The official languages of the United Nations, are the six

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

s used in

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

(UN) meetings and in which the UN writes and publishes all its official documents. In 1946, five languages were chosen as official languages of the UN: English, French, Russian, Spanish, and Chinese. In 1973,

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

was voted to be an additional official language. As of 2025, the official languages of the United Nations are: * English (

British English British English is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to ...

with

Oxford spelling Oxford spelling (also ''Oxford English Dictionary'' spelling, Oxford style, or Oxford English spelling) is a spelling standard, named after its use by the Oxford University Press, that prescribes the use of British spelling in combination with ...

), in the English Latin alphabet * French ( français métropolitain /

langues d'oïl The ''langues d'oïl'' are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest relatives historically spoken in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands. They belong to the larger category of Gallo- ...

) in the French Latin alphabet * Spanish (español / castellano) in the Spanish Latin alphabet * Russian (русский / Московское произношение) in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet * Chinese (

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

中文 zhōng wén / 普通话 pǔ tōng huà) in

Simplified Chinese characters Simplified Chinese characters are one of two standardized Chinese characters, character sets widely used to write the Chinese language, with the other being traditional characters. Their mass standardization during the 20th century was part of ...

(

Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages al ...

العربية al-ʿarabiyyah) in Naskh / Arabic abjad According to the

UN Charter The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the United Nations (UN). It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the United Nations System, UN system, including its United Nations System#Six ...

each of these 6 are equally authoritative although English and French have traditionally received preferential status and are the only two official and working languages of the

UN Secretariat The United Nations Secretariat is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), The secretariat is the UN's executive arm. The secretariat has an important role in setting the agenda for the deliberative and decision-making bodi ...

. It is an unspoken rule that the

UN Secretary General The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or UNSECGEN) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the United Nations System#Six principal organs, six principal organs of ...

and other high ranking United Nations officials must be fluent (at least C1 - Advanced fluency level according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL)) in at least English and French. The UN has struggled to provide parity of all 6 languages as the English language has become the dominant world language in the

digital age The Information Age is a History by period, historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on info ...

. Multiple UN Secretary Generals, including

Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan (8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder a ...

and Ban Ki Moon and Antonio Guterres have worked to improve multilingualism within the UN. This work has culminated in additional funding for the UN Translation Service, the creation of the Coordinator for Multilingualism role, UN Language Days, and starting in 2018, the UN News website providing translations into non-official languages such as Portuguese, Swahili,

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

, and

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

in addition to the official languages. These and many of the non-official languages used by the United Nations often represent the Southern Hemisphere (

Global South Global North and Global South are terms that denote a method of grouping countries based on their defining characteristics with regard to socioeconomics and politics. According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Global South broadly com ...

). Rule 57 allows the General Assembly or any subcommittee to utilize any language other than the languages of the Assembly. As of 2025, the United Nations and

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

has not formally ratified the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights.

Description

These languages are used at meetings of various UN organs, particularly the General Assembly (Article 51 of its Rules of Procedure), the Economic and Social Council and the Security Council (Article 41 of its Rules of Procedure). Each representative of a country may speak in any one of these six languages or may speak in any language and provide interpretation into one of the six official languages. The UN provides

simultaneous interpretation Simultaneous interpretation (SI) is when an interpreter translates the message from the source language to the target language in real-time. Unlike in consecutive interpreting, this way the natural flow of the speaker is not disturbed and allows ...

from any official language into the other five official languages, via the United Nations Interpretation Service. The six official languages are also used for the dissemination of official documents. Generally, the texts in each of the six languages are equally authoritative. Most UN councils use all six languages as official and working languages; however, as of 2023 the

United Nations Secretariat The United Nations Secretariat is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), The secretariat is the UN's executive arm. The secretariat has an important role in setting the agenda for the deliberative and decision-making bodi ...

uses only two

working language A working language (also procedural language) is a language that is given a unique legal status in a supranational company, society, state or other body or organization as its primary means of communication. It is primarily the language of the dai ...

s: English and French. The six official languages spoken at the UN are the first or

second language A second language (L2) is a language spoken in addition to one's first language (L1). A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a foreign language. A speaker's dominant language, which ...

