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Countries by Official Language

Based on the official languages, name the country.
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: September 18, 2019
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First submittedDecember 12, 2011
Times taken141,072
Average score70.0%
Rating4.93
4:00
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Official Languages
Country
Danish
Denmark
Dutch, French, German
Belgium
German, French, Italian, Romansh
Switzerland
Greek, Turkish
Cyprus
Hebrew
Israel
Khmer
Cambodia
Arabic, Kurdish
Iraq
English, Afrikaans, Zulu, others...
South Africa
Catalan
Andorra
Sinhala, Tamil
Sri Lanka
Official Languages
Country
English, Maori
New Zealand
Pashto, Persian
Afghanistan
Tagalog, English
Philippines
Hindi, English
India
English, Malay, Chinese, Tamil
Singapore
Sesotho, English
Lesotho
Italian, Latin
Vatican City
Amharic
Ethiopia
English, Urdu
Pakistan
Malagasy, French
Madagascar
+50
Level 50
Dec 12, 2011
lol Sesotho and Lesotho.
+15
Level 27
Feb 23, 2013
Every other knows where is spoken Tagalog, but they don't know where is spoken Amharic... Just weird
+22
Level 82
Aug 23, 2014
Yeah there are very sizeable Filipino expat communities in many of the countries that are likely home to the people who take these quizzes. There are many Ethiopians in some of those places, as well, but not as many. Also the Philippines receives more tourism.
+3
Level 66
Jan 13, 2019
one is at 60 % and the other at 53% Pretty close imo (and both pretty high, then again, not THAT high on a quiz site, but for a normal audience quite high
+3
Level 82
Jan 19, 2019
It's 60% to 25% right now
+1
Level 66
Jan 25, 2019
Yea I just noticed, I saw my numbers and thought huh has it changed that much in such short amount of time.. I guess I missed ve been looking at lesotho which IS at 53.
+3
Level 60
Dec 5, 2021
I agree, and the answer is obvious, in Amharica of course !
+12
Level 65
Sep 1, 2014
I did a mini country thing on Lesotho, it was interesting to learn that the country is lesotho, language is sesotho, and demonym are mosotho (singular) and basotho (plural)
+1
Level 78
Aug 12, 2020
Interesting that their inflections are at the beginning of the word, whereas we Westerners are used to inflected endings.
+5
Level 45
Dec 5, 2021
It is a feature of the Bantu languages (of which Sesotho is a member). Swahili is similar: Kenya is the country, Mkenya is a Kenyan person, Wakenya is Kenyan people. If there were a language called Kenyan, it would be called Kikenya in Swahili!
+2
Level 78
Sep 6, 2022
Great knowledge.
+1
Level 65
Dec 29, 2022
Yes! These are actually examples of the same grammatical feature called "gender" in some languages, which is why you might hear that Swahili has 16 genders. The term for the grammatical feature in general is "noun classes", and they are mainly called genders when associated with terms such as masculine and feminine which is common in Indo-European languages.

It's also a defining feature of the Atlantic-Congo language family which Bantu is a branch of.

