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Many countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
 or set of languages. Although nations historically have used language policies most often to promote one official language
Official language

An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration....
 at the expense of others, many countries now have policies designed to protect and promote regional and ethnic languages whose viability is threatened.

Language Policy is what a government does either officially through legislation, court decisions or policy to determine how languages are used, cultivate language skills needed to meet national priorities or to establish the rights of individuals or groups to use and maintain languages.

preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity
Cultural diversity

Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. There is a general consensus among mainstream anthropologists that humans first emerged in Africa about two million years ago ....
 in today's world is a major concern to many scientists, artists, writers, politicians, leaders of linguistic communities, and defenders of linguistic human rights.






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Many countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
 or set of languages. Although nations historically have used language policies most often to promote one official language
Official language

An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration....
 at the expense of others, many countries now have policies designed to protect and promote regional and ethnic languages whose viability is threatened.

Language Policy is what a government does either officially through legislation, court decisions or policy to determine how languages are used, cultivate language skills needed to meet national priorities or to establish the rights of individuals or groups to use and maintain languages.

Overview

The preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity
Cultural diversity

Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. There is a general consensus among mainstream anthropologists that humans first emerged in Africa about two million years ago ....
 in today's world is a major concern to many scientists, artists, writers, politicians, leaders of linguistic communities, and defenders of linguistic human rights. Up to one half of the 6000 languages currently spoken in the world are estimated to be in danger of disappearing during the 21st century. Many factors affect the existence and usage of any given human language, including the size of the native speaking population, its use in formal communication, and the geographical dispersion and the socio-economic weight of its speakers. National language policies can either mitigate or exacerbate the effects of some of these factors.

Types of language policies

What follows below is one of many ways in which language policies can be categorized. It was elaborated by Université Laval
Université Laval

Universit? Laval is the oldest centre of education in Canada, and was the first institution in North America to offer higher education in French language....
 sociolinguist
Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used....
 Jacques Leclerc for the French-language Web site L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde put on line by the CIRAL
Ciral

Ciral is a Communes of France in the Orne Departments of France in northwestern France....
 in 1999. The collecting, translating and classifying of language policies started in 1988 and culminated in the publishing of Recueil des législations linguistiques dans le monde (vol. I to VI) at Presses de l'Université Laval in 1994. The work, containing some 470 language laws, and the research leading to publication, were subsidized by the Office québécois de la langue française
Office québécois de la langue française

The Office qu?b?cois de la langue fran?aise is a public organization established on March 24, 1961 by the Parti lib?ral du Qu?bec government of Jean Lesage....
. In April 2008, the Web site presented the linguistic portrait and language policies in 354 States or autonomous territories in 194 recognized countries.

Assimilation policies

A policy of assimilation is one that uses strong measures to accelerate the downsizing of one or more linguistic minority group(s).The ultimate goal of such policies is to foster national unity inside a state (based on the idea that a single language in the country will favor that end). The measures taken by States enforcing such policies may include banning the social use of a given language, the exclusion and social devalorization of a language group and in extreme cases repression by force and even genocide.

These policies are to be distinguished from all other policies which it could be argued favor or lead to assimilation of members of minority groups as a result of non-intervention or insufficient measures of protection. In practice, all States enforce, implicitly, policies leading to assimilation with regards to immigrant groups and in numerous cases aboriginal groups and other national minorities.

Jurisdictions having such a policy:

Burma - Indonesia
Indonesia

The Republic of Indonesia , is a transcontinental country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Comprising Islands of Indonesia, it is the world's largest Archipelago state....
 - Iran
Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
 - Iraq
Iraq

Iraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros Mountains, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
 - Thailand
Thailand

The Kingdom of Thailand is an independent country that lies in the heart of Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Laos and Myanmar, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and Myanmar....
 - Vietnam
Vietnam

Vietnam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam , is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by People's Republic of China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east....
 - France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....


Non-intervention policies

A policy of non-intervention consists in choosing to allow the normal rapport between the main linguistic group and the minorities evolve on its own. This almost invariably favours the dominant
Dominance hierarchy

A dominance hierarchy is the organization of individuals in a group that occurs when competition of resources lead to aggression. Schjelderup-Ebbe, who studied the often-cited example of the pecking order in chickens, found that such social structures lead to more stable flocks in which aggression was reduced among individuals....
 group. Sometimes, such policies are accompanied by administrative measures protecting certain minorities.

Jurisdictions having such a policy:

Angola
Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordering Namibia to the south, Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, and Zambia to the east, and with a west coast along the Atlantic Ocean....
 - Argentina
Argentina

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is a country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city....
 - Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
 - Austria
Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....
 - Bangladesh
Bangladesh

, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a country in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south....
 - Benin
Benin

Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north; its short coastline to the south leads to the Bight of Benin....
 - Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso , also known by its short-form name Burkina, is a landlocked nation in West Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the south east, Togo and Ghana to the south, and C?te d'Ivoire to the south west....
 - Chile
Chile

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow coastal strip wedged between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean....
 - Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo , is a country in central Africa with a small length of Atlantic coastline. It is the third largest list of African countries in order of geographical area....
 - Côte d'Ivoire
Côte d'Ivoire

, formerly Ivory Coast, officially the , is a country in West Africa. The government officially discourages the use of the name Ivory Coast in English, preferring the French name to be used in all languages ....
 - Cuba
Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is a country in the Caribbean. It consists of the island of Cuba , the island of Isla de la Juventud, and several adjacent small islands....
 - Czech Republic
Czech Republic

