Select a country that has more than one official language, and state the country and its languages.?

Question

And state the country and its languages. Would this model work the United States? Why or Why not?

Answer 1

Why did everyone say this works for the US? Currently, this model does NOT work for the United States, because the United States has not declared any official language.

Here are many different nations with multiple official languages:

Afghanistan - Pashti and Dari
Bolivia - Spanish, Aymara, Quechua
Bosnia & Herzegovina - Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian
Burundi - Kirundi, Swahili, French
Chad - French, Arabic
Comoros - Arabic, French
Djibouti - French, Arabic
East Timor - Tetum, Portugese
Finland - Finnish, Swedish
Haiti - French, Creole
Kyrgyzstan - Kyrgyz, Russian
Luxembourg - French, German, Luxembourgish
Madagascar - Malagasy, French
Netherlands - Dutch, Frisian
Paraguay - Guarani, Spanish
Peru - Quechua, Spanish
Switzerland - German, French, Romansh, Italian

Answer 2

Actually, Switzerland has 4 official languages, in addition to German, French and Italian, Raeto-Romance is also recognised as an official language.

Then there are:

Canada with English and French
South Africa with Afrikaans and English
Malaysia with Bahasa Melayu, Mandarin, Tamil and English
Norway with Landsmal and Riksmal
Belgium with French and Flams
Spain with Castilliano, Galego, Basque, Valenciano and Catalan, which were recognised after the fall of Franco

The model would definitely NOT work for the United States of America, giving the current level of nationalism and pride in the English language, in addition to the fear of being culturally overwhelmed by Hispanics.

Answer 3

Here's an interesting one. The previous reply mentioned South Africa. Right. But he didn't go far enough. We in South Africa NOW have, wait for it, eleven official languages. (If you're interested, they are English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Tswana, Tsonga, Swati, Venda and Ndebele.) This is probably the largest number of official languages in any country anywhere in the world, but it was a clever way to solve the official language problem (previously there were two: English and Afrikaans.) If the government hadn't made all eleven official, the problem would've been which to leave out (and therefore offend its speakers). However, there are in fact some minor ones still left out.
The model should work in America, but it should probably be restricted to areas where there are large groups of foreign speakers. Spanish in parts of California and in the Miami area too (am I right?), but I can't see it being applied effectively in parts of the country where there aren't many foreign language speakers.

Answer 4

-Switzerland: Official languages - German, French, Italian, Romansh.

-Singapore: Official languages - English, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil.

-New Zeland: Official languages English, Māori, New Zealand Sign Language. (Wierd, but true)

Since all these models and more have worked, there is no reason for a failure in the US. After all, everyone will have the right to speak or learn in the language of their choosing. The Singaporean model is a good example: you can choose what language to speak, and what school would you join (English, Malay, Mandarin or Tamil), although almost everyone speaks English. The only major step is the duplication of every legal document in every official language, otherwise, no real drastic changes will occur.

Answer 5

India sort of has 24 official languages, 22 being regional and Hindi and English being the 2 official. The regional languages are-Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Urdu, Malyaalam, Punjabi, Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Meitei, Nepali, Oriya, Sanskrit, Santhali, and Sindhi. This would definitely not work for the U.S because the number of people speaking these languages is relatively few and most already know English.

Answer 6

The country of Canada has 2 official languages, English and French. Quebec was settled by the French who spoke French and the rest of Canada was settled by English speaking people.Band aids, everything has french and english printed them. I think someday in the USA we will have English and Spanish and I think it will work out fine.

Answer 7

Canada. French and English.

I believe a having any official language (the US currently has none) would place an undue burden on manufactures/distributors. If they make more money distributing their product in Spanish as well as English, let them. But don't force them to if they loose money doing so.

Answer 8

Switzerland - German, French, Italian - would not work for the US because in Europe school requires people to learn another language. In the US people are too lazy because English has been the standard for so long.

Answer 9

South Africa ,Africaans ,and English.
Switserland ;switser deutsh,Italian,french and German

Usa could have Spanish as a second language ,there are enough Spanish speaking people around

Answer 10

Jordan-middleEast , Arabic : the basic language , English : 2nd language english . it may work in the united states , spanish is the 2nd language spoken there !