The Open Atlas Blog

Most people in Russian speak Russian, while the majority of Estonians express themselves in Estonian. So what do people from Belarus speak? Belarusian, right? If you were to ask a someone from Belarus what language they grew up with or use at home, you might expect that to be the answer. Belarusian is one of the two official languages there and the traditional language of the Belarusian people. Despite this however,  a majority of the Belarusian population are more like to express themselves the nation's other official language - Russian.  While the use of Russian on former Soviet nations is common, it's normally in tandem with the local language. In Kazakhstan, the majority of the population speaks both Russian and Kazakh and the use of Russian is common in Moldova alongside Romanian/Moldovan. In Belarus, however, Belarusian isn't so much being spoken alongside Russian as it is being displaced by it. Surveys vary, but about 70% of Belarusians use Russian at home,...

There's a linguistic trend going on in the Americas. Generally speaking the language of the colonizers has been and continues to be the main language of the state while indigenous languages have been spoken by much smaller and more geographically isolated groups. Again this the trend, not the rule, but you if you look at the official languages from Canada to Chile you'll notice a certain pattern. Paraguay, however is an exception to the general linguistics trends. While Spanish became an extremely important language (spoken by more than 90% of the population), it did not supplant native tongues so thoroughly as happened in other countries. Today, Paraguay has two official languages - Spanish and Guarani, both of which are enshrined in the country's constitution. This made Guarani the first Amerindian language to attain the status of a country's official language. Today other indigenous languages are recognised and named as official in South American by co...

If you look at the constitution of Vietnam (as one is want to do), you'll see that it names Vietnamese of the country's national language  in no uncertain terms . So, what would we say is Vietnam's official language? While it's tempting to assume that it's the same, Vietnam doesn't technically have an official language. Conversely, Myanmar and Laos both have official languages but no national ones. So what exactly is going? Moreover, what exactly is the difference between a  nation language  and an  official language ? Let's start with official languages. The majority of country's that have name some language as being important normally refer to it as their official language or state language.  Countries like Laos, Myanmar, Jamaica, New Zealand and Poland have one official language. Other countries, like Haiti, Morocco and Belarus have two. So what is an official language? Putting it plainly, the entire notion of an 'official language...