The Czech Republic , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east....
 - Dominica
Dominica

The Commonwealth of Dominica, commonly known as Dominica, is an island nation in the Caribbean Sea. To the north/northwest lies Guadeloupe, to the southeast Martinique....
 - Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are List of divided islands, Saint Martin being the other....
 - Ecuador
Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the , literally, "Republic of the equator") is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, by Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west....
 - Gabon
Gabon

Gabon is a country in west central Africa sharing borders with the Gulf of Guinea to the west, Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, and Cameroon to the north, with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south....
 - Ghana
Ghana

The Republic of Ghana is a country in West Africa. It borders C?te d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south....
 - Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 - Gibraltar
Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located near the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. The territory shares a border with Spain to the north....
 - Guinea
Guinea

Guinea, officially Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa formerly known as French Guinea. The country's current population is estimated at 10,211,437 ....
 - Guyana
Guyana

Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and previously known as British Guiana, is the only state of the Commonwealth of Nations on mainland South America....
 - Iran
Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
- Jamaica
Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length and as much as in width situated in the Caribbean Sea. It is about south of Cuba, and west of the island of Hispaniola, on which Haiti and the Dominican Republic are situated....
 - Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
 - Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein

The Principality of Liechtenstein is a Landlocked country#Doubly landlocked country alpine country microstate in Western Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and by Austria to the east....
 - Mali
Mali

Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked nation in West Africa. Mali is the seventh largest country in Africa, bordering Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the C?te d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west....
 - Nebraska
Nebraska

Nebraska is a U.S. state located on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States and Western United States.Nebraska probably gets its name from the archaic Chiwere language words ?? Br?sge or the Omaha-Ponca language N? Bth?ska meaning "flat water," after the Platte River that flows through the state....
 - Nicaragua
Nicaragua

Nicaragua officially the Republic of Nicaragua , is a representative democracy republic. It is the largest state in Central America with an area of 130,000 km2, about the size of the state of New York....
 - Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Kitts and Nevis

The Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis , located in the Leeward Islands, is a federal two-island nation in the West Indies. It is the smallest nation in the Americas, in both List of countries by area and List of countries by population....
 - Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia

Saint Lucia is an island nation in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique....
 - Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is an island nation in the Lesser Antilles island arc of the Caribbean Sea. Its territory consists of the main island of Saint Vincent and the northern two-thirds of the Grenadines....
 - El Salvador
El Salvador

El Salvador is the smallest country in the Americas and Central America by size, and the most densely populated nation in Central America. It borders on the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras....
 - San Marino
San Marino

The Most Serene Republic of San Marino is a country in the Apennine Mountains. It is a landlocked country Enclave and exclave, completely surrounded by Italy....
 - Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSA , is an Arab country and the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Jordan on the northwest, Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south....
 - Senegal
Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal, is a country south of the S?n?gal River in West Africa. Senegal is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, and Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south....
 - United Kingdom
Languages in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom does not have a constitutionally defined official language. English language is the main language and is thus the de facto official language....
 - Uruguay
Uruguay

Uruguay is a country located in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.46 million people, of whom 1.7 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area....
 - Venezuela
Venezuela

Venezuela , officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a country on the northern coast of South America.The country comprises a continental mainland and numerous islands located off the Venezuelan coastline in the Caribbean Sea....
 - Vermont
Vermont

Vermont is a U.S. state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States United States. The state ranks 43rd by land area, , and 45th by total area....


Differentiated legal statute policies

A policy that recognizes a different legal statute for a given language usually aims at allowing the coexistence of multiple linguistic groups inside a state. Typically, the majority has all its linguistic rights secured and sometimes promoted while the minority or minorities are given special protection for their language.

Jurisdictions having such a policy:

Albania
Albania

Albania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a country in Balkans. It is bordered by Greece to the south-east, Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, and the Republic of Macedonia to the east....
 - Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country on the Balkans peninsula of South Eastern Europe with an area of 51,129 square kilometres . Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the south, Bosnia and Herzegovina is Landlocked#Nearly landlocked, except for 26 kilometres of the Adriatic Sea coas...
 - Bulgaria
Bulgaria

The state of Bulgaria , Scientific transliteration Balgarija, officially the Republic of Bulgaria has played a significant role in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe for over fourteen centuries....
 - California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
 - China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
 - Croatia
Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a Central European country at the crossroads of Pannonian Plain, Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea....
 - Estonia
Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Finland across the Gulf of Finland, to the west by Sweden across the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russia ....
 - European Council
European Council

The European Council is the highest political body of the European Union. It comprises the head of state head of government of the Union's European Union member state along with the President of the European Commission....
 -Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia

The Republic of Macedonia , , often referred to simply as Macedonia, is a landlocked country on the Balkans in southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south and Albania to the west....
 - Guatemala
Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize and the Caribbean to the northeast, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast....
 - Latvia
Latvia

Latvia The Latvians are a Baltic peoples culturally related to the Estonians and Lithuanians, with the Latvian language having many similarities with Lithuanian language, but not with the Estonian language....
 - Lithuania
Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest....
 - Manitoba
Manitoba

Manitoba is a prairie provinces in Canada, which has an area of 647,797 square kilometres and a population of 1,207,959 , with more than half located within the Winnipeg Capital Region ....
 - Ontario
Ontario

Ontario is a Provinces and territories of Canada located in the Central Canada part of Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area....
 - Netherlands
Netherlands

The Netherlands is a country that is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands is located in North-West Europe, and bordered by the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east....
 - New Mexico
New Mexico

