated in good faith.
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### Author:  [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/22 "2006-05-31T11:57:10Z")
Ireland has two- Irish and English.
What that means is that all government documents must be available in an Irish translation, and that any official business may be conducted in Irish (e.g. a politician may choose to address the Dáil or Seanad in Irish, a witness may testify in Irish in a court, etc.).
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/23 "2006-05-31T17:18:06Z")
I’m not sure, but I’ve been told that some countries not only have official languages, but also expect their citizens to be able to communicate using those languages when voting or conducting other business with the government.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/24 "2006-05-31T17:27:46Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#):
>
> I’m not sure, but I’ve been told that some countries not only have official languages, but also expect their citizens to be able to communicate using those languages when voting or conducting other business with the government.
It would be “using one of them”, and it would include exceptions for the deaf, etc.
In Spain, official forms come in Spanish (and the local language if there is one). You can’t get your income tax done in English. Could Spanish IRS provide forms in all EU languages if it felt like it? Well, yeah, but since “IRS is all of us”, all of us would probably want to know why our money wasn’t being spent on other things, like roads. I found that being able to get information and forms in Spanish while in the US would sometimes play against me; for example, when people got angry because they’d asked “English or Spanish” and I’d answered “either”.
My Miami aunt had gotten her US citizenship shortly before we met; that meant passing the exams in English, but she didn’t speak it. Like most people in “foreign languages”, she wouldn’t speak it because she couldn’t speak it perfectly. FFS, if kids had that attitude we’d all be mute!
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### Author:  [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/25 "2006-05-31T22:03:55Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#):
>
> I’m not sure, but I’ve been told that some countries not only have official languages, but also expect their citizens to be able to communicate using those languages when voting or conducting other business with the government.
That would be the case in France. It’s even mentionned in the constitution that french is the “language of the Republic”. No civil servant is under any obligation to provide a translation of a document if you don’t read/speak french. Actually, such a translated document wouldn’t be authoritative anyway. And in some cases, like courts of law for instance, another language than french _can’t_ even be used since a law dating back from Francis I, during the 16th century.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/26 "2006-05-31T22:42:15Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> Spain has four: Spanish in all the country, plus Basque, Catalan and Galego in specific areas.
>
> Andorra has two, both in all the country: Catalan and French.
>
> The EU specifically considers as official “all languages that are official in the totality of any of its member countries”. With Spain as a member, Spanish is official but the other three official languages of Spain are not. If Andorra ever became a member, Catalan would become an official language of the EU.
It’s my understanding that, technically, “Spanish” is a generic term that includes the languages you mention plus Castilian, which is (again, [technically](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Castilian) ) the official language of Spain. “Castilian” is to “Spanish” what “English” is to “British.”
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/27 "2006-05-31T22:56:25Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> It’s my understanding that, technically, “Spanish” is a generic term that includes the languages you mention plus Castilian, which is (again, [technically](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Castilian) ) the official language of Spain. “Castilian” is to “Spanish” what “English” is to “British.”
Since Basque isn’t even an Indo-European language, that would be a very bizarre use of the word '“Spanish.” Catalan, although a Romance language, is quite distinct, being probably at least as different from Spanish as Portuguese is, if not more so. Glaego (Galician) is much more similar to Portuguese than it is to Spanish.
“Castilian” is to “Spanish” is as “English” is to “the Queen’s English,” being regarded as the most “standard” dialect. There are many other dialects of Spanish, but these do not include Catalan or Galego, which are distinct languages, and certainly not Basque.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/28 "2006-05-31T23:03:19Z")
Except, according to my googling, “Spanish,” in this case, refers to “languages spoken in the state of Spain,” which would include Basque. The language “Castilian” is the language that most of the world refers to, less precisely, as “Spanish.” In other words, to refer back to the British/English analogy, one word (Spanish, British) is a political, not linguistic, term; the other word (Castilian, English) is the linguistic term.
Since more than one language is spoken in Spain, the political term referring to the state–“Spanish”–is too general a term to refer to any one language. The language, of all the Spanish (i.e., spoken in Spain) languages, that we all know as “Spanish,” is Castilian.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/29 "2006-05-31T23:07:14Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> Except, according to my googling,
You have a cite?