of 2.8 billion people on the planet, less than half of the world population. The six languages are official languages in almost two-thirds of United Nations member states (over 120 states). File:Detailed SVG map of the Anglophone world.svg, English File:Detailed SVG map of the Francophone world.svg, French File:Detailed SVG map of the Hispanophone world.svg, Spanish File:Detailed SVG map of the Russophone world.svg, Russian File:Detailed SVG map of the Sinophone world.svg, Mandarin File:Detailed SVG map of the Arabophone world.svg, Arabic File:Languages of UN combined world map.jpg, Languages Combined

Official languages of the United Nations, ''Ethnologue'', 2025

s with English and French being the

s. English and French were chosen due to the global reach of the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

and the French Empire. Spanish was selected due to the large number of first-language speakers in

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

and the former

Spanish Empire The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy (political entity), Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered ...

. There was an effort to select

Esperanto Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...

as an additional language of the League, but that was rejected. In the 1940s, as the conclusion of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

was nearing, the Allies held a multitude of conferences, including the

London Declaration The London Declaration was a declaration issued by the 1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference on the issue of India's continued membership of the Commonwealth of Nations, an association of independent states formerly part of the British ...

, the Arcadia Conference, the

Cairo Conference Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

, the

Tehran Conference The Tehran Conference (codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of the Allies of World War II, held between Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943. It was the first of the Allied World Wa ...

, the

Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (), held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three sta ...

and the Potsdam Conference. These conferences were meant to coordinate and plan the

post-war A post-war or postwar period is the interval immediately following the end of a war. The term usually refers to a varying period of time after World War II, which ended in 1945. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum, ...

world, including how to promote

world peace World peace is the concept of an ideal state of peace within and among all people and nations on Earth. Different cultures, religions, philosophies, and organizations have varying concepts on how such a state would come about. Various relig ...

in the aftermath of the war, how to facilitate global communication through an

international auxiliary language An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primarily a ...

(such as Esperanto) or an existing group of languages, and how to handle the

decolonization Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby Imperialism, imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholar ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. Additionally, these conferences led to the establishment of the United Nations as the successor of the League of Nations. In 1945, this culminated in the

Charter of the UN A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the reci ...

, its constituent document signed at the San Francisco Conference, which did not expressly provide for official languages. The Charter was initially enacted in five languages (English, French, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish). The

selected these original five languages because in addition to being utilized by the League of Nations, they were also the de facto official languages of the major Allied nations, including the Big Four: the

, the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

plus French which was the language of

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and the French colonies. These nations: the UK, the US, the USSR, Republic of China, and France, became the five Permanent Members of the

UN Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...

. Unofficially, the UN held its operations in English and French; however, the Charter provided (in Article 111) that the five languages be equally authoritative. In 1946, the first session of the

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its Seventy-ninth session of th ...

adopted rules of procedure concerning languages that purported to apply to "all the organs of the United Nations, other than the

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...

", formally setting out five (5) official languages and two (2) working languages (English and French). The following year, the second session of the General Assembly adopted permanent rules of procedure, Resolution 173 (II). The part of those rules relating to language closely followed the 1946 rules, except that the 1947 rules did not purport to apply to other UN organs, just the General Assembly. Meanwhile, a proposal had been in the works to add Spanish as a third working language in addition to English and French. This was adopted in Resolution 262 (III), passed on 11 December 1948. In 1968, Russian was added as a working language of the General Assembly so that, of the GA's five official languages, four (all but Mandarin) were working. In 1973, the General Assembly made Mandarin a working language and switched to using

simplified Chinese characters Simplified Chinese characters are one of two standardized Chinese characters, character sets widely used to write the Chinese language, with the other being traditional characters. Their mass standardization during the 20th century was part of ...