New Mexico is a U. S. State located in the Southwestern United States of the United States. Inhabited by Native Americans in the United States populations for many centuries, it has also has been part of the Spanish Empire viceroyalty of New Spain, part of Mexico, and a U.S....
 - Paraguay
Paraguay

Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay , is one of the only two landlocked countries in South America . It lies on both banks of the Paraguay River and is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest....
 - Quebec
Quebec

Quebec , in French language, Qu?bec , is a Provinces and territories of Canada in the Central Canada and Eastern Canada regions of Canada....
 - Portugal
Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Located in southwestern Europe, Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east....
 - Romania
Romania

Romania is a country located in Southeastern Europe Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian Mountains, bordering on the Black Sea....
 - Slovakia
Slovakia

Slovakia . It was amended in September 1998 to allow direct election of the president and again in February 2001 due to EU admission requirements....
 - Spain
Spain

Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....
 - Sweden
Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
 - Wales
Wales

native_name = Cymru|conventional_long_name = Wales|common_name = Wales|image_flag = Flag of Wales 2.svg|national_motto = ...
 - Yukon
Yukon

Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada three Territories of Canada. It was named after the Yukon River, Yukon meaning "Great River" in Gwich?in language....


Valorisation of the official language policies

A policy favouring the official language
Official language

An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration....
 is a policy of unilingualism. Sometimes, it favours the (or a) national language
National language

A national language is a language which has some connection - de facto or de jure - with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy....
, sometimes it favours a colonial language with a strong influence internationally. In some cases, such policies are accompanied by measures recognizing and protecting minority language
Minority language

A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a country. Such people are termed linguistic minorities. With a total number of 193 sovereign states recognized internationally and an estimated number of roughly 5,000 to 7,000 List of languages by name spoken worldwide, it follows that the vast majority of la...
s or indigenous language
Indigenous language

An indigenous language or autochthonous language is a language that is native language to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples but has been reduced to the status of a minority language....
s. This approach may be considered in two broadly different types of situations: where the official language is also the first language
First language

A first language is the language a human being learns from birth. A person's first language is a basis for sociolinguistic identity....
 of the majority of the population, and where it is not.

Jurisdictions having such a policy:

Åland
Åland

The ?land Islands form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. It is situated at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia and forms an Federacy, Demilitarized zone, Monoglottism Swedish language Provinces of Finland, Regions of Finland and historical provinces of Finland of Finland....
 - Albania
Albania

Albania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a country in Balkans. It is bordered by Greece to the south-east, Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, and the Republic of Macedonia to the east....
 - Algeria
Algeria

Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country of the Mediterranean sea, second largest in the Arab World, and the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area....
 - Andorra
Andorra

Andorra , officially the Principality of Andorra , also called the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra, is a small landlocked country in western Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France....
 - Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan , is the largest and most populous country in the South Caucasus, located partially in Eastern Europe and partially in Western Asia....
  - Brazil
Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the List of countries by population country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world....
 - California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
 - Cambodia
Cambodia

The Kingdom of Cambodia is a country in South East Asia with a population of over 13 million people. The kingdom's capital and largest city is Phnom Penh....
 - Colombia
Colombia

Colombia , officially the Republic of Colombia , is a country in north-western South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the north west by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean....
 - Cyprus
Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is an island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, west of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, south of Turkey and north of Egypt....
 - Croatia
Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a Central European country at the crossroads of Pannonian Plain, Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea....
 - East Timor
East Timor

East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro Island and Jaco , and Oecussi-Ambeno, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor....
 - Egypt
Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
 - Estonia
Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Finland across the Gulf of Finland, to the west by Sweden across the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russia ....
 - India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
 - Iran
Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
 - Iceland
Iceland

Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland , is an island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean between mainland Europe and Greenland....
 - Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
 - Italy
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
 - Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
 - Kuwait
Kuwait

The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab emirate on the coast of the Persian Gulf, enclosed by Saudi Arabia to the south and Iraq to the north and west....
 - Latvia
Latvia

Latvia The Latvians are a Baltic peoples culturally related to the Estonians and Lithuanians, with the Latvian language having many similarities with Lithuanian language, but not with the Estonian language....
 - Lebanon
Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon or Lebanese Republic , is a country in Western Asia, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea....
 - Lithuania
Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest....
 - Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia

The Republic of Macedonia , , often referred to simply as Macedonia, is a landlocked country on the Balkans in southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south and Albania to the west....
 - Madagascar
Madagascar

Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the List of islands by area, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are Endemism to Madagascar....
 - Morocco
Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 34 million and an area just under 447,000 km2....
 - Mexico
Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federalism constitutionalism republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico....
 - Moldova
Moldova

Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south....
 - Montenegro
Montenegro

Montenegro , Montenegrin language/Serbian language: ???? ????, Crna Gora , ) is a country located in Balkans. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the north, Kosovo to the east and Albania to the south....
 - North Korea
North Korea

North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea , is a state in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula....
 - Nepal
Nepal

Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and is the world's youngest republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by India....
 - Peru
Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
 - - Philippines
Philippines

The Philippines, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
 - Poland
Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
 - Quebec
Quebec

Quebec , in French language, Qu?bec , is a Provinces and territories of Canada in the Central Canada and Eastern Canada regions of Canada....
 - Saint-Pierre and Miquelon
Saint-Pierre and Miquelon

The Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon is a group of small French islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, the main ones being Saint Pierre and Miquelon, south of Newfoundland , Canada....
 - Slovakia
Slovakia

