I think there’s a distinction between government agencies producing consumer oriented documents - information booklets, application forms, etc - in a variety of languages to meet needs, and systematically producing all official documents in more than one language. In the US the former happens widely, but I don’t think the latter happens at all. For instance, are Acts of Congress routinely published in any language other than English? Federal Regulations? Presidential proclamations? I think not.
As I understand it, English is the de facto working language of federal and state governments in the US, but it is not an “official language” - there is no official language. Other languages are used on a local and selective basis for the convenience of citizens or the more efficient operation of certain government functions, but they do not have even the status that English has.
The US is the land of the free, and citizens are free to think, write, speak and communicate in any language they please. Whether government agencies need to accomodate them in this is a question of convenience and practicality, not principle.
[disclaimer] I am not Welsh and I don’t live there. This is just what I understand to be true and what I see when I visit [/disclaimer]
Government agencies in Wales have a duty to provide all services in both english and welsh. All road signs are bi-lingual and welsh speakers have the right to expect to be able to carry out business with these agencies in welsh if they wish. This is true in all parts of Wales, regardless of how common welsh speakers are in that area - IME welsh is much more prevelant in the north than the south. That would seem to make it official to me.
In the highlands of Scotland last week I noticed that road signs were also bi-lingual - english and gaelic. Since this was only in areas with a high proportion of gaelic spaekers I assume this is out of respect for the language rather than law.
Muchas gracias, UDS for putting it so succintly. The US and its sub-units are not obligated to put every official document into other languages than the recognized common language; they do so because they find it useful or necessary in certain cases – or politically expedient. And as mentioned, many other countries do it. US States may decree official languages on their own; it does not obligate the National Government.
And making English the “official language” would not make it any less useful, necessary in certain cases, or politically expedient, for the government to invest in multilingual production of that documentation that is already in other languages…
[detour thru GD territory]
Unless, of course, by that you mean banning the use of any other language in a government setting… which has been discussed in GD many times, and hazel-rah has offered to do so again.
[/GD detour]
José
There is only one official language - Norwegian. It happens to have two official written forms! The national government has to make all documents available in both forms. Each municipality, on the other hand, is free to choose one and stick to it. School children have to learn to read and write in both forms, though they’ll do most of their schoolwork in just one. Incidentally, calling bokmål “the normal Norwegian” is highly impolitical… though by at least one definition it’s true; about 80-85% of Norwegians use that form in their daily writing.
To make matters more complicated, a few municipalities in the far north have Sami (what many of you probably know as “Lappish”) as their official language, alone or together with one form of Norwegian. This, plus a number of laws at the national level, gives Sami a semi-official status; a Sami-speaking child is eligible for special linguistic support at school, for instance, above and beyond what other non-Norwegian speaking children are offered. I’m over-simplifying here, skipping for instance over the question of how many Sami languages there are, and then there’s tiny tri-lingual Porsanger, but I think I’ve bored most of you and confused the rest by now, so…
Just to correct Sparc on this point, a member of the European Parliament may address the parliament in any of the official languages, regardless of the language used by his electors (Rule 117 of the Rules of Procedure for the European Parliament).
It will surprise nobody to learn that the European Commission’s translation service is the largest in the world. If the current rules are maintained, and if the number of member states rises to 27 as is predicted, the number of official and working languages in the EU will rise from 11 to 20.
For internal purposes, English, French and to a lesser extent German are the de facto working languages of the Commission, and a fonctionnaire who does not speak at least one and preferably two of these languages will make a very limited impact.
If one wants to nit-pick, OK, Romansch does not have exactly equal status with the other three languages. Its use in government is permitted, but not required. Some sites refer to this as being "official, others characterize it as “semi-official.” However, as I said the language is “official” enough to appear on the currency. It is more than just a “national” language, the status having changed in 1996.
Hong Kong’s official languages are Chinese and English.
Macau’s are Chinese and Portuguese.
The UK doesn’t have an official language but census forms etc are available in several dozen languages to cater for minorities, and a recent proposal to require immigrants to know the vernacular specified English or Welsh.
Singapore has Malay, English and Chinese as official languages, with Tamil as an optional extra. Most official business is in English, but the govt has to provide translation services where needed.
South Africa has a dozen or so official languages.
I think I am right in saying New Zealand recognizes Maori as well as English.
I think Spain recognizes Basque and Catalan, as well as Castillian.
etc, etc… It would be easier to list the officially monolingual nations. (France, I bet)
An interesting debate is currently going on in E Timor. There is a native tongue, a bit obscure (can’t recall its name). Younger people use Bahasa (Malay - the official Indonesian language), but it’s politically unpopular. Portuguese is the colonial language, so that’s favored for sentimental reasons. And English makes sense. They’re still arguing over it - I don’t know in which language.
Now that I check Belgium - has no official language as of the revised constitution of February 17 1994.
I know not what rulings might have been made as per the provision herein on regulating what the public authorities and judicial system does.
[/quote]
So this led me to wonder about the rest of the EU on a constitutional level…
I surmise that the nations lacking a constitutionally dictated official language have laws and directives on a sub constitutional level that govern the duties of the state and the rights of recourse to translation and documentation in a given language.
And thanks UDS, I did not know that. I was under the impression that it was guided by electorate.
A signficant number of countries have more than one language with an officially-recognised status of some kind, and many countries have several such languages. Presumably all such countries issue a significant range of documentation in more than one language.
It is probable that more countries, for practical or political reasons, deal with citizens in languages which have no particular official status, and issue appropriate documents in these languages, as happens in the US.
My guess would be that countries which deal with citizens in one language only are relatively few in number, and they would mostly be countries with small and very homogenous populations.
Just remembered a funny story. When Cory Aquino became president of the Philippines (86, IIRC), she issued a memo to all govt depts saying that all govt memos must henceforth be in Filipino.
I didn’t mean to start a debate about Switzerland. I originally wrote that it had four official languages (I was including Romansch), but then decided to verify my information at the CIA and changed it to three. Thanks to everyone who provided additional information and cites.
Purely by coincidence, I learned yesterday that Bolivia has three official languages: Spanish, Quechua, and Aymara.