. They also added Arabic as both an official language and working language of the GA. Thus all six official languages were also working languages. Arabic was made an official and working language of "the General Assembly and its Main Committees", whereas the other five languages had status in all GA committees and subcommittees (not just the main committees). The Arab members of the UN had agreed to pay the costs of implementing the resolution, for three years. In 1980, the General Assembly got rid of this final distinction, making Arabic an official and working language of all its committees and subcommittees, as of 1 January 1982. At the same time, the GA requested the Security Council to include Arabic among its official and working languages, and the Economic and Social Council to include Arabic among its official languages, by 1 January 1983. As of 1983, the Security Council (like the General Assembly) recognized six official and working languages: Arabic, English, French, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish. In the Economic and Social Council, as of 1992, there were six official languages (Arabic, English, French, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish) of which three were working languages (English, French, and Spanish). Later,

, and Russian were added as working languages in the Economic and Social Council. In 2001, the United Nations drew criticism for relying too heavily on English, and not enough on the other five official languages and Spanish-speaking member nations formally brought this to the attention of the secretary-general. Additionally, there was a movement to consider adding official languages or creating a grouping of semi-official languages for languages with over 50 million speakers. This did not happen.

Secretary General Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, Power (social and political), power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the org ...

responded to these criticisms that full parity of the six official languages was unachievable within current budgetary restraints, but he nevertheless attached great importance to improving the linguistic balance and worked to increase parity between the existing 6 official languages. On 8 June 2007, resolutions concerning human resources management at the UN, the General Assembly had emphasized "the paramount importance of the equality of the six official languages of the United Nations" and requested that the secretary-general "ensure that vacancy announcements specified the need for either of the working languages of the Secretariat, unless the functions of the post required a specific working language". In 2008 and 2009, resolutions of the General Assembly have urged the Secretariat to respect the parity of the six official languages, especially in the dissemination of public information. The secretary-general's most recent report on multilingualism was issued on 4 October 2010. In response, on 19 July 2011, the General Assembly adopted Resolution No. A/RES/65/311 on multilingualism, calling on the secretary-general, once again, to ensure that all six official languages are given equally favourable working conditions and resources. The resolution noted with concern that the multilingual development of the UN website had improved at a much slower rate than expected. The drive to improve parity and focus on multilingualism continued throughout the 2010s and led to the United Nations news and media website (https://news.un.org/en/) to begin including translations of its content into

, Portuguese, and Swahili in 2018. In 2020, UN Portuguese Language Day was created in addition to the UN Language Day's associated with the six official languages. In June 2022, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on multilingualism that encouraged UN organizations to disseminate important communication and messages in official as well as non-official languages, similar to the semi-official policies proposed to Kofi Annan and

Ban Ki-moon Ban Ki-moon (born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was the South Korean minister ...

. These languages included Bengali,

, Persian, Portuguese, Swahili, and

and the GA recognizes the efforts of the UN to use non-official languages too. In July 2022, UN Swahili Language Day was created.Alt URL
/ref> Portuguese and Swahili are the only non-official UN languages to have a UN Language Day.

Timeline of official languages

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1912 till:2042 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:10 # > to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<# Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb(0.99,0.7,0.7) id:line value:black id:bg value:white id:OWLN value:rgb(0.742,0.727,0.852) # Use this color to denote a language that is an official AND a working language of the League of Nations id:NWLN value:rgb(0.551,0.824,0.777) # Use this color to denote a language that is an official language but NOT a working language of the League of Nations id:OWUN value:rgb(0.98,0.5,0.445) # Use this color to denote a a language that is an official language AND a working language of the United Nations id:NWUN value:rgb(0.5,0.691,0.824) # Use this color to denote a a language that is an official language but NOT a working language of the United Nations id:UNnewsLangDay value:rgb(0.988,0.703,0.383) # Use this color to denote a language that is included on the UN News website (https://news.un.org/en/) and has a UN Official Language day dedicated to it id:UNnewsNoLangDay value:rgb(0.996,0.996,0.730) # Use this color to denote a language that is included on the UN News website (https://news.un.org/en/) but does NOT have a UN Official Language day dedicated to it PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:m bar:1 color:OWLN from:1920 till:1945 text: English (1920–present) bar:1 color:OWUN from:1945 till:end bar:2 color:OWLN from:1920 till:1945 text: French (1920–present) bar:2 color:OWUN from:1945 till:end bar:3 color:NWLN from:1920 till:1945 text: Spanish (1920–present) bar:3 color:NWUN from:1945 till:1948 bar:3 color:OWUN from:1948 till:end bar:4 color:NWUN from:1945 till:1968 text: Russian (1945–present) bar:4 color:OWUN from:1968 till:end bar:5 color:NWUN from:1945 till:1973 text: Chinese (1945–present) bar:5 color:OWUN from:1973 till:end bar:6 color:OWUN from:1973 till:end text:

(1973–present) bar:7 color:UNnewsNoLangDay from:2018 till:2020 text: Portuguese (2018–present) bar:7 color:UNnewsLangDay from:2020 till:end bar:8 color:UNnewsNoLangDay from:2018 till:2022 text: Swahili (2018–present) bar:8 color:UNnewsLangDay from:2022 till:end bar:9 color:UNnewsNoLangDay from:2018 till:end text:

(2018–present) bar:10 color:UNnewsNoLangDay from:2022 till:end text:

(2022–present) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1915 TextData = fontsize:s textcolor:black pos:(0,30) tabs:(400-center) # > If the chart uses more than one bar color, add a legend by selecting the appropriate fields from the following six options (use only the colors that are used in the graphic.) Leave a blank line after the end of the timeline, then add a line with the selected values from the list, separated by a space. <#

UN News

As of June 2018, the media branch of the United Nations, UN News (https://news.un.org), includes website translations into

, Portuguese, and Swahili in addition to the 6 official languages. Other UN documents and websites are also translated into Bengali,

, French Creole, Indonesian, Malay, Persian, and Turkish but not on an official or consistent basis.

Proposed additional languages

While there are no formal proposals before the General Assembly to add another official language, various individuals and states have informally raised the possibility of adding a new official language to accommodate more of the world's population. It has been noted that the six official languages are mostly spoken in the

Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined by humans as being in the same celestial sphere, celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the Solar ...

and therefore many of the proposed languages are spoken in the Southern Hemisphere. Similar to the path Arabic took to become an official language where Arab countries paid for the first few years of UN translation, it is expected that member states (i.e.

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

for Portuguese,

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

for Hindi,

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

and

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

for Swahili etc, would need to pay for the translation for the first few years before the UN would cover translation costs. As of 2018, the media branch of the United Nations, UN News (https://news.un.org/), added translations into Portuguese, Swahili, and

, and as of 2022 added translations into

in addition to the existing 6 official languages. Other languages, such as Turkish, Persian, and

, have been formally or informally proposed in the past but were not added. The following languages are potential or future candidates for expanding the Official languages of the UN, due to their translations being available on the global UN News site, the creation of UN Portuguese Language Day and UN Swahili Language Day and a general increase in usage at United Nations organizations.

Possible additional official languages of the United Nations, ''Ethnologue'', 2025

theory.

Bengali

Bengali is the fifth most spoken native language in the world, with over 242 million native speakers, after

, Spanish, English and

and additional 43 million speak it as a

. In April 2009, Prime Minister of Bangladesh

Sheikh Hasina Sheikh Hasina (''née'' Wazed; born 28 September 1947) is a Bangladeshi politician who served as the tenth prime minister of Bangladesh from June 1996 to July 2001 and again from January 2009 to August 2024. Premiership of Sheikh Hasina, Her ...

argued in front of the

that the Bengali language should be made one of the official languages of the UN. This was backed by a resolution adopted unanimously by the assembly of the

n state of

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

in December.

Hindi

is the fourth most spoken native language in the world, after

, Spanish, and English.Mikael Parkvall, "Världens 100 största språk 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), in ''

Nationalencyklopedin (; "The National Encyclopedia" in English), abbreviated NE, is a comprehensive contemporary Swedish-language encyclopedia with several hundred thousand articles. It is available both online and via a printed version. History The project was ...

''. Asterisks mark the
2010 estimates
for the top dozen languages. It is one of the official languages of

and

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

and its related dialects are still being spoken by small minorities in

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

. It is mutually intelligible to a high degree with

which is official and spoken in Pakistan and together they are often considered the same language, referred to as Hindustani or Hindi–Urdu. Although very similar verbally, they do have different written scripts; Hindi is written in the

Devanagari script Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ancient '' Brāhmī'' script. It is one of the official scripts of India an ...

and Urdu is written in the

Nastaʿlīq script ''Nastaliq'' (; ; ), also romanized as ''Nastaʿlīq'' or ''Nastaleeq'' (), is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write Arabic script and is used for some Indo-Iranian languages, predominantly Classical Persian, Kashmiri, Punjabi a ...