Slovakia . It was amended in September 1998 to allow direct election of the president and again in February 2001 due to EU admission requirements....
 - Slovenia
Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in southern Central Europe bordering Italy to the west, the Adriatic Sea to the southwest, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north....
 - Somalia
Somalia

Somalia , officially the Republic of Somalia and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic, is a country located in the Horn of Africa....
 - South Korea
South Korea

South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea , ), often referred to as Korea and the "names of Korea#Revival of the names", is a Semi-presidential system republic in East Asia, located in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula....
 - Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is an island country in South Asia, located about off the southern coast of India....
 - Tunisia
Tunisia

Tunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast....
 - Ukraine
Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south....
 - Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan , is a Landlocked_country#Doubly_landlocked_country country in Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet Union....
 - Vietnam
Vietnam

Vietnam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam , is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by People's Republic of China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east....
 - Voivodina

Sectoral policies

A language policy is said to be sectoral when it concerns only a subset of the possible sectors generally considered by global language policies. Examples of common sectoral policies are those which only deal with matters of education, or corpus planning, or the status of a language in the civil government and justice system, etc.

Bilingualism or trilingualism policies

A policy favouring the two official languages is a policy of bilingualism. There are many different ways in which these policies can be applied.

Based on non-territorialized individual rights
A policy of bilingualism based on non-territorialised individual rights recognizes the same rights to all members of a community whatever their location on the national territory.

Belarus
Belarus

Belarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north....
 - Burundi
Burundi

Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi, is a small country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the south and east, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west....
 - Canada
Bilingualism in Canada

Official bilingualism is the term used in Canada to collectively describe the policies, constitutional provisions, and laws which give English language and French language a special legal status over other languages in Canada?s courts, Parliament of Canada and administration....
 - Central African Republic
Central African Republic

The Central African Republic , is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It borders Chad in the north, Sudan in the east, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the south, and Cameroon in the west....
 - Chad
Chad

Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west....
 - Djibouti
Djibouti

Djibouti , officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, and Somalia in the southeast....
 - Guam
Guam

Guam , officially the Territory of Guam, is an island in the western Pacific Ocean and is an organized, unincorporated insular area of the United States....
 - Hong Kong
Hong Kong

Hong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located in Southern China in East Asia, bordering the province of Guangdong to the north and facing the South China Sea to the east, west and south....
 - Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland

Ireland is an Island country in north-western Europe. The modern Sovereignty state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned by the British on 3 May 1921....
 - Kenya
Kenya

The Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the northeast, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest, with the Indian Ocean running along the southeast border....
 - Kiribati
Kiribati

Kiribati , officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. It is composed of List of islands belonging to Kiribati and one Tectonic uplift island, dispersed over 3,500,000 square kilometres, straddling the equator, and bordering the International Date Line to the east....
 - Malta
Malta

Malta , officially the Republic of Malta , is a densely populated developed country European microstates microstate in the European Union....
 - Nauru
Nauru

Nauru , officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island nation in the Micronesian Pacific Ocean....
 - New Brunswick
New Brunswick

New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only Constitution of Canada bilingual province in the federation. The provincial capital is Fredericton....
 - New Zealand
New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
 - Northwest Territories
Northwest Territories

The Northwest Territories are a provinces and territories of Canada of Canada.Located in northern Canada, it borders Canada's two other territories, Yukon to the west and Nunavut to the east, and three provinces: British Columbia to the southwest, Alberta and Saskatchewan to the south....
 - Norway
Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....
 - Nunavut
Nunavut

Nunavut is the largest and newest Provinces and territories of Canada of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999 via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993....
 - Rwanda
Rwanda

The Republic of Rwanda is a small landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa, bordered by Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania....
 - Samoa
Samoa

Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa , is a country governing the western part of the Samoan Islands archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean....
 - South Africa
South Africa

The Republic of South Africa, also known by Official names of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa....
 - Tanzania
Tanzania

Tanzania , officially the United Republic of Tanzania , is a country in East Africa that is bordered by Kenya and Uganda on the north, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the west, and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique on the south....
 - Tonga
Tonga

The Kingdom of Tonga in the south Pacific Ocean comprises an archipelago of 171 islands, 48 of them inhabited, stretching over a distance of about 800 kilometres in a north-south line....
 - Tuvalu
Tuvalu

Tuvalu , formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia....


Based on territorialised individual rights
A language policy based on territorialised individual rights recognizes the same rights to all members of a community within a specific region.

Aosta Valley
Aosta Valley

The Aosta Valley is a mountainous Autonomous regions with special statute Regions of Italy in north-western Italy. It is bordered by France to the west, Switzerland to the north and the region of Piedmont to the south and east....
 - Balearic Islands
Balearic Islands

The Balearic Islands are an archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza, and Formentera....
 - Basque Country
Basque Country (autonomous community)

The Basque Country is an Autonomous Community in northern Spain.The Basque Country was granted the status of Historical regions in Spain within Spain with the Spanish Constitution of 1978....
 - Brandenburg
Brandenburg

Brandenburg is one of the sixteen states of Germany of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany....
 - Brittany
Brittany

Brittany is a former independent Celtic nations monarchy and duchy, now incorporated into France. It is also, more generally, the name of the cultural area whose limits correspond to the historic province and independent duchy....
 - Catalonia
Catalonia

Catalonia , is an Autonomous Community in northeast Spain.Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km? and has an official population of 7,210,508. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the east ....
 - Channel Islands
Channel Islands

The Channel Islands are a group of islands in the English Channel, off the France coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey....
 - Corsica
Corsica

