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In 1990, the Hong Kong Basic Law affirmed English's co-official language status with Chinese after the 1997 handover. No variety of Chinese has been specified to be official in Hong Kong; while it is usually understood that by Chinese Modern Standard Chinese is meant, Cantonese is the vernacular variety spoken by most of the population. [8]
The following chart lists countries and dependencies along with their capital cities, in English and non-English official language(s). In bold: internationally recognized sovereign states. The 193 member states of the United Nations (UN) Vatican City (administered by the Holy See, a UN observer state), which is generally recognized as a ...
As of 2024, there are 57 sovereign states and 28 non-sovereign entities where English is an official language. Many administrative divisions have declared English an official language at the local or regional level. Most states where English is an official language are former territories of the British Empire.
Official language A language designated as having a unique legal status in the state: typically, the language used in a nation's legislative bodies, and often, official government business. Regional language A language designated as having official status limited to a specific area, administrative division, or territory of the state.
The European Union is a supranational union composed of 27 member states. The total English-speaking population of the European Union and the United Kingdom combined (2012) is 256,876,220 [70] (out of a total population of 500,000,000, [71] i.e. 51%) including 65,478,252 native speakers and 191,397,968 non-native speakers, and would be ranked 2nd if it were included.
This is a list of countries by number of languages according to the 22nd edition of Ethnologue (2019). [ 1 ] Papua New Guinea has the largest number of languages in the world.
This category lists countries and territories where English is used as either a first or native language or an official language The main article for this category is English-speaking world . Portals :
Slightly over half the population (58.7%) speaks English, the other official language; [2] 4.6% are native speakers, and 54.1% speak English as a second language. [3] Code-switching , mixing English and Cantonese in informal conversation, is common among the bilingual population. [ 332 ]