Official languages of the United Nations. Which languages are official in the UN?

The United Nations has a large number of countries. However, business negotiations and correspondence of this organization are carried out only in several specific languages. Such official UN languages, the list of which is relatively small, was chosen not accidentally. They were the result of a thorough and balanced approach.

Six languages

Only a few world languages are recognized as official UN languages. Many factors influenced their choice, including prevalence. In all, there are six official languages of the United Nations. These include, of course, the Russian language. Clear choice in favor of the English language and Chinese - in these languages, talk a lot of people around the world. In addition to these, the official language status was Arabic, Spanish and French. All these languages are public in more than one hundred countries of the world, over 2,800 million people speak to them.

Historical moments

The history of the official languages of the United Nations 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. This is evidenced by Article 111 of this document, which also reads 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 organs subordinate to the UN. In this case, the listed official languages of the United Nations were considered official, and English and French - workers. A year later, the organization eliminated the requirement that the official UN languages, the list of which then consisted of only five positions, should have the same status in other organizations.

In 1968, the status of the worker received the Russian language, one of the official languages of the United Nations.

In 1973, the working language was additionally recognized as Chinese. Also added as an official Arabic language, it also became the working language of the General Assembly. In this way all official languages simultaneously became workers.

In 1983, all six official languages of the United Nations became 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 practical knowledge of English and French.

Using languages

The official UN languages are used at all kinds of meetings and meetings of this largest organization in its size. In particular, they are used in the conduct of the General Assembly and the meeting of the heads of the members of the Security Council. The languages listed above apply also to 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 its right to use another language. If the representative of any country will not speak the official language, the simultaneous translators will translate to the official language. In addition, the task of simultaneous translators is to translate 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, into only four languages, and the remaining two are not translated, then such a document will not be published without interpretation in all official languages. The authority of texts in this case is the same - no matter what the language of his presentation.

Parity of languages

At one time, the UN leadership was criticized for its propensity to use English, and, accordingly, for insufficient attention to other official languages. The UN member countries, whose population speaks Spanish, in 2001 raised this issue with Secretary - General Kofi Annan. At that time, K. Annan explained such an imbalance between the six languages by the fact that the organization's budget does not allow proper consideration of all the subtleties and nuances of translation into each language. However, he took note of this appeal and spoke out for the fact that the situation needs to be corrected, 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 among all official languages. Particular attention was required to pay for the translation of information subject to public dissemination.

On June 8, 2007, the United Nations issued a resolution concerning the management of human resources working in it. At the same time, the document deliberately stressed the high importance of the equality of all, without exception, 6 official languages.

On October 4, 2010, the Secretary General prepared a report on multilingualism, and about half a year later the General Assembly asked him to provide assurances that all official and working languages of the United Nations would be equal in rights, that they would create the necessary conditions for their normal functioning. At the same time, the international community adopted a resolution, which noted that the development of the official UN website (from the side of multilingualism) is proceeding at a slower pace than previously envisaged.

The specialized agencies of the United Nations

It is known that the UN also has independent organizations or institutions that carry out their activities autonomously. Such departments include, for example, UNESCO, the Universal Postal Union and others. It is noteworthy that other languages can be considered official languages in these independent UN bodies. So, in the Universal Postal Union only French is used, it is the only official language. In UNESCO, on the contrary, nine languages are officially recognized, among them Portuguese and Italian, as well as Hindi. The International Fund for Agricultural Development has only four languages used by its members at the official level. This is Arabic, Spanish, French and English.

Language Coordinator

As early as 1999, the General Assembly appealed to the Secretary-General by adopting a resolution requesting the establishment 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 appointed first to this post. The next multilingual coordinator was Miles Stobi of Guyana, who was appointed to the post on September 6, 2001.

Shashi Terur was appointed to the position of coordinator in 2003 by Kofi Annan. In parallel, he was also involved as Deputy Secretary General, dealing with communications and public information issues.

Currently, Kiyo Akasaka from Japan is the coordinator for multilingualism. Just like Shashi Terur, he combines his work with the position of the head of the Public Information Department.

Language Days

Since 2010, the UN has celebrated so-called language days, each of which is intended for one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Such an initiative is supported by the Public Information Department in order to celebrate the linguistic diversity of the organization, as well as to gain knowledge and information about the importance of intercultural communication. Every day a certain language is associated with some significant historical event that occurred in the country of this language.

• Arabic - December 18 - the date of the definition of the Arabic language as the official language of the United Nations.
• Russian - June 6 - A.S. Pushkin.
• English - April 23 - the date of birth of Shakespeare.
• Spanish - October 12 - is considered in Spain as the "Columbus Day".
• Chinese - April 20 - in honor of Tsang Jie.
• French - March 20 - the day of the creation of the International.

Parallel with the European Union

The European Union is another large multilingual organization consisting of several countries. Each of these countries, of course, has its own language. Therefore, in this alliance there is a main rule that all the languages of the participating countries are equal. All documentation and records management should be conducted in these languages, and appropriate translations should be made. However, as the Union grew and other countries (northern Scandinavian and Eastern European countries joined it), these new participants did not require the European Union to give their language an official status, justifying it by knowing one of the main languages. Such in the union are English, German, Italian, French and Spanish. Indeed, this position of new members of the organization is confirmed by the fact that almost all diplomats have good knowledge in at least one of the listed languages. Most new participants prefer to speak in English. In addition, it should be noted that in the European Union the most ardent advocates of multilingualism are the French.

Use of official languages in other international organizations

Other international organizations, for example, specializing in trade, in sports, and others are inclined to use English, but at the same time there is frequent use of the French language, in many communities it is official.

International organizations that have a regional dimension basically use the language that is characteristic of their ethnic or religious composition. Thus, in Muslim organizations Arabic is used, and in the main part of non-Muslim Africa, either French or English is used as official languages (the colonial past left a great deal of influence).

The desire of other languages to get official status in the UN

Recently, many other languages have become the official world languages of the United Nations. Many countries are fighting for this right. So, among these countries can be identified Turkey, Portugal, India and others. In 2009, as the new official language, Bengali was offered, which ranks seventh among the most spoken languages. For this, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh was speaking.

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 distributed around the world, and practically all people who speak it are concentrated in the region of this state.

There was a proposal to choose as the main official language - Esperanto, which would replace all the working languages, thereby reducing the cost of the organization's budget, saving on translations.