Corsica is the Mediterranean islands#By area in the Mediterranean Sea . It is located west of Italy, southeast of the France mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
 - Faroe
Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands or Faeroe Islands or simply Faroe or Faeroes are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately half way between Scotland and Iceland....
 - Finland
Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland , is a Nordic countries situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland....
 - Friuli Venezia Giulia - Galicia - Hawaii
Hawaii

File:Pahoehoe and Aa flows at Hawaii.jpgThe State of Hawaii is a U.S. state in the United States, located on an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of Australia....
 - Isle of Man
Isle of Man

The Isle of Man , or Mann , is a self-governing Crown dependency, located in the Irish Sea at the geographical centre of the British Isles....
 - Micronesia
Micronesia

Micronesia , from the Greek language mikros and nesos , is a subregion of Oceania, comprising hundreds of small islands in the Pacific Ocean....
 - Navarre
Navarre

Navarre is a region in northern Spain, constituting one of its autonomous communities in Spain - the "Foral Community of Navarre" ....
 - Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland

conventional_long_name = Northern Ireland|native_name= Tuaisceart ?ireannNorlin Airlann|motto =|image_map = Europe location N-IRL2.png...
 - Nicaragua
Nicaragua

Nicaragua officially the Republic of Nicaragua , is a representative democracy republic. It is the largest state in Central America with an area of 130,000 km2, about the size of the state of New York....
 - Philippines
Philippines

The Philippines, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
 - Sardinia
Sardinia

Sardinia is the Mediterranean islands#By area island in the Mediterranean Sea . The area of Sardinia is . The island is surrounded by the France island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Tunisia and the Balearic Islands....
 - Scotland
Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
 - Sicily
Sicily

Sicily is an Autonomous regions with special statute of Italy. Of all the regions of Italy, Sicily covers the largest land area at 25,708 km? and currently has just over five million inhabitants....
 - Sind - Slovenia
Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in southern Central Europe bordering Italy to the west, the Adriatic Sea to the southwest, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north....
 (Istria
Istria

File:Istria Croatian Adriatic.pngIstria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner....
 and Prekmurje
Prekmurje

Prekmurje is the easternmost region of Slovenia. It borders Hungary to the north-east, Austria to the north-west, Croatia to the south and the Slovenian region of Lower Styria to the south-west....
)- Sweden
Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
 - Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol - Wales
Wales

native_name = Cymru|conventional_long_name = Wales|common_name = Wales|image_flag = Flag of Wales 2.svg|national_motto = ...


Based on territorial rights
Belgium
Belgium

* A small German-speaking Community of Belgium exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the history of Belgium and a complex Communities and regions of Belgium....
 - Cameroon
Cameroon

The Republic of Cameroon is a unitary state of central and western Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south....
 - Fribourg
Canton of Fribourg

The Canton of Fribourg is a Cantons of Switzerland of Switzerland. It is located in the west of the country. The capital of the canton is Fribourg....
 - Grisons
Graubünden

Graub?nden or Grisons is the largest and easternmost cantons of Switzerland of Switzerland. The name Graub?nden translates as "Grey Leagues," referring to the canton's origin in three local alliances, the League of God's House, the Grey League, and the League of Ten Jurisdictions....
 - Switzerland
Switzerland

Switzerland is a landlocked Swiss Alps country of roughly 7.7 million people in Western Europe with an area of 41,285 km?. Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 states called Cantons of Switzerland....
 - Ticino
Ticino

Canton Ticino or Ticino is the southernmost cantons of Switzerland of Switzerland. The written language is Italian language in almost the entire cantons of Switzerland ....
 - Valais
Valais

The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of Switzerland, around the valley of the Rh?ne from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps....
 - Åland
Åland

The ?land Islands form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. It is situated at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia and forms an Federacy, Demilitarized zone, Monoglottism Swedish language Provinces of Finland, Regions of Finland and historical provinces of Finland of Finland....


Linguistic internationalization policies

An internationalization policy is one whereby a State exercises supremacy on the linguistic code beyond its borders.

Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 - United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 - France
Language policy in France

France has one official language, the French language. The French government does not regulate the choice of language in publications by individuals but the use of French is required by law in commercial and workplace communications....
 - Portugal
Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Located in southwestern Europe, Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east....


Strategic multilingualism policies

South Africa
South Africa

The Republic of South Africa, also known by Official names of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa....
 - Netherlands Antilles
Netherlands Antilles

The Netherlands Antilles , previously known as the Netherlands West Indies or Dutch Antilles/West Indies, is part of the Lesser Antilles and consists of two island group in the Caribbean Sea: Cura?ao and Bonaire, just off the Venezuelan coast, and Sint Eustatius, Saba and Sint Maarten, located southeast of the Virgin Islands....
 - Aruba
Aruba

Aruba is a -long island of the Lesser Antilles in the southern Caribbean Sea, north of the Paraguan? Peninsula, Falc?n State, Venezuela. Together with Bonaire and Cura?ao it forms a group referred to as the ABC islands of the Leeward Antilles, the southern island chain of the Lesser Antilles....
 - Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
 - Federal Belgium
Belgium

* A small German-speaking Community of Belgium exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the history of Belgium and a complex Communities and regions of Belgium....
 - Belize
Belize

Belize , formerly British Honduras, is a country in Central America. Once part of the Maya civilization, and very briefly the Spanish Empire, it was most recently affiliated with the British Empire, prior to gaining its independence in 1981....
 - Comoros
Comoros

