The United Nations has a large number of countries in its membership. However, business negotiations and correspondence of this organization is carried out only in a few specific languages. Such official languages of the UN, the list of which is relatively small, were not chosen by chance. They are the result of a careful and balanced approach.
Six languages
Only a few world languages are recognized as official UN languages. Their choice was influenced by many factors, including prevalence. There are six official UN languages. These include, of course, the Russian language. The choice in favor of English and Chinese is obvious - a huge number of people around the world speak these languages. In addition to those listed, Arabic, Spanish and French have received the status of an official language. All these languages are official in more than a hundred countries of the world, they are spoken by more than 2,800 million people.
Historic moments
The history of the official languages of the UN began after the end of World War II. The UN Charter, concluded in the United States on June 26, 1945, was originally signed in five language versions. Among them, there was no Arabic language. This is evidenced by article 111 of this document, which also states that all copies, regardless of the language of compilation, are authentic.
In 1946, the General Assembly approved the rules according to which it was required to treat all languages equally, and that five languages should be used in all bodies subordinate to the UN. At the same time, the listed official languages of the UN were considered official, and English and French were considered working. A year later, the organization removed the requirement that the official languages of the UN, the list of which then consisted of only five positions, should have the same status in other organizations.
In 1968, Russian, one of the official languages of the UN, received the status of a working language.
In 1973, Chinese was additionally recognized as a working language. Also added as an official language is Arabic, which also became the working language of the General Assembly. In this way, all official languages simultaneously became working languages.
In 1983, all six official languages of the UN were recognized by the Security Council. In this organization, they also became both official and at the same time workers.
It is noteworthy that all UN Secretaries General had a working knowledge of English and French.
Using languages
The official languages of the UN are used at all kinds of meetings and gatherings of this largest organization in its size. In particular, they are used during the General Assembly and the meeting of the heads of the Security Council participants. The languages listed above are also used during the Economic and Social Council.
The meaning of this status is that any member of the UN has the right to speak any of these official languages. However, this does not in any way limit his right to use another language. If a representative of a country speaks a language other than the official language, simultaneous interpreters will interpret into the official language. In addition, the task of simultaneous interpreters is to interpret from one official language to the other five.
Documentation at the UN
Office work in the organization is also conducted in all six languages. Moreover, if a document is translated, for example, only into four languages, and not translated into the remaining two, then such a document will not be published without being interpreted in all official languages. The authority of the texts is the same - no matter what the language of its presentation.
Parity of languages
At one time, the leadership of the UN was criticized due to its penchant for using English, and, accordingly, for insufficient attention to other official languages. UN member states whose population speaks Spanish raised this issue with Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2001. At that time, K. Annan explained such an imbalance betweensix languages because the budget of the organization does not allow to properly take into account all the subtleties and nuances of translation into each language. However, he took note of the appeal and argued that the situation should be corrected by paying attention to the sufficient use of each official language.
This controversial moment was resolved in 2008-2009, when the General Assembly approved a resolution according to which the Secretariat was entrusted with the task of maintaining parity between all official languages. Particular attention was required to be paid to the translation of information to be released to the public.
June 8, 2007, the United Nations passed a resolution regarding the management of human resources working in it. At the same time, the document deliberately emphasized the high importance of the equality of all 6 official languages without exception.
On October 4, 2010, the Secretary General prepared a report on multilingualism, and about six months later the General Assembly asked him to provide guarantees that all the official and working languages of the UN will be equal, that they will be created the necessary conditions for their normal functioning. At the same time, a resolution was adopted by the body of the international community, which noted that the development of the official website of the UN (on the part of multilingualism) is taking place at a slower pace than previously envisaged.
UN Specialized Agencies
It is known that the UN hasindependent organizations or institutions that carry out their activities autonomously. Such departments include, for example, UNESCO, the Universal Postal Union and others. Notably, other languages may be considered official languages in these independent UN bodies. So, in the Universal Postal Union, only French is used, it is the only official one. In contrast, UNESCO officially recognizes nine languages, including Portuguese and Italian, as well as Hindi. The International Fund for Agricultural Development has only four official languages used by its members. This is Arabic, Spanish, French and English.
Language Coordinator
Back in 1999, the General Assembly held an appeal to the Secretary General by adopting a resolution that requested the creation and appointment of a senior official of the Secretariat. This official was responsible for coordinating all issues related to multilingualism.
On December 6, 2000, Federico Riesco Chile was the first to be appointed to this position. The next coordinator for multilingualism was Miles Stobi of Guyana, who was appointed to the post on September 6, 2001.
Shashi Tarur was appointed to the position of coordinator in 2003 by Kofi Annan. In parallel, he was also involved as Deputy Secretary General in charge of communications and public information.
Currently as Coordinator formultilingualist is Kiyo Akasaka from Japan. Just like Shashi Tarur, he combines his work with the position of head of the public information department.
Language Days
Since 2010, the UN has been celebrating the so-called language days, each of which is for one of the 6 official languages of the UN. This initiative is supported by the Department of Public Information in order to celebrate the linguistic diversity of the organization, as well as to gain knowledge and information about the importance of intercultural communication. Each day of a certain language is associated with some significant historical event that took place in the country of this language.
- Arabic – December 18 is the date that Arabic was designated as an official UN language.
- Russian - June 6 - the date of birth of A. S. Pushkin.
- English – April 23 is Shakespeare's birth date.
- Spanish - October 12th is considered "Columbus Day" in Spain.
- Chinese - April 20 - in honor of Cang Jie.
- French – March 20th is the founding day of the International.
Parallel with the European Union
The European Union is another large multilingual organization made up of several countries. Each of these countries, of course, has its own language. Therefore, in this union there is a main rule that all languages of the participating countries are equal. All documentation and office work should be kept in these languages, and appropriate translations should be made. At the same time, as the Union grew and included other states (northern Scandinavian and Eastern European), these new members did not require the European Union to give their language official status, justifying this with knowledge of any of the main languages. Such in the union are English, German, Italian, French and Spanish. Indeed, this position of the new members of the organization is confirmed by the fact that almost all diplomats have a good knowledge of at least one of the listed languages. Most new members prefer to speak in English. In addition, it should be noted that in the European Union, the most ardent supporters of multilingualism are the French.
Use of official languages in other international organizations
Other international organizations, such as those specializing in trade, sports, and others, tend to use English, but along with this, there is a frequent use of French, in many communities it is official.
International organizations with a regional scope generally use the language that is characteristic of their ethnic or religious composition. Thus, Arabic is used in Muslim organizations, while in the main part of non-Muslim Africa, either French or English is used as official languages (the colonial past left a great influence).
The desire of other languages to become official in the UN
Recently, many other languages are willing to become official world languages of the UN. Many countries are fighting for this right. So, among these countries we can distinguish Turkey, Portugal, India and others. In 2009, Bengali was proposed as the new official language and is the seventh most spoken language. The Prime Minister of Bangladesh advocated for this.
Despite the fact that a huge number of people speak Hindi, the desire of the Indian leadership to establish this language as an official language was not accepted. This was explained by the fact that Hindi is very little spread around the world, and almost all people who speak it are concentrated in the region of this state.
There was a proposal to choose Esperanto as the main official language, which would replace all existing languages, thereby reducing the cost of the organization's budget, saving on translations.