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/30 "2006-05-31T23:11:07Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> You have a cite?
I cited above the Wiktionary definition of Castilian as “the official language of Spain.”
I googled all this last night, while writing a trivia quiz. I’m leaving work now, and will have to re-google later to track down the same cites.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/31 "2006-05-31T23:45:01Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> I cited above the Wiktionary definition of Castilian as “the official language of Spain.”
That’s perfectly correct. In Spanish, _castellano_ (Castilian) is often used as a synonym for _español_ (as your cite shows), to refer to the Spanish language in general. It can also refer to the Castilian dialect of Spanish, as opposed to Andalusian, the other major dialect of Iberian Spanish, from which Latin American Spanish is (mainly) descended. Wiktionary is defining “Castilian” according to the first sense, as a synonym for the Spanish language in general. It is not including the other distinct languages of Spain such as Catalan or Galego in the definition.
> [@](#):
>
> I googled all this last night, while writing a trivia quiz. I’m leaving work now, and will have to re-google later to track down the same cites.
I’ve just never heard of that usage, either in English or Spanish. “British” is certainly not used that way: while it can refer to certain idioms used in the English used in Great Britain, it would not normally be used to refer to Welsh or Gaelic.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2006, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/32 "2006-05-31T23:45:30Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> Except, according to my googling, “Spanish,” in this case, refers to “languages spoken in the state of Spain,” which would include Basque. The language “Castilian” is the language that most of the world refers to, less precisely, as “Spanish.” In other words, to refer back to the British/English analogy, one word (Spanish, British) is a political, not linguistic, term; the other word (Castilian, English) is the linguistic term.
>
> Since more than one language is spoken in Spain, the political term referring to the state–“Spanish”–is too general a term to refer to any one language. The language, of all the Spanish (i.e., spoken in Spain) languages, that we all know as “Spanish,” is Castilian.
_O Arglwydd, dyma gamwedd!_ (Dic Penderlyn, 1831) Obviously the moderators and you would have no objection to my commenting this, since it is in “an English language” by your definition.
Moderators and others interested, it says “Oh Lord, this is an injustice!” in Welsh.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2006, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/33 "2006-06-01T00:57:08Z")
While the United States of America does not have an official language, some of the states have one or two official languages. For example, Hawaii has both English and Hawaiian as official languages.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2006, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/34 "2006-06-01T01:38:38Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> Except, according to my googling, “Spanish,” in this case, refers to “languages spoken in the state of Spain,” which would include Basque.
Try googling “Basque” and see how many cites you come up with that call it “Spanish”. That makes as much sense as calling Navaho or Lakota a form of American English because they are spoken in America.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2006, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/35 "2006-06-01T19:10:50Z")
Here’s a reminder of the sequence of events here. I responded to the statement that Spanish is the official language of Spain by pointing out that this was not–technically–accurate. Keep in mind that I’m distinguishing, for the purposes of this discussion, “descriptive” terms and “prescriptive” terms. In the descriptive sense, Spanish is indeed the _lingua franca_ of Spain. In other words, the language that most people think of when they hear the word “Spanish” is the language that is the main spoken language in Spain. So according to usage (of the term “Spanish”), then yes, “Spanish is the official language of Spain.” Again, according only to _usage_.
Now, speaking prescriptively, the official name of the language that most people think of as “Spanish” is, technically, “Castilian.”
To return to the analogy that I borrowed from one of the sources I was googling the other day, “Spanish” is a political term that refers to the modern state of Spain, much as “British” is a political term that is roughly equivalent (I said roughly) with “UK.” These words are not ethnological, but political. “English” and “Castilian” are more ethnological in connotation, in this context.
(To address Polycarp’s witticism, he got it backward: the language he quoted would be, according to this analogy, one of the British languages, not English.)
In any case, I was seeking accuracy, not confusion. It would be confusing, because of usage practices, to say that “Basque is a Spanish language,” therefore I would never say that. For clarity’s sake, I would say, “Basque is one of the languages spoken in Spain.”