The Comoros , officially the Union of the Comoros is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, located off the eastern coast of Africa on the northern end of the Mozambique Channel between northern Madagascar and northeastern Mozambique....
 - Ethiopia
Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Somalia to the east and Djibouti to the northeast....
 - Fidji - Gagauzia
Gagauzia

Gagauzia , formally known as the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia , is an Autonomous area of Moldova. Its name derives from the word "Gagauz people", which in turn derived from the name Gok-oguz used to describe descendants of the Turkic peoples Oghuz Turks tribe....
 - Hungary
Hungary

Hungary , officially in English the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia....
 - India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
 - Lebanon
Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon or Lebanese Republic , is a country in Western Asia, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea....
 - Luxembourg
Luxembourg

Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a small landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany....
 - Malaysia
Malaysia

Malaysia is a federation that consists of States of Malaysia in Southeast Asia with a total landmass of . The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government....
 - Maurice
Maurice

Maurice is a name used as a given name or surname. It is a French and has become an English name, derived from the Roman Mauricius. It is of Latin origin, and its meaning is "dark-skinned, Moorish"....
 - Mauritania
Mauritania

Mauritania , officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, by Senegal on the southwest, by Mali on the east and southeast, by Algeria on the northeast, and by the Morocco-controlled Western Sahara on the northwest....
 - Moldova
Moldova

Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south....
 - Namibia
Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in southern Africa on the Atlantic Ocean coast. It shares borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east, and South Africa to the south....
 - Niger
Niger

Niger , officially the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east....
 - Nigeria
Nigeria

Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federation constitutional republic comprising States of Nigeria and one Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria....
 - Pakistan
Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia and borders Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046 kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and People's Republic of China in th...
 - Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands ....
 - Philippines
Philippines

The Philippines, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
 - Seychelles
Seychelles

Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an archipelago Country of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....
 - Singapore
Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country microstate located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. It lies 137 kilometres north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands....
 - Slovenia
Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in southern Central Europe bordering Italy to the west, the Adriatic Sea to the southwest, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north....
 - Sudan
Sudan

Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest in the African continent and the Arab World, and List of countries and outlying territories by total area by area....
 - Suriname
Suriname

Suriname , officially the Republic of Suriname is a country in northern South America. Originally, the country was spelled Surinam by English settlers who founded the first colony at Marshall's Creek, along the Suriname River, and was Geographical renaming Nederlands Guyana, Netherlands Guiana or Dutch Guiana....
 - Vatican City
Vatican City

Vatican City , officially the State of the Vatican City , is a Landlocked country sovereignty city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, the Capital of Italy....
 - Vojvodina
Vojvodina

The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an Subdivisions of Serbia in Serbia, containing about 27% of its total population according to the 2002 Census....
 - Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe , is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the continent of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo River rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east....


Mixed linguistic policies

Mixed policies are possible when a State enforces different types of language policies at the same time.

Non-intervention (official language) and sectoral policies for minorities
Austria
Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....
 - Czech Republic
Czech Republic

The Czech Republic , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east....
 - Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 - Panama
Panama

Panama, officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America and, in turn, North America. Situated on an isthmus connecting North and South America, some categorize it as a transcontinental nation....
 - Tajikistan
Tajikistan

Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People's Republic of China to the east....
 - United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...


Non-intervention (official language) and assimilation policy for minorities
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland

conventional_long_name = Northern Ireland|native_name= Tuaisceart ?ireannNorlin Airlann|motto =|image_map = Europe location N-IRL2.png...
 - Botswana
Botswana

The Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Citizens of Botswana are called "Batswana" , regardless of ethnicity. Formerly a British protectorate of Bechuanaland Protectorate, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth of Nations on 30 September 1966....


Valorisation of the official language and differentiated for minorities
Albania
Albania

Albania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a country in Balkans. It is bordered by Greece to the south-east, Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, and the Republic of Macedonia to the east....
 - California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
 - Chile
Chile

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow coastal strip wedged between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean....
 - Croatia
Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a Central European country at the crossroads of Pannonian Plain, Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea....
 - Estonia
Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Finland across the Gulf of Finland, to the west by Sweden across the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russia ....
 - Kirghistan - Latvia
Latvia

Latvia The Latvians are a Baltic peoples culturally related to the Estonians and Lithuanians, with the Latvian language having many similarities with Lithuanian language, but not with the Estonian language....
 - Lithuania
Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest....
 - Guatemala
Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize and the Caribbean to the northeast, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast....
 - Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia

The Republic of Macedonia , , often referred to simply as Macedonia, is a landlocked country on the Balkans in southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south and Albania to the west....
 - Montenegro
Montenegro

Montenegro , Montenegrin language/Serbian language: ???? ????, Crna Gora , ) is a country located in Balkans. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the north, Kosovo to the east and Albania to the south....
 - Romania
Romania

Romania is a country located in Southeastern Europe Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian Mountains, bordering on the Black Sea....
 - Slovakia
Slovakia

Slovakia . It was amended in September 1998 to allow direct election of the president and again in February 2001 due to EU admission requirements....
 - Quebec
Quebec

Quebec , in French language, Qu?bec , is a Provinces and territories of Canada in the Central Canada and Eastern Canada regions of Canada....