has more than 550 million speakers in India alone, of whom 422 million are native, 98.2 million are second language speakers, and 31.2 million are third language speakers. Hindi is the

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

of the northern part of

, along with Pakistan (as Urdu), with its importance as a global language increasing day by day. In 2007, it was reported that the government of India would "make immediate diplomatic moves to seek the status of an official language for Hindi at the United Nations". According to a 2009 press release from its Ministry of External Affairs, the Government of India has been "working actively" to have

recognized as an official language of the UN. In 2015,

's Vice President Parmananda Jha stated his firm support for the inclusion of Hindi as an official language of the UN. The United Nations media site (https://news.un.org) already includes translations into Hindi.

Indonesian

Indonesian is the

official An official is someone who holds an office (function or Mandate (politics), mandate, regardless of whether it carries an actual Office, working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (eithe ...

and

national language '' '' A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection— de facto or de jure—with a nation. The term is applied quite differently in various contexts. One or more languages spoken as first languag ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. It is a

standardized Standardization (American English) or standardisation (British English) is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organiza ...

variety of

Sumatran Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi.2), including adjacent i ...

, an

Austronesian language The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken b ...

that has been used as a

in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world, with over 280 million inhabitants, the majority of whom speak Indonesian, making it the largest language by number of speakers in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

and one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. James Neil Sneddon. ''The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society''. UNSW Press, 2004. According to Ethnologue (2025), Indonesian is the 10th most commonly spoken language. Indonesian is also prominent on the internet, with one estimate ranking it sixth by number of Internet users. As part of the same Austronesian linguistic family, Indonesian is related to Filipino spoken in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. The Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemendikbud) has increasingly promoted Indonesian as an international language, with one target aiming for official UN language status by 2045.

Persian

Persian is a

pluricentric language A pluricentric language or polycentric language is a language with several codified standard forms, often corresponding to different countries. Many examples of such languages can be found worldwide among the most-spoken languages, including but n ...

spoken in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

where it is known as Farsi,

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

where it is known as Dari, and

Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...

where it is known as Tajik as well as

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ash ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

Kuwait Kuwait, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in West Asia and the geopolitical region known as the Middle East. It is situated in the northern edge of the Arabian Peninsula at the head of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to Iraq–Kuwait ...

, most areas of which have a

Persianate A Persianate society is a society that is based on or strongly influenced by the Persian language, culture, literature, art and/or identity. The term "Persianate" is a neologism credited to Marshall Hodgson. In his 1974 book, ''The Venture of I ...

history or are considered in the cultural sphere of

Greater Iran Greater Iran or Greater Persia ( ), also called the Iranosphere or the Persosphere, is an expression that denotes a wide socio-cultural region comprising parts of West Asia, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia, and East Asia (specifica ...

. The main dialects of Persian,

Dari Dari (; endonym: ), Dari Persian (, , or , ), or Eastern Persian is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the Afghan government's official term for the Persian language;Lazard, G.Darī – The New Persian ...

and Tajik are generally considered mutually intelligibility. Classically originating from

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...

and the

Sassanian Empire The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...

, the Persian language and Iranian people have a rich cultural history of being at the interface of the

Arabs Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...

, Turks, the

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of pre ...

and Desi peoples. Spoken by over 127 million people (70 - 90 million L1 speakers and 30 - 50 million L2 speakers, Persian is the cultural language of Iran and is prominent in

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

Portuguese

Portuguese is the sixth most spoken language in the world. Many

Lusophone The Portuguese-speaking world, also known as the Lusophone world () or the Lusophony (''Lusofonia''), comprises the countries and territories in which the Portuguese language is an official, administrative, cultural, or secondary language. This ...

s have advocated for greater recognition of their language, which is widely spoken across four continents:

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

(original place) in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

;

(the largest

lusophone The Portuguese-speaking world, also known as the Lusophone world () or the Lusophony (''Lusofonia''), comprises the countries and territories in which the Portuguese language is an official, administrative, cultural, or secondary language. This ...

nation) in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

;

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

Cape Verde Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...

Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa that covers with an estimated population of 2,026,778. It borders Senegal to Guinea-Bissau–Senegal border, its north and Guinea to Guinea–Guinea-Bissau b ...

