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This is a list of states where language is a political issue.
Many states in the world have more than one official language. This may simply reflect the existence of well defined groups speaking different languages, often including minority groups near borders, and in many such cases the use of multiple languages is unproblematic. However in some cases the issue of which language is to be used in what contexts is a major political issue, with the rights of particular language groups a constant source of political friction.
| Country/Constituent region | Languages | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Afghanistan | Pashto, Dari, Uzbek, Turkmen, and about 30 minor languages. | ||
| Algeria | Arabic, French, and Berber. | ||
| Australia | Various Indigenous Australian languages. | ||
| Austria | Slovene in Carinthia and Hungarian in Burgenland. | ||
| Azerbaijan | Azerbaijani, Lezgian, Armenian and Talysh. | ||
| Bahrain | Arabic and Persian. | ||
| Belarus | Russian, Belarusian and recently Polish was included. | ||
| Belgium | Dutch of the Flemings, French of the Walloons and small German community. | ||
| German-speaking community of Belgium. | French and German. | ||
| Bolivia | Spanish, Quechua and Aymara. | ||
| Brazil, particularly in Rio Grande do Sul. | Portuguese and Riograndenser Hunsrückisch; also Talian. | ||
| Cameroon | English and French. | ||
| Canada, particularly in Quebec | English and French; also, to varying degrees, English and Aboriginal languages. | See: Languages of Canada, Official bilingualism in Canada, Official Languages Act (Canada), Legal dispute over Quebec's language policy, Charter of the French Language, Language demographics of Quebec, National Question in regards to the ongoing Quebec Independence movement. | |
| China, People's Republic of | Mandarin Chinese and various local dialects and languages. | ||
| Hong Kong | Chinese and English. | ||
| Cyprus | Greek and Turkish. | ||
| Egypt | Egyptian Arabic and Standard Arabic. | ||
| Estonia | Estonian and Russian. | ||
| Finland | Finnish and Swedish | see mandatory Swedish, history: Finland's language strife. | |
| Åland | Swedish and Finnish. | ||
| France | French, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Franco-Provençal, Occitan, Dutch (West Flemish), Alsatian and Italian. | France has only one official language (French), and is regularly criticized by the European Union for its lack of recognition for minority regional languages. | |
| Greece | varieties of Modern Greek. | solved after 1975. | |
| India | numerous, see languages of India. | see The Language Movement, Tanittamil Iyakkam, Anti-Hindi agitations and the co-official use of English after British rule ended. | |
| Indonesia | Indonesian and various native languages. | ||
| Iraq | Arabic and Kurdish. | ||
| Ireland | English and Irish. | ||
| Italy | French in Aosta Valley and Friulian in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Valdôtain in Aosta Valley, German in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Albanian in Calabria and Slovene in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. | ||
| Kazakhstan | Kazakh and Russian. | ||
| Latvia | Latvian and Russian. | ||
| Republic of Macedonia | Macedonian and Albanian. | ||
| Malaysia | Malay, Mandarin and English. | Use of languages as media on instructions in schools are one of many issues. [1] | |
| Moldova | Russian, Moldovan, and Romanian. | part of the issue is whether Moldovan is the same language as Romanian. | |
| Montenegro | Serbian and Montenegrin. | ||
| Morocco | Arabic and Berber, with some co-official use of French and Spanish from colonial rule by France and/or Spain. | ||
| The Netherlands | Dutch and West Frisian. | ||
| New Zealand | English, Maori and New Zealand Sign Language. | ||
| Norway | Bokmål, Nynorsk, Sami and Finnish/Kven. | see Norwegian language struggle. | |
| Pakistan | Issue among the official language Urdu, the most common language Punjabi and regional languages such as Sindhi, Baluchi, Sraiki,Pushto, Potohari, Kashmiri and Bihari Bengali. | ||
| Peru | Spanish and Quechua. | ||
| Philippines | Filipino de facto based on Tagalog and English (See Languages of the Philippines). | ||
| Philippines | Co-official use of English and Spanish from colonial rule by Spain and the USA. | ||
| Poland | Polish, but several historical languages in the regions of East Pomerania, Galicia, Mazuria and Silesia. | Ongoing issue of Silesian; whether is Silesian a dialect of Polish with local and German elements, or is it separate language (what leads some to conclusiuon that Silesians are nation); a similar debate for the Kashubian and resurrection of German and Yiddish despite German and Jewish communities are almost destroyed by WWII. | |
| Puerto Rico | Spanish and English, although Spanish is the common language with English is well studied and understood by its' inhabitants. | The commonwealth's linguistic issues of the Spanish Language; whether Spanish should be reverted to as the sole Puerto Rico Official Language as supported by the Puerto Rican Independence Party and decreed by a now overturned law passed in 1992. | |
| Romania | Romanian and Hungarian. | ||
| Russian Federation | Russian, Tatarian and various languages in Siberia. | ||
| Bashkortostan | Russian, Tatarian, Bashkirian and Chuvash. | ||
| Tatarstan | Tatarian and Russian. | ||
| Chechnya | Chechen, Russian and Ingushen. | ||
| Slovakia | Slovakian, Hungarian and Romani. | ||
| South Africa | English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa and seven smaller Bantu languages. | ||
| Spain | Asturian, Basque, Catalan, Galician, Leonese, Occitan and Spanish also known as Castilian Spanish. | Asturian and Leonese are officially recognized languages. Aranese Occitan, Basque, Catalan and Galician are co-official languages in their respective regions. | |
| Sri Lanka | Sinhalese and Tamil. | ||
| Syria | Arabic and Kurdish, with some co-official use of French. | ||
| Sweden | regionally Swedish and Meänkieli/Finnish. | ||
| Switzerland | regionally French, German, Italian and Romansh. | ||
| Taiwan | Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, and to some extent Hakka and Formosan languages. | ||
| East Timor | Tetum and Portuguese in relation to Indonesian after the 30-year occupation by Indonesia from 1975 to 2004. | Indonesian and English are considered working languages. | |
| Turkey | Turkish in officialized form. | ||
| Ukraine | Ukrainian and Russian. | ||
| United Kingdom | English, Cornish, English as spoken in England, Ulster Scots, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Welsh and the rise of immigrant languages from South Asia. | Irish and Scots were officially recognized as regional or minority languages in 2001, when the UK ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Under the Good Friday Agreement, and subsequent legislation, both Irish Gaelic and Scots have cross-border, state-funded language boards. For Scotland, some Gaelic language service provision was guaranteed by statute in 2005. Scots and Scottish Gaelic were officially recognized as regional or minority languages in 2001, when the UK ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Welsh is a national language and can be a medium of instruction within Wales. | |
| United States | English and Spanish; also English alongside Hawaiian (in Hawaii), French (in Louisiana), and various Native American languages (on Indian reservations), and the rise of immigrant languages from Asia. | see also Spanish in the United States. | |
| Uzbekistan | Uzbek, Persian, and Russian. |