Valorisation of the official language and sectoral policies for minorities
Armenia
Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in South Caucasus between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea....
 - Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
 - Cyprus
Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is an island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, west of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, south of Turkey and north of Egypt....
  - Costa Rica
Costa Rica

Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
 - Greece
Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkans. It has borders with Albania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the north, and Turkey to the east....
  - French Polynesia
French Polynesia

French Polynesia is a France overseas collectivity in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is made up of several groups of Polynesian islands, the most famous island being Tahiti in the Society Islands group, which is also the most populous island and the seat of the capital of the territory ....
 - Serbia
Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a country in Central Europe and Balkans Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkans....
 - Tajikistan
Tajikistan

Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People's Republic of China to the east....
 - Togo
Togo

Togo is a narrow country in West Africa bordering Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lom? is located....
 - Zambia
Zambia

The Republic of Zambia is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....


Valorisation of the official language and non-intervention for other languages
Lesotho
Lesotho

Lesotho , officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave ? entirely surrounded by the South Africa. Formerly Basutoland, it is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations....
 - São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe

S?o Tom? and Pr?ncipe, officially the Democratic Republic of S?o Tom? and Pr?ncipe, is a Portuguese-speaking island nation in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Africa....
 - Oman
Oman

Oman , officially the Sultanate of Oman , is an Arab country in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It borders the United Arab Emirates on the northwest, Saudi Arabia on the west and Yemen on the southwest....
 - Swaziland
Swaziland

The Kingdom of Swaziland is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south, and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique....
 - Yemen
Yemen

Yemen , officially the Republic of Yemen is an Arab country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia. Yemen has an estimated population of more than 23 million people and is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the North, the Red Sea to the West, the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden to the South, and Oman to the east....


Valorisation of the official language, assimilation policy and territorial bilingualism for minorities
Bosnia
Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country on the Balkans peninsula of South Eastern Europe with an area of 51,129 square kilometres . Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the south, Bosnia and Herzegovina is Landlocked#Nearly landlocked, except for 26 kilometres of the Adriatic Sea coas...
 - Hong-Kong - Kosovo
Kosovo

Kosovo is a disputed region in the Balkans. Its majority is governed by the partially-recognised Republic of Kosovo . Serbia does not recognise the secession of Kosovo and considers it a United Nations-governed entity within its sovereign territory, the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija that was re-created by Slobodan M...
 - Pakistan
Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia and borders Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046 kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and People's Republic of China in th...
 - Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is a Turkic peoples country in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic ....
 - Transnistria
Transnistria

Transnistria, also known as Trans-Dniester, Transdniestria, and Pridnestrovie is a disputed region in southeast Europe. Since its declaration of independence in 1990, followed by the War of Transnistria in 1992, it is governed by the Unrecognized states Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic , which claims the left bank...
 - Vietnam
Vietnam

Vietnam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam , is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by People's Republic of China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east....
 - (Serbia
Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a country in Central Europe and Balkans Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkans....
)

Language boards

  • List of language regulators
    List of language regulators

    This is a list of bodies that regulate standard languages....
  • Bòrd na Gàidhlig
    Bòrd na Gàidhlig

    B?rd na G?idhlig , is a quango appointed by the Scottish Government with responsibility for Scottish Gaelic language. It is not to be confused with Comunn na G?idhlig or An Comunn Gaidhealach, which are much older....
  • Dutch Language Union
    Dutch Language Union

    The Nederlandse Taalunie or "Dutch Language Union" is an international institution for discussing issues relating to the Nederlandse language ....
  • Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino
    Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino

    The Commission on the Filipino Language is the official regulating body of the Filipino language and the official Government of the Philippines institution tasked with developing, preserving, and promoting the various local Languages of the Philippines#Indigenous languages....
  • Foras na Gaeilge
    Foras na Gaeilge

    Foras na Gaeilge is the governing body of the Irish language, set up on 2 December 1999, which is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island of Ireland....
  • Office québécois de la langue française
    Office québécois de la langue française

    The Office qu?b?cois de la langue fran?aise is a public organization established on March 24, 1961 by the Parti lib?ral du Qu?bec government of Jean Lesage....
  • Welsh Language Board
    Welsh Language Board

    The Welsh Language Board is a statutory body set up by the UK Government as part of the Welsh Language Act 1993. It is now an Assembly Sponsored Public Body....
  • Pan South African Language Board
    Pan South African Language Board

    The Pan South African Language Board was established in South Africa to promote multilingualism and language rights as well as to develop the official languages of South Africa....


See also

  • Cultural hegemony
    Cultural hegemony

    Cultural hegemony is the philosophic and sociologic concept, originated by the Marxism philosopher Antonio Gramsci, denoting that a culturally-diverse society can be ruled , by one of its social classes, partly through imposed ?common sense? ? quotidian ?shared beliefs? used as the foundation for complex systems of political, social,...
  • Economics of language
    Economics of language

    The economics of language is an emerging field of study concerning a range of topics such as the effect of language on income, markets for language-related goods and services, and the costs and benefits of language planning options, preservation of minority languages, etc....
  • Language Movement
    Language Movement

    The Bengali Language Movement, also known as the Language Movement , was a political effort in Bangladesh , advocating the recognition of the Bengali language as an official language of Pakistan....
  • Language planning
    Language planning

    Language planning refers to deliberate efforts to influence the behaviour of others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of language....
  • Language politics
    Language politics

    Language politics is a term used to describe political consequences of linguistic differences between people, or on occasion the political consequences of the way a language is spoken and what words are used....
  • Language reform
    Language reform

    Language reform is a type of language planning by massive change to a language. The usual tools of language reform are simplification and purification....
  • Language revival
    Language revival

    Language revitalization, language revival or reversing language shift is the attempt by interested parties, including individuals, cultural or community groups, governments, or political authorities, to reverse the decline of a language....
  • Language tax
    Language tax