Equatorial Guinea Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. It has an area of . Formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea, its post-independence name refers to its location both near the Equ ...

São Tomé and Príncipe São Tomé and Príncipe, officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, is an island country in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. It consists of two archipelagos around the two main isla ...

;

Timor-Leste Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the coastal exclave of Oecusse in the island's northwest, and ...

and

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

. It is an official language in nine countries and one autonomous territory. In 2008, the

President of Portugal The president of Portugal, officially the president of the Portuguese Republic (, ), is the head of state and highest office of Portugal. The powers, functions and duties of prior presidential offices, and their relation with the prime minister ...

announced that the then eight leaders of the

Community of Portuguese Language Countries The Community of Portuguese Language Countries (; : CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth or Lusophone Community (), is an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portug ...

(CPLP) had agreed to take the necessary steps to make Portuguese an official language. The media branch of the UN, UN News (https://news.un.org) already includes translations into Portuguese.

Swahili

Swahili is a

throughout eastern Africa and is especially prevalent in the

African Great Lakes The African Great Lakes (; ) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. The series includes Lake Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world by area; Lake Tangan ...

region. Swahili, known as Kiswahili by its speakers, is an official language of

Rwanda Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by ...

, the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

, is an official language of the

African Union The African Union (AU) is a continental union of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa. The AU was announced in the Sirte Declaration in Sirte, Libya, on 9 September 1999, calling for the establishment of the African Union. The b ...

and is officially recognized as a ''

'' of the

East African Community The East African Community (EAC) is an intergovernmental organisation in East Africa. The EAC's membership consists of eight states: Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Federal Republic of Somalia, the Republics of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, S ...

. It is one of the most commonly spoken languages in Africa, is a compulsory subject in all Kenyan and Tanzanian schools and is increasingly being used in eastern Burundi. With between 150 and 200 million speakers, the Swahili lexicon is similar to that of other eastern Bantu languages such as Comorian, which have differing levels of mutual intelligibility. Swahili is already used unofficially in many UN organizations as the UN has an office in Nairobi ( the United Nations Office at Nairobi), in addition to other major UN global offices in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, and

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

). The media branch of the UN, UN News, already includes translations into Swahili.

Turkish

In September 2011, during a meeting with UN Secretary-General

, Turkish Prime Minister

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the 25th prime minister of Turkey, prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Jus ...

expressed a desire to see Turkish become an official UN language.

Urdu

, the official language of

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

, is a standard of the

known as Hindustani, or Hindi-Urdu, while

is an official language of

. Urdu and Hindi share a common, predominantly

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

- and

Prakrit Prakrit ( ) is a group of vernacular classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 5th century BCE to the 12th century CE. The term Prakrit is usually applied to the middle period of Middle Ind ...

-derived, vocabulary base, phonology, syntax, and grammar, making them mutually intelligible during colloquial communication. Urdu has been described as a Persianised standard register of the Hindustani language. While formal Urdu draws literary, political, and technical vocabulary from Persian, formal Hindi draws these aspects from Sanskrit; consequently, the two languages' mutual intelligibility effectively decreases as the factor of formality increases. As of 2025, over 80 million speak Urdu as their

first language A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period hypothesis, critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' ...

while over 200 million people speak it as a

. Including Urdu in addition to Hindi, and Bengali, as United Nations Official Languages would allow for greater coverage of

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

. The media branch of the UN, UN News, already includes translations into Urdu.

Coordinator for Multilingualism

In a 1999 resolution, the General Assembly requested the secretary-general to "appoint a senior Secretariat official as coordinator of questions relating to

multilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

throughout the Secretariat." The first such coordinator was Federico Riesco of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

, appointed on 6 September 2000.Multilingualism: Report of the Secretary-General
Doc. A/56/656, para. 4. Following Riesco's retirement, Miles Stoby of

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

was appointed Coordinator for Multilingualism, effective 6 September 2001. In 2003, Secretary-General

appointed Shashi Tharoor of

as Coordinator for Multilingualism. This responsibility was in addition to Tharoor's role as under-secretary-general for communications and public information, head of the

Department of Public Information The United Nations Department of Global Communications (DGC) (prior to 1 January 2019, the United Nations Department of Public Information) is a department of the United Nations Secretariat, Secretariat of the United Nations. It is tasked with r ...

