How many official languages are recognized by the UN?

Unfortunately there are only 6 official languages accepted by the UN. For sure, that's not very convenient for people who are not able to speak any of these languages as in that case they must provide a translation of the speech. Moreover, all the documents are written only in the languages recognised as official. Today, most people can speak at least English but some new languages are being proposed.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

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39 Comments

Algernon Bhoomz

It is not surprising that most people got this one wrong. Yes there are about 102 Languages and some 180 Dialects around the world. But according to the Dag Hammarskjold Library at the UN, only 6 official languages are recognized(Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian & Spanish). Imagine German & Dutch are not on this list.

Sonny Beaudoin

The U.N. is a totally useless organization anyway.

Ilias Tsiabardas

Someone tell me what The UN It's good for ?

Pat Salloum

"A delegate may speak in any official UN language. The speech is interpreted simultaneously into the other official languages of the UN. At times, a delegate may choose to make a statement using a non-official language. In such cases, the delegation must provide either an interpretation or a written text of the statement in one of the official languages. Most UN documents are issued in all six official languages, requiring translation from the original document.

Fred Keogh

Peter A Hewitt, ''How many official languages are recognized by the UN?'' is the question, can you explain why 'gottcha' and 'cheap & childish?'

Richard D. Boyle

Notice that the three obvious languages of the WW II Axis powers, Germany, Italy and Japan, were omitted in 1945 and are STILL omitted to this day. Awful lot of water under the bridge in the meantime.

Rusty

Wow, learned something new

Jeff Carter

Peter A Hewitt, the question looks perfectly clear to me. Which part didn’t you understand?

Peter A Hewitt

What a real "gottcha" question that is.. I find these questions to be chlidish an cheap shots at sensible people.. If you can't word your questions without gottcha catches then don't ask..

Nancy Walker

Only 6? Wow!

Melissa Brooks

Tom McKenna, Good movie! I will add an opinion regarding the UN. No excuses. Thru the internet's language interchange, IPads, IPhones, Bluetooth, PCs, etc. more languages should be included in the official reconition.

Boyd Tracy

I like most didn't consider then"official" and ended up reapndingmwith the # of total languages

Boyd Tracy

Not German?

Larry Kuykendall

That is so wrong. There are translatora for 67 languages and dialects. What does "recognized" mean?

Tom McKenna

Yes only six, however for clarity and legal purposes the 102 languages and dialects are translated into the six languages at sessions at the UN To get a glimpse of how this works you may want to watch the movie 'The Interpreter', starting Nicole Kidman, and they touch on how different dialects and languages are treated during the course of doing business. .