There are six officiallanguages used inUnited Nations (UN) meetings and in which the UN writes and publishes all its official documents.[1] In 1946, five languages were chosen as official languages of the UN:English,French,Russian,Spanish, andChinese.[2] In 1973,Arabic was voted to be an additional official language. As of 2025,[3] the official languages of the United Nations are:
According to theUN Charter each of these six languages is equally authoritative[10] although English and French have traditionally received preferential status and are the only two official andworking languages of theUN Secretariat.[11] It is an unspoken rule that theUN Secretary General and other high ranking United Nations officials must be fluent (at least C1 – Advanced fluency level according to theCommon 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 dominantworld language in thedigital age.
Multiple UN Secretaries General, includingKofi Annan,Ban Ki Moon andAntonio 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 asPortuguese,Swahili,Hindi, andUrdu in addition to the official languages.[12] These and many of the non-official languages used by the United Nations often represent theSouthern Hemisphere (Global South). Rule 57 allows theGeneral Assembly or any subcommittee to utilize any language other than the languages of the Assembly.[13] As of 2025, the United Nations andUNESCO have not formally ratified theUniversal Declaration of Linguistic Rights.[14]
These languages are used at meetings of variousUN organs, particularly theGeneral Assembly (Article 51 of its Rules of Procedure), theEconomic and Social Council and theSecurity 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 providessimultaneous interpretation from any official language into the other five official languages, via theUnited 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 theUnited Nations Secretariat uses only twoworking languages: English and French.[15]
The six official languages spoken at the UN are thefirst orsecond language 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).[citation needed]
| Language[16] | First Language Speakers (L1) in millions | Second Language Speakers (L2) in millions | Total Speakers (L1 + L2) | Number of Countries Spoken In | United Nations Status | UN General Assembly Status | UN Secretariat Status | Formal Register | Family | Branch | ISO 639-3 | Glottolog | Linguasphere | Main Regulating Body | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | 390 | 1,138 | 1,528 | 90 | Official & Working | Official & Working | Official & Working | British English | Indo-European | Germanic | eng | stan1293 | 52-ABA | NA | |
| French | 74 | 238 | 312 | 50 | Official & Working | Official & Working | Official & Working | Metropolitan French | Indo-European | Romance | fra | stan1290 | 51-AAA | Académie Française | |
| Spanish | 498 | 74 | 572 | 22 | Official & Working | Official & Working | Official | Spanish / Castilian | Indo-European | Romance | spa | stan1288 | 51-AAA-b | Royal Spanish Academy | |
| Russian | 145 | 108 | 253 | 5 | Official & Working | Official & Working | Official | Central Russian | Indo-European | Slavic | rus | russ1263 | 53-AAA-e | Russian Language Institute | |
| Arabic | 20 | 335 | 355 | 23 | Official & Working | Official & Working | Official | Modern Standard Arabic | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | ara / arz | stan1318 / arab1395 | 12-AAC | Academy of the Arabic Language | |
| Chinese | 990 | 194 | 1,184 | 3 | Official & Working | Official & Working | Official | Mandarin Chinese | Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | cnm / zho | mand1415 | 79-AAA-b | Ministry of Education | |
| Total | 2,117 | 2,088 | 4,204 |
In 1920, theLeague of Nations was one of the firstinternational institutions to promote the concept of international official languages to foster communication and spur global diplomacy in the aftermath of the brutality ofWorld War I. The League of Nations selected English, French, and Spanish asofficial languages with English and French being theworking languages. English and French were chosen due to the global reach of theBritish Empire and theFrench Empire. Spanish was selected due to the large number offirst-language speakers inHispanic America and the formerSpanish Empire. There was an effort to selectEsperanto as an additional language of the League, but that was rejected.[17]
In the 1940s, as the conclusion ofWorld War II was nearing, theAllies held amultitude of conferences, including theLondon Declaration, theArcadia Conference, theCairo Conference, theTehran Conference, theYalta Conference and thePotsdam Conference. These conferences were meant to coordinate and plan thepost-war world, including how to promoteworld peace in theaftermath of the war, how to facilitate global communication through aninternational auxiliary language (such as Esperanto) or an existing group of languages, and how to handle thedecolonization ofAfrica andAsia. Additionally, these conferences led to theestablishment of the United Nations as the successor of the League of Nations.