. The current Coordinator for Multilingualism is Catherine Pollard of

. She replaces Kiyo Akasaka of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, who was also under-secretary-general for communications and public information.

Language Days at the UN

In 2010, the UN's Department of Public Information announced an initiative of six "language days" to be observed throughout the year, one for each official language, with the goal of celebrating linguistic diversity and learning about the importance of cross-cultural communication. In 2020 Portuguese Language Day was added and in 2022 Swahili Language Day was added. The days and their historical significance are: * UN Arabic Language Day: 18 December (the date on which the

designated Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as the fourth official language of the United Nations in 1973). * UN Chinese Language Day: first celebrated 12 November; now set on 20 April ("to pay tribute to

Cang Jie Cangjie is a legendary figure in Chinese mythology, said to have been an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters. Legend has it that he had four eyes, and that when he invented the characters, the deities ...

") * UN English Language Day: 23 April ("the date traditionally observed as the birthday of

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

") * UN French Language Day: 20 March (corresponding to the Journée internationale de la Francophonie) * UN Portuguese Language Day: 5 May (the date in 2009 that the

(CPLP) established to represent the

countries and culture)) * UN Russian Language Day: 6 June (the birthday of

Alexander Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is consid ...

) * UN Spanish Language Day: first celebrated on 12 October (celebrated in the Spanish-speaking world as "Día de la Hispanidad"; compare

Columbus Day Columbus Day is a national holiday in many countries of the Americas and elsewhere, and a federal holiday in the United States, which officially celebrates the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas. He went ashore at ...

), now set on 23 April (in honor of

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( ; ; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelist ...

, who died on the same day in 1616) * UN Swahili Language Day: 7 July (the date

Julius Nyerere Julius Kambarage Nyerere (; 13 April 1922 – 14 October 1999) was a Tanzanian politician, anti-colonial activist, and political theorist. He governed Tanganyika (1961–1964), Tanganyika as prime minister from 1961 to 1962 and then as presid ...

adopted the

Swahili Language Swahili, also known as as it is referred to endonym and exonym, in the Swahili language, is a Bantu languages, Bantu language originally spoken by the Swahili people, who are found primarily in Tanzania, Kenya, and Mozambique (along the East Af ...

as a unifying language for independence struggles.)

UN specialised agencies

UN independent agencies have their own sets of official languages that sometimes are different from that of the principal UN organs. For example, the General Conference of

has ten official languages including Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, and Portuguese. The

Universal Postal Union The Universal Postal Union (UPU, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations and facilitates a uniform worldwide postal system. It has 192 member states and is headquartered in Be ...

has just one official language, French. IFAD has four official languages: Arabic, English, French, and Spanish., Rule 26

Parallels with other multilingual institutions

The next largest international grouping after the UN is the

Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the British Commonwealth or simply the Commonwealth, is an International organization, international association of member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, 56 member states, the vast majo ...

which is exclusively English speaking and has 56 members, and the which is exclusively French speaking and has 54 members. All other international bodies in commerce, transport and sport have tended to the adoption of one or a few languages as the means of communication. This is usually English and French (see: list of international organisations which have French as an official language). Regional groups have adopted what is common to other elements of their ethnic or religious background. Standard Arabic is usually adopted across Muslim nation groups. Most of non-Arab Africa is either Francophone or Anglophone because of their imperial past, but there is also a lusophone grouping of countries for the same reason.

Notes and references

External links

2017 Report of the Secretary-General on Multilingualism

Multilingualism at the United Nations : Research Guide

Top UN official stresses need for Internet multilingualism to bridge digital divide
{{Authority control History of the United Nations

United Nations United Nations mass media Official languages Language policy in the United Nations

Description

Official languages of the United Nations, ''Ethnologue'', 2025

Timeline of official languages

UN News

Proposed additional languages

Possible additional official languages of the United Nations, ''Ethnologue'', 2025

Bengali

Hindi

Indonesian

Persian

Portuguese

Swahili

Turkish

Urdu

Coordinator for Multilingualism

Language Days at the UN

UN specialised agencies

Parallels with other multilingual institutions

See also

Notes and references

External links