Official language

The official language is that language established as common use in the acts of government of a State. In general, its use is exhaustively indicated in the Constitution or in the fundamental laws of the State. Laws, public or administrative documents, public administration services and processes in the judicial system are conducted in said language. The State, legally, presupposes its general knowledge; Therefore, education is dictated in the official language.

In some cases, even though there is no legal norm of constitutional rank, the official language is considered to be the language in which the laws are written.

History

The official language is strongly linked to the definition of the nation-state. In this conception, each nation, understood as a cultural and social community, corresponds to a State. Such a postulate implies that the State has an exclusive linguistic base.

In Europe, above all, the ideology of the nation-state gave rise, between the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, to the appearance of new national states based on different languages, as in the case of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, whose disintegration was based on the nationalities that comprised it, or on the integration into the same State of all the speakers of the same language; It is the case of German unification and the basis of the nationalist policy of the Third Reich.

In other cases, a regional language of a certain territory was taken as official by States belonging to the same linguistic or dialectal continuity, as happened, from the Renaissance (using the literary Tuscan —also known as Italian— as official language for all territories belonging to the Italo-Romance and Gallo-Italic linguistic continuity) and, more intensively, since the Risorgimiento, among the former pre-unitary Italian States, or imposed on the entire territory of a single State, as in Spain.

In some cases, the lack of knowledge of the official language by a group of inhabitants has meant for them the loss of their constitutional rights.

Current situation

Currently, almost all the logical possibilities are presented regarding the recognition of one or more languages as official:

1. A significant number of countries in the world have one or more defined official languages. Some have a single official language, as in the cases of Albania, Germany, France or Italy (even when other national languages exist inside their territory).
2. Some states have more than one official language in the whole or part of the territory, such as Afghanistan, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Spain, Finland, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa and Switzerland, among others.
3. Some, such as Argentina, Chile, the United States or Uruguay, do not have an explicitly declared official language, but it is defined in some regions. In the case of the United States, English is imposed as the language of daily use and of an instrument in teaching.
4. Others, like India or Mexico, have many official languages with the same legal validity throughout the territory. Generally the language most spoken would be considered official de facto for foreigners.
5. Finally there are some countries, such as Eritrea, which do not have a formal language defined.

As a consequence of colonialism or neocolonialism, in some African countries, in the Philippines and Belize, the official languages and languages of education (French or English) are not the national languages spoken by the majority of the population. Some cases may arise as a result of nationalism, such as in the Republic of Ireland where the official language (Irish) is spoken by only a small portion of the population, while the secondary language that enjoys inferior legal status, English It is the language of the majority of the population.

Legal status

Technically, only languages whose use is explicitly established by law are official. However, many languages are considered, de facto, official languages, which means that although no legal regulation attributes a special role to them, they are languages used in everyday communication. A prominent example of this is the status of English in the United States. In this country, no law declares that English is or should be the official language at the federal level, although at present 30 states recognize it as an official language. The fact that in this country, at all levels, English is de facto the only language used in all official business, makes it the official language of the United States, even though it is not technically recognized as such.

The practical consequences of the "official" of a language vary and often depend on how widespread its spoken use is. In some cases, only the official language is the only one that can be used before courts of justice, in the educational system or other areas, while in other cases the official status simply authorizes said language to be used. For example, in New Zealand, the Māori Language Act allows Maori to be used in legal matters, although the vast majority of them are conducted in English. In other places, such as Wales or Ireland, the laws establish that official publications must be in both the minority language and the predominant language. Official recognition, on the other hand, is correlated with the fact that said language is widely taught in early childhood education or that its knowledge is compulsory for certain government officials.

An important point is that the official language should not be confused with the national languages that often enjoy some recognition by the government.

Political Status

An official language is frequently related to political, social and economic issues, involving positions taken on sovereignty, cultural and ethnic supremacy, cultural nationalism or the rights of ethnic minorities, so it is a resource used to the construction of what some historians call "imagined communities". For example, the English-only Movement campaign to have English legally considered an official language of the United States of America is seen as an attempt to marginalize communities of foreign origin, particularly Latin Americans. In the case of the Republic of Ireland, the decision to make Irish official corresponded with a broad program of revitalization of that language, connected with Gaelic nationalism.

Official languages

State by official language

Currently only about 80 languages are general languages of use in a State, although a significant number of languages have co-official status in some areas or regions of countries. The list of languages that are official in more than one state is much more limited and includes only 21 languages:

Languages according to official status