In 1945, this culminated in theCharter of the UN, its constituent document signed at theSan Francisco Conference, which did not expressly provide for official languages. The Charter was initially enacted in five languages (English, French, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish). TheUnited Nations 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 majorAllied nations, including theBig Four: theBritish Empire, theUnited States, theSoviet Union and theRepublic of China plus French which was the language ofFrance and theFrench colonies. These nations: the UK, the US, the USSR, Republic of China, and France, became the fivePermanent Members of theUN Security Council. Unofficially, the UN held its operations in English and French; however, the Charter provided (inArticle 111) that the five languages be equally authoritative.[18][19]
In 1946, the first session of theUnited Nations General Assembly adopted rules of procedure concerning languages that purported to apply to "all the organs of the United Nations, other than theInternational Court of Justice", formally setting out five (5) official languages and two (2) working languages (English and French).[20]
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.[18] 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.[18][21]
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.[22][23]
In 1973, the General Assembly made Mandarin a working language and switched to usingsimplified Chinese characters.[24] 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.[25][26][27]
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 theEconomic and Social Council to include Arabic among its official languages, by 1 January 1983.[28]
As of 1983, the Security Council (like the General Assembly) recognized six official and working languages: Arabic, English, French, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish.[29]
In theEconomic 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).[30] Later,Arabic,Mandarin, andRussian were added asworking languages in the Economic and Social Council.[31]
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.[32] 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 GeneralKofi Annan 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.[33]
On 8 June 2007,[34] 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.[35][36]
The secretary-general's most recent report on multilingualism was issued on 4 October 2010.[37] 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.[38] 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 intoHindi,Portuguese, andSwahili in 2018.
In 2020,UN Portuguese Language Day was created in addition to the UN Language Day's associated with the six official languages.[39]
In 2021, UN German Language Day was created, becoming the second non-official UN language day.[40]
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 andBan Ki-moon. These languages includedBengali,Hindi,Persian,Portuguese,Swahili, andUrdu and the GA recognizes the efforts of the UN to use non-official languages too.[41]
In July 2022,UN Swahili Language Day was created.[42] Portuguese, German, and Swahili are the only non-official UN languages to have a UN Language Day.
League of Nations Official + Working LanguagesLeague of Nations Official LanguagesUN Official + Working LanguagesUN Official LanguagesTranslation Available AND a UN Language Day dedicatedTranslation of UN News Website Available OR a UN Language Day dedicated
As of June 2018, the media branch of the United Nations, UN News (https://news.un.org), includes website translations intoHindi,Portuguese, andSwahili in addition to the 6 official languages.[43] Other UN documents and websites are also translated intoBengali,Urdu,French Creole,Indonesian,Malay,Persian, andTurkish but not on an official or consistent basis.
While there are no formal proposals before theGeneral Assembly to add another official language,[44] 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 theNorthern Hemisphere and therefore many of the proposed languages are spoken in theSouthern 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 for Portuguese,India for Hindi,Tanzania andKenya 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/),[45] added translations intoPortuguese,Swahili, andHindi, and as of 2022 added translations intoUrdu in addition to the existing 6 official languages.[43] Other languages, such asTurkish,Persian, andEsperanto, 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 ofUN Portuguese Language Day andUN Swahili Language Day and a general increase in usage at United Nations organizations.
Most of the proposed languages areworld languages and rank as Level 0 (International) or Level 1 (Central) in theExpanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) and tend to be current or formerlingua francas in their region that are either supra-regional or supercentral according to theglobal language system theory.
Bengali is the fifthmost spoken native language in the world, with over 242 million native speakers, afterMandarin,Spanish,English andHindi and additional 43 million speak it as asecond language.[16][47] In April 2009,Prime Minister of BangladeshSheikh Hasina argued in front of theUnited Nations General Assembly 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 theIndian state ofWest Bengal in December.[48]
German is an official language of theCentral andWestern European countries ofGermany,Switzerland,Austria,Liechtenstein,Luxembourg, andBelgium, and is also a national language ofNamibia inSouthern Africa. It traditionally has been, and continues to be influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology.[49] The German-speaking countries (Deutscher Sprachraum) are major economic forces in both the European and global economies, with Germany alone having the third largest nominal gross domestic product (GDP) in the world. German has also historically served as a lingua franca in Central and Eastern Europe and to an extent continues to do so.
With over 130 million speakers, over 75 million of whom are native, German is the 12thmost spoken language in the world and most spoken native language in theEuropean Union, where it serves as one of the institution's working languages alongside English and French.
SinceGerman reunification, there have been proposals for the expansion of the United Nations Security Council to include Germany as a permanent sixth member state.[50][51] The country has also actively participated in programs alongside the other permanent UN Security Council member states, giving rise to theP5+1.
On June 19th 2024, the UN dedicated July 1st as UN German Language day.[52]
Hindi is the fourthmost spoken native language in the world, afterMandarin,Spanish, andEnglish.[53] It is one of the official languages ofIndia andFiji and its related dialects are still being spoken by small minorities inNepal. It is mutually intelligible to a high degree withUrdu which is official and spoken in Pakistan and together they are often considered the same language, referred to asHindustani or Hindi–Urdu. Although very similar verbally, they do have different written scripts; Hindi is written in theDevanagari script and Urdu is written in theNastaʿlīq script.Hindi 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.[54][55] Hindi is thelingua franca of the northern part ofIndia, along with Pakistan (as Urdu), with its importance as a global language increasing day by day.[56]
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".[57] According to a 2009 press release from itsMinistry of External Affairs, the Government of India has been "working actively" to haveHindi recognized as an official language of the UN.[58][59] In 2015,Nepal's Vice PresidentParmananda Jha stated his firm support for the inclusion of Hindi as an official language of the UN.[60] The United Nations media site already includes translations into Hindi.