    The language tax is an economics concept proposed by the Belgium economist Philippe Van Parijs. It is intended to compensate countries with a less wide-spread language for their expenses for teaching and translation....
  • Linguicide
  • List of states with language politics
  • Official script
    Official script

    An official script is a writing system that is specifically designated to be official in the constitutions or other applicable laws of country, states, and other territories....
  • Regional language
    Regional language

    A regional language is a language spoken in an area of a nation state, whether it be a small area, a Federalism state or province, or some wider area....
  • International Mother Language Day
    International Mother Language Day

    21 February was proclaimed the International Mother Language Day by UNESCO on 17 November 1999. Its observance was also formally recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution establishing 2008 as the International Year of Languages....
  • International Year of Languages
    International Year of Languages

    The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2008 as the International Year of Languages, pursuant to a resolution of UNESCO. The resolution also reaffirmed the need to achieve full parity among the six official languages on United Nations websites....
     (2008)


  • Directions of language policies:
  • Linguistic imperialism
    Linguistic imperialism

    Linguistic imperialism, or language imperialism, "involves the transfer of a dominant language to other peoples. The transfer is essentially a demonstration of Power in international relations?traditionally, military power but also, in the modern world, economic power?and aspects of the dominant culture are usually transferred along wit...
  • Linguistic protectionism and Linguistic purism
    Linguistic purism

    Linguistic purism is the definition of one variety as purer than other varieties, often in reference to a perceived decline from an ideal past or an unwanted similarity with other languages, but sometimes simply to an abstract ideal....
  • Linguistic separatism


  • Some case studies:
  • Europe: European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
    European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

    The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European treaty adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional language and minority languages in Europe....


  • Belgium: Language legislation in Belgium
    Language legislation in Belgium

    This article describes the history of the laws on the use of official languages in Belgium....
  • Croatia: Croatian linguistic purism
    Croatian linguistic purism

    One of the features of the Croatian language, common to many Central-European languages is word coinage.The Croatian tradition of neologisms and linguistic purism goes back to the earliest documents of literacy , but it was in the Renaissance Croatian literature that this characteristic has become dominant....
  • Finland: Finland's language strife
    Finland's language strife

    The language strife was one of the major conflicts of History of Finland and domestic politics. It revolved around the question of what status Swedish?the language which since the Middle Ages had been the main language of administration and high culture in Finland?and, on the other hand, Finnish?the mother tongue of the majority of Finns?shou...
  • France: Language policy in France
    Language policy in France

    France has one official language, the French language. The French government does not regulate the choice of language in publications by individuals but the use of French is required by law in commercial and workplace communications....
  • Germany: Germanization
    Germanisation

    Germanisation is either the spread of the German language, German people and German culture either by force or assimilation, or the adaptation of a foreign word to the German language in linguistics, much like the Romanization of many languages which do not use the Latin alphabet....
  • Latvia: Language policy in Latvia
    Language policy in Latvia

    Articles 4 and 114 of the Constitution of Latvia form the foundation for language policy in Latvia, declaring Latvian language to be the official state language and affirming the rights of ethnic minorities to preserve and develop their languages....
  • Poland: Polonization
    Polonization

    Polonization is the acquisition or imposition of elements of Polish culture, especially Polish language, as experienced in some historic periods by non-Polish populations of territories controlled or substantially influenced by Poland....
  • Spain: Language politics in Francoist Spain
  • Former Soviet Union: Russification
    Russification

    Russification is an adoption of the Russian language or some other Russian attribute by non-Russian communities. In a narrow sense, Russification is used to denote the influence of the Russian language on Slavic languages, Baltic languages and other languages, spoken in areas currently or formerly controlled by Russia, which led to emerging...
    , Ukrainianization
    Ukrainization

    Ukrainization is a policy of increasing the usage and facilitating the development of the Ukrainian language and promoting other elements of Ukrainian culture, in various spheres of public life such as education, publishing, government and religion....
    , Education in the Soviet Union
    Education in the Soviet Union

    Soviet Union education was organized in a highly centralized government-run system. Its advantages were total access for all citizens and post-education employment....
  • United Kingdom: Welsh Not
    Welsh Not

    The Welsh Not or Welsh Note was a piece of wood, inscribed with the letters "WN", that was hung round the necks of children who spoke Welsh language in some schools in the 19th century....
  • Canada: Bilingualism in Canada
    Bilingualism in Canada

    Official bilingualism is the term used in Canada to collectively describe the policies, constitutional provisions, and laws which give English language and French language a special legal status over other languages in Canada?s courts, Parliament of Canada and administration....
    , Official Language Act
  • Pakistan: Bengali Language Movement
  • Arab world: Arabisation

Further reading

  • Shohamy, Elana (2006). Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches. London: Routledge.
  • Crawford, James.
  • Bastardas-Boada, Albert (2002). , Noves SL. Revista de sociolingüística (Barcelona)
  • Bastardas-Boada, Albert (2007). Glossa. An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 2 N. 2.
  • Kenan Malik . Prospect, 2000.
  • Plonka Arkadiusz, L’idée de langue libanaise d’après Sa‘id ‘Aql, Paris, Geuthner, 2004 (French), ISBN 2-7053-3739-3.
  • Plonka Arkadiusz, "Le nationalisme linguistique au Liban autour de Sa‘id ‘Aql et l’idée de langue libanaise dans la revue «Lebnaan» en nouvel alphabet", Arabica, 53 (4), 2006, pp. 423-471. (French).