+1
Level 17
Feb 20, 2016
Yeah I could tell because of that
+4
Level 52
Sep 20, 2019
Gosh, if everyone's language rhymed with their country like this, it would be much easier! :-)
+1
Level 76
Dec 13, 2011
20/20 :)
+2
Level 67
Apr 3, 2012
Malaysia would be a more obvious answer for the Singapore one.
+16
Level 25
Apr 13, 2014
But they're not the official languages of Malaysia, only of Singapore...
+4
Level 82
Aug 23, 2014
The proportion of people in Malaysia who speak Tamil is extremely small. It would be very surprising if they made it an official language. In Singapore, not surprising at all.
+1
Level 41
Aug 26, 2016
it is official in singapore
+4
Level 82
Dec 6, 2016
You say that as if we didn't already know.
+6
Level 75
Jan 9, 2021
Singapore is in Asia.
+1
Level 53
Apr 13, 2021
And is a city-state.
+4
Level 21
Sep 1, 2014
But only Singapore has those four languages as OFFICIAL
+1
Level 37
Apr 3, 2012
This quiz is good
+1
Level 62
Aug 29, 2021
Try my Countries By Official Language! It's a map version of this quiz, with all 196 countries.
+1
Level 20
Apr 12, 2012
Just missed Afghanistan and Sri Lanka... Fun quiz, though :)
+3
Level 42
Feb 19, 2013
The only reason I got Lesotho is because Sesotho sounds alot like it so i just guessed it as that.
+1
Level 82
Jun 4, 2013
Fun quiz, got 100%. Only one that stumped me for a while was Madagascar but I picked it up eventually. I'm surprised that so many people have not heard of Amharic.
+1
Level 75
Jun 9, 2014
Count me as one. It's the only one I missed.
+2
Level 84
Dec 29, 2015
I'm old enough to remember learning the name of the country as "Malagasy Republic (1958-1975), though near the end of that range.
+9
Level 71
Jul 11, 2013
For New Zealand they should also have Sign Language as it was made an official language in 2006
+2
Level 46
Aug 3, 2016
Good to know! :)
+1
Level 50
Sep 20, 2019
Yes, this is true, and it should be added.
+1
Level 67
Dec 5, 2021
That is such a New Zealand thing to do.
+1
Level 21
Jul 17, 2013
nice quiz i got 100% with 0.33 left
+1
Level 85
Feb 18, 2014
challenging quiz but got 100% with 35 seconds left. took some guessing of course like many others have admitted. But I did pull Ethiopia out towards end with some logical deducting.
+3
Level 69
Aug 23, 2014
Unbelievable to see tha 3% dont do any relation between Danish and Denmark...
+1
Level 71
Aug 24, 2014
I loved the first question, thanks for breaking us in gently. The whole thing was fun, quite challenging but not crazy hard. I missed four, which I was fairly happy with. Thank you for makin this fun quiz
+1
Level 37
Nov 6, 2014
Please accept, Afganistan for Afghanistan. It was the only reason I failed in the quiz and kept wondering what country I couldn't think of when I knew all along. Afganistan is accepted in pretty much all of the other quizzez across the site.
+6
Level 43
Dec 5, 2021
It is correctly spelled as "Afghanistan". It doesn't matter whether the other quizzes accept "Afganistan". It is still a wrong spelling of the country's name.
+1
Level 79
Sep 29, 2015
Rather too easy, so I've rated this quiz only '3'. I did enjoy it, but finished with plenty of time to spare.
+2
Level 72
Dec 7, 2015
You forgot the 2 other official languages for Vatican that would make that even more tricky: French and German. German is used by the Swiss Guards and French is its official diplomacy language. Vatican is actually enlisted as French-speaking country in the international organizations.
+1
Level 65
Mar 25, 2016
Ethiopia was the only one I missed...I got Madagascar on a hunch, having never head of Malagsay.
+1
Level 68
Jul 23, 2016
Got 100% with 2:31 left! I was surprised I got Madagascar, I recognized the word Malagasy but forgot which country it was from. Also worth noting that Tigrinya is an official language in Ethiopia as well.
+1
Level 43
Aug 12, 2016
19/20, missed Iraq. So close!
+1
Level 57
Dec 6, 2016
Dept. of Small Worlds. By total chance, I was reading on Wikipedia about EU & African official languages about 2 hours ago. There are several challenging quizzes beckoning from those pages!
+2
Level 70
Dec 6, 2016
New Zealand: English. Māori, NZ Sign Language; Afghanistan: Pashto and Dari (a variety of Persian); Philippines: Filipino and English; Vatican: Italian (The Holy See is Latin)
+2
Level 68
Dec 6, 2016
Yes, this ^
+1
Level 68
Sep 20, 2019
Yeah but that’s a bit pedantic. Tajik Persian, Dari, Persianate etc. It’s effectively English VS Aussie English. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_language
+1
Level 48
Dec 5, 2021
To be even more pedantic, technically English isn't even official in NZ, it's just Maori and NZ Sign Language
+1
Level 69
Dec 6, 2016
Isn't Flemish the second most spoken language in Belgium? And it's not on the list, yet German and Dutch are. I've been to Belgium many times, yet I have rarely heard anybody from Belgium speak German or Dutch, particularly not German.
+4
Level 74
Dec 6, 2016
Flemish is a variant of dutch. German in Belgium is mostly spoken in the German Community in the very east around Malmedy and Eupen.
+1
Level 66
Jan 13, 2019
they speak dutch in belgium, just with an accent. And have a slightly different idiom, but it is still considered the same language and merely a dialect of dutch.
+1
Level 50
Sep 20, 2019
I don't know much about the differences between Flemish and Dutch (though I gather there's not a great deal of difference), but those three languages are official, whether they are widely spoken or not.
+1
Level 58
Dec 5, 2021
Flemish (a name for the various dialects of Dutch spoken in Belgium and northern France) is the first-most spoken language in the country, not the second.

The official language of Flanders and of the Flemish community is standard Dutch (i.e. Dutch of Amsterdam). It is also an official language in Brussels.