Indonesian, known as Bahasa Indonesia is theofficial andnational language ofIndonesia.[61] It is astandardizedvariety of theSumatrandialect ofMalay and is consideredmutually intelligible withBahasa Melayu,[62] anAustronesian language that has been used as alingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. Indonesia is the fourth mostpopulous nation in the world, with over280 million inhabitants, the majority of whom speak Indonesian, making it the largest language by number of speakers inSoutheast Asia and one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.[63] According to Ethnologue (2025), Indonesian is the10th most commonly spoken language.[64] Indonesian is also prominent on the internet, with one estimate ranking it sixth by number of Internet users.[65] As part of the same Austronesian linguistic family, Indonesian is related toFilipino spoken in thePhilippines.
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.[66]
Persian is apluricentric language spoken inIran where it is known as Farsi,Afghanistan where it is known as Dari, andTajikistan where it is known as Tajik as well asUzbekistan,Turkmenistan,Azerbaijan,Russia,Iraq, most areas of which have aPersianate history or are considered in the cultural sphere ofGreater Iran. The main dialects of Persian,Dari andTajik are generally consideredmutually intelligibility. Classically originating fromAchaemenid Empire and theSassanian Empire, the Persian language andIranian people have arich cultural history of being at the interface of theArabs,Turks, theMughals andDesi peoples.
Spoken by over 127 million people[67] (70 - 90 million L1 speakers and 30 - 50 million L2 speakers, Persian is the cultural language of Iran and is prominent inCentral Asia.
Portuguese is the sixthmost spoken language in the world. ManyLusophones have advocated for greater recognition of their language, which is widely spoken across four continents:Portugal (original place) inEurope;Brazil (the largestlusophone nation) inSouth America;Angola,Mozambique,Cape Verde,Guinea-Bissau,Equatorial Guinea,São Tomé and Príncipe inAfrica;Timor-Leste andMacau inAsia. It is an official language in nine countries and one autonomous territory.
In 2008, thePresident of Portugal announced that the then eight leaders of theCommunity of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) had agreed to take the necessary steps to make Portuguese an official language. The media branch of the UN, UN News, already includes translations into Portuguese.
Swahili is alingua franca throughout eastern Africa and is especially prevalent in theAfrican Great Lakes region. Swahili, known as Kiswahili by its speakers, is an official language ofTanzania,Kenya,Rwanda, theDemocratic Republic of the Congo,[68] is an official language of theAfrican Union and is officially recognized as alingua franca of theEast African Community.[69] 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.[citation needed]
With between 150 and 200 million speakers, the Swahili lexicon is similar to that of other eastern Bantu languages such asComorian, 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 inNew York City,Vienna, andGeneva). The media branch of the UN, UN News,[45] already includes translations into Swahili.[43]
In September 2011, during a meeting with UN Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon,Turkish Prime MinisterRecep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed a desire to seeTurkish become an official UN language.[70][71]
Urdu, the official language ofPakistan, is a standard of thepluricentric language known asHindustani, or Hindi-Urdu, whileHindi is an official language ofIndia. Urdu and Hindi share a common, predominantlySanskrit- andPrakrit-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 fromPersian, 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 theirfirst language while over 200 million people speak it as asecond language. Including Urdu in addition to Hindi, and Bengali, as United Nations Official Languages would allow for greater coverage ofSouth Asia. The media branch of the UN, UN News,[45] already includes translations into Urdu.[43]
In a 1999 resolution, the General Assembly requested the secretary-general to "appoint a senior Secretariat official as coordinator of questions relating tomultilingualism throughout the Secretariat."[72]
The first such coordinator wasFederico Riesco ofChile, appointed on 6 September 2000.[73][74]
Following Riesco's retirement,Miles Stoby ofGuyana was appointed Coordinator for Multilingualism, effective 6 September 2001.[73]
In 2003, Secretary-GeneralKofi Annan appointedShashi Tharoor ofIndia as Coordinator for Multilingualism. This responsibility was in addition to Tharoor's role as under-secretary-general for communications and public information, head of theDepartment of Public Information.[75][76]
The current Coordinator for Multilingualism isCatherine Pollard ofGuyana.[77] She replacesKiyo Akasaka ofJapan, who was also under-secretary-general for communications and public information.[78][79]
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.[80] In 2020 Portuguese Language Day was added and in 2022 Swahili Language Day was added. The days and their historical significance are:
UN independent agencies have their own sets of official languages that sometimes are different from that of the principal UN organs.[90] For example, the General Conference ofUNESCO has ten official languages including Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, and Portuguese.[91] TheUniversal Postal Union has just one official language, French.[92]IFAD has four official languages: Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.[93][94]
The next largest international grouping after the UN is theCommonwealth of Nations[citation needed] which is exclusively English speaking and has 56 members, and theOrganisation internationale de la francophonie 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 alusophone grouping of countries for the same reason.
Title Universal Declaration of Human Rights: translation into Chinese {...} Language(s) 中文 (Chinese){...}Alternate names: Beifang Fangyan, Guanhua, Guoyu, Hanyu, Huayu, Mandarin, Northern Chinese, Putonghua, Standard Chinese, Zhongguohua, Zhongwen
The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, twelfth edition, is the current authority for spelling in the United Nations.
