Languages In 36 editions of 36.

• Arabic (official),
• French,
• Berber dialects

Portuguese (official), Bantu and other African languages

• French (official),
• Fon and Yoruba (most common vernaculars in south),
• tribal languages (at least six major ones in north)

English (official), Setswana

French (official), native African languages belonging to Sudanic family spoken by 90% of the population

• Kirundi (official),
• French (official),
• Swahili (along Lake Tanganyika and in the Bujumbura area)

Portuguese, Crioulo (a blend of Portuguese and West African words)

24 major African language groups, English (official), French (official)

• French (official),
• Sangho (lingua franca and national language),
• Arabic,
• Hunsa,
• Swahili

French (official), Arabic (official), Sara and Sango (in south), more than 100 different languages and dialects

• Arabic (official),
• French (official),
• Comoran (a blend of Swahili and Arabic)

• French (official),
• Lingala (a lingua franca trade language),
• Kingwana (a dialect of Kiswahili or Swahili),
• Kikongo,
• Tshiluba

• French (official),
• Lingala and Monokutuba (lingua franca trade languages),
• many local languages and dialects (of which Kikongo has the most users)

French (official), 60 native dialects with Dioula the most widely spoken

• French (official),
• Arabic (official),
• Somali,
• Afar

Arabic (official), English and French widely understood by educated classes

• Spanish (official),
• French (official),
• pidgin English,
• Fang,
• Bubi,
• Ibo

• Afar,
• Amharic,
• Arabic,
• Tigre and Kunama,
• Tigrinya,
• other Cushitic languages

English (official, government business conducted in English), siSwati (official)

• Amharic,
• Tigrinya,
• Orominga,
• Guaraginga,
• Somali,
• Arabic,
• other local languages,
• English (major foreign language taught in schools)

• French (official),
• Fang,
• Myene,
• Bateke,
• Bapounou/Eschira,
• Bandjabi

• English (official),
• Mandinka,
• Wolof,
• Fula,
• other indigenous vernaculars

English (official), African languages (including Akan, Moshi-Dagomba, Ewe, and Ga)

French (official), each ethnic group has its own language

• Portuguese (official),
• Crioulo,
• African languages

• English (official),
• Kiswahili (official),
• numerous indigenous languages

• Sesotho (southern Sotho),
• English (official),
• Zulu,
• Xhosa

English 20% (official), some 20 ethnic group languages, of which a few can be written and are used in correspondence

• Arabic,
• Italian,
• English,
• all are widely understood in the major cities

French (official), Malagasy (official)

• English (official),
• Chichewa (official),
• other languages important regionally

• French (official),
• Bambara 80%,
• numerous African languages

• Hasaniya Arabic (official),
• Pular,
• Soninke,
• Wolof (official),
• French

• English (official),
• Creole,
• French,
• Hindi,
• Urdu,
• Hakka,
• Bojpoori

Mahorian (a Swahili dialect), French (official language) spoken by 35% of the population

Arabic (official), Berber dialects, French often the language of business, government, and diplomacy

Portuguese (official), indigenous dialects

English 7% (official), Afrikaans common language of most of the population and about 60% of the white population, German 32%, indigenous languages: Oshivambo, Herero, Nama

• French (official),
• Hausa,
• Djerma

• English (official),
• Hausa,
• Yoruba,
• Igbo (Ibo),
• Fulani

French (official), Creole widely used

• Kinyarwanda (official) universal Bantu vernacular,
• French (official),
• English (official),
• Kiswahili (Swahili) used in commercial centers

English

Portuguese (official)

• French (official),
• Wolof,
• Pulaar,
• Jola,
• Mandinka

• English (official),
• French (official),
• Creole

• English (official, regular use limited to literate minority),
• Mende (principal vernacular in the south),
• Temne (principal vernacular in the north),
• Krio (English-based Creole, spoken by the descendants of freed Jamaican slaves who were settled in the Freetown area, a lingua franca and a first language for 10% of the population but understood by 95%)

• Somali (official),
• Arabic,
• Italian,
• English

11 official languages, including Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu

• Arabic (official),
• Nubian,
• Ta Bedawie,
• diverse dialects of Nilotic,
• Nilo-Hamitic,
• Sudanic languages,
• English

note: program of Arabization in process

• Kiswahili or Swahili (official),
• Kiunguju (name for Swahili in Zanzibar),
• English (official, primary language of commerce, administration, and higher education),
• Arabic (widely spoken in Zanzibar),
• many local languages

note: Kiswahili (Swahili) is the mother tongue of the Bantu people living in Zanzibar and nearby coastal Tanzania; although Kiswahili is Bantu in structure and origin, its vocabulary draws on a variety of sources, including Arabic and English, and it has become the lingua franca of central and eastern Africa; the first language of most people is one of the local languages

• French (official and the language of commerce),
• Ewe and Mina (the two major African languages in the south),
• Kabye (sometimes spelled Kabiye) and Dagomba (the two major African languages in the north)

Arabic (official and one of the languages of commerce), French (commerce)

• English (official national language, taught in grade schools, used in courts of law and by most newspapers and some radio broadcasts),
• Ganda or Luganda (most widely used of the Niger-Congo languages, preferred for native language publications in the capital and may be taught in school),
• other Niger-Congo languages,
• Nilo-Saharan languages,
• Swahili,
• Arabic

Hassaniya Arabic, Moroccan Arabic

English (official), major vernaculars - Bemba, Kaonda, Lozi, Lunda, Luvale, Nyanja, Tonga, and about 70 other indigenous languages

• English (official),
• Shona,
• Sindebele (the language of the Ndebele, sometimes called Ndebele),
• numerous but minor tribal dialects

• Greenlandic (East Inuit),
• Danish,
• English

Icelandic

Russian, Norwegian

• Pashtu 35%,
• Afghan Persian (Dari) 50%,
• Turkic languages (primarily Uzbek and Turkmen) 11%,
• 30 minor languages (primarily Balochi and Pashai) 4%,
• much bilingualism

• Armenian 96%,
• Russian 2%,
• other 2%

• Azeri 89%,
• Russian 3%,
• Armenian 2%,
• other 6% (1995 est.)

Bangla (official), English

• Dzongkha (official),
• Bhotes speak various Tibetan dialects,
• Nepalese speak various Nepalese dialects

• Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect),
• Yue (Cantonese),
• Wu (Shanghaiese),
• Minbei (Fuzhou),
• Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese),
• Xiang,
• Gan,
• Hakka dialects,
• minority languages (see Ethnic groups entry)

• Georgian 71% (official),
• Russian 9%,
• Armenian 7%,
• Azeri 6%,
• other 7%

note: Abkhaz (official in Abkhazia)

English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication, Hindi the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people, Bengali (official), Telugu (official), Marathi (official), Tamil (official), Urdu (official), Gujarati (official), Malayalam (official), Kannada (official), Oriya (official), Punjabi (official), Assamese (official), Kashmiri (official), Sindhi (official), Sanskrit (official), Hindustani (a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India)

note: 24 languages each spoken by a million or more persons; numerous other languages and dialects, for the most part mutually unintelligible

Japanese

Kazakh (Qazaq, state language) 40%, Russian (official, used in everyday business) 66%

Korean

Korean, English widely taught in junior high and high school

Kirghiz (Kyrgyz) - official language, Russian - official language

note: in March 1996, the Kyrgyzstani legislature amended the constitution to make Russian an official language, along with Kirghiz, in territories and work places where Russian-speaking citizens predominate

Maldivian Dhivehi (dialect of Sinhala, script derived from Arabic), English spoken by most government officials

• Khalkha Mongol 90%,
• Turkic,
• Russian

Nepali (official), over 20 other languages divided into numerous dialects

Punjabi 48%, Sindhi 12%, Siraiki (a Punjabi variant) 10%, Pashtu 8%, Urdu (official) 8%, Balochi 3%, Hindko 2%, Brahui 1%, English (official and lingua franca of Pakistani elite and most government ministries), Burushaski, and other 8%

Russian, other

Sinhala (official and national language) 74%, Tamil (national language) 18%

note: English is commonly used in government and is spoken competently by about 10% of the population

Tajik (official), Russian widely used in government and business

• Turkmen 72%,
• Russian 12%,
• Uzbek 9%,
• other 7%

• Uzbek 74.3%,
• Russian 14.2%,
• Tajik 4.4%,
• other 7.1%

English (official)

English (official), local dialects

• Dutch (official),
• Papiamento (a Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English dialect),
• English (widely spoken),
• Spanish

English, Creole (among Haitian immigrants)