So, considering all the context, and “prescriptive” versus “descriptive” usage issues, it is more accurate to say “Castilian is the official language of Spain” than to say “Spanish is the official language of Spain.” (In a limited and vastly oversimplified sense, in this context, the word “Spanish” is English for the word “Castilian.”) Which is all I was saying; the rest was an attempt to supply some context for that technicality. Which, again, is a _technicality_. To repeat myself, I came across this bit of pedantry while writing a trivia quiz; it’s not the way I would put it in normal everyday conversation.
Cite, translated from the Spanish Constitution: [_Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State (…) Other Spanish languages shall also be official in the respective Autonomous Communities…_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_given_to_the_Spanish_language) (Note the “other Spanish languages.”)
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2006, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/36 "2006-06-01T19:25:52Z")
If you read the entire linked (and long) cite, you’ll see that it’s a pretty complicated situation with lots of implications and nuances. Which is why my original statement was meant to be limited to addressing the word “official,” and was not an attempt to make a sweeping statement ignoring those implications and nuances.
It’s a pretty interesting article, by the way.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2006, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/37 "2006-06-01T19:35:43Z")
Okay – now it makes sense. Presumably the second sentence begins _“Otras lenguas españoles…”_ which does not translate precisely idiomatically. Yeah, “other Spanish languages…” is the literal rendering, but it more precisely means “Other languages of [i.e. spoken in] Spain…” in much the sense that “English is the most widely spoken Indian language” is a true statement but highly misleading, and the concluding phrase should be “…the most widely spoken language of India.”
The “Invisible Insane” strikes again! (No, that’s not an insult against Lissener; it is, as I assume he’s aware, the punchline of a famous apocryphal story on too-literal machine translation, it being the result of an English \> foreign language \> English run that started with the proverb “Out of sight, out of mind.” 🙂 )
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2006, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/38 "2006-06-01T19:47:58Z")
> [@Polycarp](#):
>
> . . . Presumably the second sentence begins _“Otras lenguas españoles…”_ . . .
- Las demás lenguas españolas . . .\*
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2006, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/39 "2006-06-01T20:45:22Z")
Sheesh. I don’t know why you can’t simply admit you were wrong rather than getting into all this nit-picking to try to find some shred of truth in what you said.
> [@lissener](#):
>
> Here’s a reminder of the sequence of events here. I responded to the statement that Spanish is the official language of Spain by pointing out that this was not–technically–accurate.
First of all, **Nava** did not say that Spanish was “the” official language of Spain, but mentioned it as one of four official languages:
> [@Nava](#):
>
> Spain has four: Spanish in all the country, plus Basque, Catalan and Galego in specific areas
This is completely and 100% accurate. What you said originally was:
> [@lissener](#):
>
> It’s my understanding that, technically, “Spanish” is a generic term that includes the languages you mention plus Castilian, which is (again, technically ) the official language of Spain. “Castilian” is to “Spanish” what “English” is to “British.”
This was a clear error on your part. What you are saying here is that the official languages of Spain are “Spanish . . . , Basque, Catalan and Galego,” plus, according to you, Castilian. Castilian, if used as a term for the language, is synonymous with Spanish; or if used as a term for a dialect, not an official language. Either way your statement is wrong.
> [@](#):
>
> Keep in mind that I’m distinguishing, for the purposes of this discussion, “descriptive” terms and “prescriptive” terms. In the descriptive sense, Spanish is indeed the _lingua franca_ of Spain. In other words, the language that most people think of when they hear the word “Spanish” is the language that is the main spoken language in Spain. So according to usage (of the term “Spanish”), then yes, “Spanish is the official language of Spain.” Again, according only to _usage_.
>
> Now, speaking prescriptively, the official name of the language that most people think of as “Spanish” is, technically, “Castilian.”
That’s quite incorrect. In English, “Spanish” is technically the correct word for the Spanish language, both descriptively, and, according to dictionary definitions, prescriptively:
Merriam-Webster:
> [@](#):
>
> Main Entry: Span·ish
> Pronunciation: 'spa-nish
> Function: noun
> Etymology: Spanish, adjective, from Middle English Spainish, from Spain
> 1 : the Romance language of the largest part of Spain and of the countries colonized by Spaniards
> 2 plural in construction : the people of Spain
[thefreedictionary.com](http://thefreedictionary.com):
> [@](#):
>
> Span·ish (spnsh)
> adj.