While it is probably correct to say that the official languages of Belgium are Dutch, French, and German, it's worth pointing out that these languages are official within their communities and that Dutch, for example, is not an official language of the French community. In that sense, Belgium has no official languages on a national level.

+1
Level 58
Dec 6, 2016
great quiz, just missed ethiopia!!! argh!!! keep up the good work quizmaster
+1
Level 67
Dec 6, 2016
Amharic. Not a chance of me jagging that one.
+1
Level 41
Dec 6, 2016
YAY! 20/20!
+2
Level 33
Dec 11, 2016
Afghanistan should be Pashto and Dari, not Persian
+6
Level 68
Sep 20, 2019
Dari is Persian.
+1
Level 67
Dec 19, 2016
This is a good quiz. Are there any more?
+1
Level 57
Jun 22, 2017
Great Quiz!
+1
Level 31
Jul 3, 2017
Good Quiz 100 percent 1st time XD
+1
Level 37
Jul 26, 2017
I love it when people argue with people indigenous to a country over what that country's official language is/should be.
+1
Level 45
Aug 30, 2017
catalan is speaked in spain and andorra.
+6
Level 59
Aug 31, 2017
The quiz is about official languages, not where they are spoken. Catalan, although official within the autonomous community of Catalonia, is NOT an official language of the Kingdom of Spain (this quiz only refers to offical languages of the whole sovereign nation).
+1
Level 45
Mar 7, 2019
ethiopia???
+1
Level 64
Jul 8, 2019
Lol, nearly nobody knows Malagasy! It's just weird I DO!!! XD
+1
Level 64
Sep 13, 2019
Just to be precise, Ethiopia don't have an official language
+8
Level 68
Sep 20, 2019
Just to be precise, it does. Do your research before commenting. A quick google does the trick.
+3
Level 76
Sep 20, 2019
I thought Arabic was an official language of Israel as well, but it was apparently removed in 2018. So the quiz is right!
+1
Level 74
Sep 20, 2019
1:32 left
+5
Level 32
Sep 21, 2019
I would definitely add yellow boxes to this quiz. i guessed several answers correctly by accident while trying to guess a different box!
+1
Level 62
May 22, 2020
I got 7 just from guessing, and over all I got 17/20 so a lot actually.
+1
Level 43
Sep 27, 2019
Afghanistan is Pashto (southern portion of the country) and Dari (the official language of government). Dari differs from Farsi and is thus a different language. It would be like labeling the official languages of France, Portugal, Spain, and Italy all as "Romantic." It's true, but not very specific as the root isn't the language.
+2
Level 43
Dec 5, 2021
No, Dari and Farsi is more like American and British English, not the Romance languages. They are 2 different standard varieties of the same language, Persian.
+2
Level 36
Nov 26, 2019
New Zealand should also have NZ Sign Language. It was made an official language so should be added. But great quiz :)
+1
Level 49
Dec 1, 2020
Error: the vatican city states official language is italian. latin is the official language of the holy see, a different entity
+1
Level 48
Dec 5, 2021
Typing Holy See does work
+1
Level 67
Jun 1, 2021
Only missed Lesotho which I should've gotten cuz it rhymes. Somehow took me a while to get Belgium and I think I kept misspelling Switzerland
+1
Level 61
Dec 5, 2021
Hey, the official language of India is not just Hindi and English, there are 22 'scheduled' languages that have equal official status, not just Hindi and English
+2
Level 59
Dec 5, 2021
This isn't a comprehensive list of all a country's official languages, it is a selection of them
+2
Level 43
Dec 5, 2021
But the official languages at national level are only Hindi and English.
+1
Level 32
Apr 8, 2022
Cool quiz!
+3
Level 65
Oct 30, 2022
If your reading the comments for answers try የኢትዮጵያ ፌዴራላዊ ዴሞክራሲ.
+1
Level 20
Feb 25, 2024
If someone actually did it 😂😂
+1
Level 66
Nov 7, 2022
Not too difficult.
+1
Level 44
Jul 16, 2023
Since 2020, Ethiopia has added Tigrinya, Afar, Oromo, and Somali as official languages as well
+1
Level 36
Nov 6, 2023
with new zealand i am from there and sign language is an official language
+1
Level 43
Nov 6, 2023
Just barely made it :')
+1
Level 20
Feb 25, 2024
Scoring

You scored 19/20 = 95%

This beats or equals 80.7% of test takers

The average score is 14

Your high score is 19

Forgot Madagascar !!