English

• English (official),
• Spanish,
• Mayan,
• Garifuna (Carib),
• Creole

English (official)

English

Spanish (official), English spoken around Puerto Limon

Spanish

English (official), French patois

Spanish

Spanish, Nahua (among some Amerindians)

English (official), French patois

French (official) 99%, Creole patois

Spanish 60%, Amerindian languages 40% (more than 20 Amerindian languages, including Quiche, Cakchiquel, Kekchi, Mam, Garifuna, and Xinca)

French (official), Creole (official)

Spanish, Amerindian dialects

English, Creole

French, Creole patois

English

• Dutch (official),
• Papiamento (a Spanish-Portuguese-Dutch-English dialect) predominates,
• English widely spoken,
• Spanish

Spanish (official)

note: English and indigenous languages on Atlantic coast

Spanish (official), English 14%

note: many Panamanians bilingual

Spanish, English

English

English (official), French patois

English, French patois

• English (official),
• Hindi,
• French,
• Spanish,
• Chinese

English (official)

• English (official),
• Spanish,
• Creole

Albanian (Tosk is the official dialect), Greek

• Catalan (official),
• French,
• Castilian

German

• Byelorussian,
• Russian,
• other

• Dutch 58%,
• French 32%,
• German 10%,
• legally bilingual

• Croatian,
• Serbian,
• Bosnian

Bulgarian, secondary languages closely correspond to ethnic breakdown

Croatian 96%, other 4% (including Italian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, and German)

Czech

• Danish,
• Faroese,
• Greenlandic (an Inuit dialect),
• German (small minority)

note: English is the predominant second language

• Estonian (official),
• Russian,
• Ukrainian,
• English,
• Finnish,
• other

Faroese (derived from Old Norse), Danish

• Finnish 93.4% (official),
• Swedish 5.9% (official),
• small Lapp- and Russian-speaking minorities

French 100%, rapidly declining regional dialects and languages (Provencal, Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Catalan, Basque, Flemish)

German

• English (used in schools and for official purposes),
• Spanish,
• Italian,
• Portuguese,
• Russian

• Greek 99% (official),
• English,
• French

• English,
• French,
• Norman-French dialect spoken in country districts

• Italian,
• Latin,
• various other languages

Hungarian 98.2%, other 1.8%

English is the language generally used, Irish (Gaelic) spoken mainly in areas located along the western seaboard

English, Manx Gaelic

• Italian (official),
• German (parts of Trentino-Alto Adige region are predominantly German speaking),
• French (small French-speaking minority in Valle d'Aosta region),
• Slovene (Slovene-speaking minority in the Trieste-Gorizia area)

• English (official),
• French (official),
• Norman-French dialect spoken in country districts

• Lettish (official),
• Lithuanian,
• Russian,
• other

German (official), Alemannic dialect

• Lithuanian (official),
• Polish,
• Russian

• Luxembourgian,
• German,
• French,
• English

Maltese (official), English (official)

• Moldovan (official, virtually the same as the Romanian language),
• Russian,
• Gagauz (a Turkish dialect)

• French (official),
• English,
• Italian,
• Monegasque

Dutch

• Macedonian 70%,
• Albanian 21%,
• Turkish 3%,
• Serbo-Croatian 3%,
• other 3%

Norwegian (official)

note: small Lapp- and Finnish-speaking minorities

Polish

Portuguese

• Romanian,
• Hungarian,
• German

Italian

Serbian 95%, Albanian 5%

Slovak (official), Hungarian

• Slovenian 91%,
• Serbo-Croatian 6%,
• other 3%

• Castilian Spanish (official) 74%,
• Catalan 17%,
• Galician 7%,
• Basque 2%

Swedish

note: small Lapp- and Finnish-speaking minorities

• German (official) 63.7%,
• French (official) 19.2%,
• Italian (official) 7.6%,
• Romansch 0.6%,
• other 8.9%

• Ukrainian,
• Russian,
• Romanian,
• Polish,
• Hungarian

• English,
• Welsh (about 26% of the population of Wales),
• Scottish form of Gaelic (about 60,000 in Scotland)

• Arabic,
• English,
• Farsi,
• Urdu

• Greek,
• Turkish,
• English

• Arabic,
• Hebrew (spoken by Israeli settlers and many Palestinians),
• English (widely understood)