>
> 1. Of or relating to Spain or its people or culture.
> 2. Of or relating to the Spanish language.
> n.
> 3. The Romance language of the largest part of Spain and most of Central and South America.
> 4. (used with a pl. verb) The people of Spain.
> **[Dictionary.com Is The World’s Favorite Online Dictionary](https://www.dictionary.com/)**
>
> Dictionary.com is the world’s leading online source for English definitions, pronunciations, word origins, idioms, Word of the Day, and more.
> [@](#):
>
> Span·ish ( P ) Pronunciation Key (spnsh)
> adj.
>
> 1. Of or relating to Spain or its people or culture.
>
> 2. Of or relating to the Spanish language.
> n.
>
> 3. The Romance language of the largest part of Spain and most of Central and South America.
>
> 4. (used with a pl. verb) The people of Spain.
> spanish
>
> adj : of or relating to or characteristic of Spain or the people of Spain; “Spanish music” [syn: Spanish] n 1: the Romance language spoken in most of Spain and the countries colonized by Spain [syn: Spanish] 2: the people of Spain [syn: Spanish, Spanish people]
In contrast, Merriam Webster (for one example) does not indicate that Castilian is the “official” term for the Spanish language, merely that it can be a synonym:
> [@](#):
>
> Castilian
> One entry found for Castilian.
> Main Entry: Cas·til·ian
> Pronunciation: ka-'stil-y&n
> Function: noun
> 1 : a native or inhabitant of Castile; broadly : SPANIARD
> 2 a : the dialect of Castile b : the official and literary language of Spain based on this dialect
>
> - Castilian adjective
> [@lissener](#):
>
> To return to the analogy that I borrowed from one of the sources I was googling the other day, “Spanish” is a political term that refers to the modern state of Spain, much as “British” is a political term that is roughly equivalent (I said roughly) with “UK.” These words are not ethnological, but political. “English” and “Castilian” are more ethnological in connotation, in this context.
“Spanish” is not just a political term, it is the word that properly refers to the Spanish language. By this reasoning, one would say that “Spanish” is not spoken in Latin America, because it’s politically not part of Spain.
> [@lissener](#):
>
> In any case, I was seeking accuracy, not confusion.
You failed.
> [@lissener](#):
>
> It would be confusing, because of usage practices, to say that “Basque is a Spanish language,” therefore I would never say that. For clarity’s sake, I would say, “Basque is one of the languages spoken in Spain.”
That’s not what you said originally. You said that “Spanish” was a “generic term” that includes Basque (and the other languages), implying that Basque could be referred to as a “Spanish language.” That would in fact be extremely confusing.
> [@](#):
>
> So, considering all the context, and “prescriptive” versus “descriptive” usage issues, it is more accurate to say “Castilian is the official language of Spain” than to say “Spanish is the official language of Spain.” (In a limited and vastly oversimplified sense, in this context, the word “Spanish” is English for the word “Castilian.”) Which is all I was saying; the rest was an attempt to supply some context for that technicality. Which, again, is a _technicality_.
This is simply wrong. In English, it is more accurate, and less confusing, to say that Spanish is an official language of Spain, since “Castilian” can be used for both the dialect and the language as a whole. In English, the former usage (for the dialect) is probably much more common.
> [@lissener](#):
>
> Cite, translated from the Spanish Constitution: [_Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State (…) Other Spanish languages shall also be official in the respective Autonomous Communities…_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_given_to_the_Spanish_language) (Note the “other Spanish languages.”)
Certainly, in some limited contexts, one can refer to the languages spoken in Spain as “Spanish languages.” But, as you already have pointed out, this tends to be confusing unless the context is clear. This certainly does not provide grounds for alleging that “Castilian” is somehow a more technically correct way to refer to the Spanish language than “Spanish” is.
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### Author:  [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2006, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-countries-have-an-official-language/358762/40 "2006-06-01T20:49:15Z")
The official juridical language of Denmak, including The Faroe Islands and Greenland, is Danish.
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