Hmm, I'm not sure. Amhara is the name of the ethnic group who speak Amharic. I only checked the Wikipedia article, but that one doesn't list Amhara as an alternative name for the language.
Sweden does not have an official language. It is de facto the majority language and it's official when Sweden represents outwards. There are five official minority languages though (finnish, yiddish, meänkieli, romani and sami).
Swedish was officially made the "main language" in 2009. ( https://web.archive.org/web/20141110205547/http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/Dokument-Lagar/Lagar/Svenskforfattningssamling/Spraklag-2009600_sfs-2009-600/ ) It's unclear if this should be interpreted to mean the same thing as a national or official language.
Truly puzzled that The Netherlands is now depicted as a de facto language rather than a de jure language, and wondering where the decision to note it as a de facto language came from.
I looked at the Dutch government's own website where it implicitly states that Dutch is indeed the official language, and that Fries (Frisian) is the second official language in that particular province. Papiamento and English are also considered as official languages in the Caribbean Netherlands.
So you have two languages for India and half a dozen or more for South Africa. Really? Do you have any idea how many languages are spoken in India’s relatively small neighbour Pakistan let alone India? Here allow me to list them all(for Pakistan):
English, Urdu, pashto, Punjabi,Sindhi, saraiki, Baltit, Farsi, Hindko, Baluchi, Brahui etc. That’s not even exhaustive.
Now divide the land area of India by Pakistan, and multiply the languages above, and that’s APPROXIMATELY how many MAIN languages are spoken in India.
I don’t know that much about China, but seeing as how you missed Cantonese I’m guessing you made similar omission there as well. Please correct.
Some of those are working languages in various institutions, but they're not official languages of the Vatican City. Italian is the official language of the Vatican City, and Latin is the official language of the Holy See. What the difference between the Vatican City and the Holy See is, is a difficult question...
Non British/Irish Europeans, how would you describe your proficiency in English? How much it is stressed to know it in your country and why? I've heard that most Europeans know English as a second language.
In Sweden it's taught from 4th grade normally. There are some who start even earlier. Finland has a similar situation, though I don't know the details. There's more American than Swedish shows on TV.
In Finland I started learning English on 3th grade and Swedish on 7th grade. I use English every day and my reading and listening comprehension are very good, writing is weaker and speaking is much weaker. The most difficult things in writing are articles and prepositions, because Finnish doesn't have articles and has 15 cases.
When I was writing this answer, I first wrote "at 3th grade", but then I changed it "on 3th grade", and I am not sure, whether either of them is correct. So, often choosing the correct preposition is still a guessing game for me.
What's your source for that? I can only see that French is a "recognized second language", so not an official or national language. I don't see any mention of English having an official status.
Sami, that is not a single language, is not a national language in Norway. 3 different sami languages are official in some municipalities: Northern Sami in 8, Lule Sami in 1, and Southern Sami in 4.
Thanks for the comment. Wikipedia was quite ambiguous whether it/they were official on the national level. But then I checked the source given, and it says that Sami is official only in the their areas administration. So not the whole country. I decided to remove Sami, but it will take a while before this change takes effect.
It seems to me that 90% of the time, when a country only has one official language (and it's not a colonized language like English/Spanish/etc.) then it's just some form of the country name. Polish. Nepali. Albanian. Japanese. Lao. Malay. I can't even tell you how many I got just because I typed in the country name +ese/i/ian
Mauritius has no official language as per our constitution. Mauritian Creole is the mother tongue of around 95% of the population and our most common day to day language. English is the most common working language with French as the second most common working language and it is also the second most popular language for conversations. French is the main language of our media. English and French are also very commonly used in conversations, specially among the younger generations. We are proudly trilingual (at least) and it is very common to hear many people using Mauritian Creole, French and English during a conversation. Bhojpuri is the mother tongue of around 5% of the population and is quite popular as the first or second language of the older generation of people of Indian origin (around two third of the population is of Indian origin, mainly the Hindu and the Muslim population).
Taiwan (Republic of China) has passed the National Languages Development Law, now we Taiwanese have multiple national languages, including Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, Matsu, and Formosan languages. Also, Taiwan does not have an official language so national language is all we have.
By the way, Chinese is not a language but more like a language family since for example, Mandarin and Cantonese are definitely mutual unintelligible, so please do not include Chinese as a correct type in.
I feel having only 3 for bolivia and zimbabwe is not fair as S. africa has 12, and all are included, i'd say narrow all above five down to the five most prominant
It seems that there is some confusion regarding the distinction between Sotho and Northern Sotho. Could you please clarify the difference between the two? I think that Sotho should be considered as both Northern and Southern Sotho. Other than that, I enjoyed the game.
I tried Creole but I guess it doesn't count because there's multiple variations of it for different countries like Haitian, Mauritian and Seychellois. Got 85
The Wikipedia Page for the Vatican City does mention Latin in the sidebar, yes. However if you follow the source it cites, you'll notice that source actually doesn't say that - in fact it says quite the opposite: that Latin is not an official language of the Vatican.
Also on that same Wikipedia page, if you scroll down to the section on Languages it expands on that and correctly explains that while Latin is used on official documents for the Holy See, it is not an official language of the Vatican.
TL;DR - the sidebar on the Wikipedia page is wrong.
What do you mean Mali's language is called "they wear it"? Despite how they felt towards the French, according to Google their national language is still French.
The quiz info says Bolivia, Zimbabwe, and Mali all have the most prominent languages shown because they have so many (which is fair). Bolivia and Zimbabwe each have three languages in the quiz, whereas Mali only has one. Should Mali have three too?
The United Kingdom doesn't have an official language. The overwhelming majority of people speak English. That's why English is the de-facto national language.
Welsh is spoken by a tiny minority. Even in Wales, few speak it as their first language.
Why not add Polish or Punjabi? Those languages have more speakers in the UK than Welsh does.
Because Welsh is an indigenous language, whereas Polish and Punjabi are not. Welsh is a de jure official language of Wales, but I guess it is omitted because this quiz treats Wales as a "region", and not a country, in the United Kingdom.
English is (surprisingly) not an official language of New Zealand. Only Maori and NZ Sign Language are. Recent attempts to enshrine English legally as an official language have gone nowhere. At the recent 2023 general election one party leader (whose party, NZ First, gained 6% of the vote) campaigned on making English official.
I'll encourage you to sign this petition if you want English to be an official language of New Zealand (and make the quiz answer correct in the process).
Okay, I accept it. The problem is that English is of course the de-facto national language of New Zealand. And we have the bizarre situation where Maori is official and English is not.
So it defeats my color scheme system. Maybe I'll do something about it at some point.
It’s not defacto, it’s de facto. It’s not dejure, it’s de jure. Please use an en or em dash instead of a hyphen in the second caveat. The Bahamas, not Bahamas. The Gambia, not Gambia. Not enough time. Rated 1 star
I looked at the Dutch government's own website where it implicitly states that Dutch is indeed the official language, and that Fries (Frisian) is the second official language in that particular province. Papiamento and English are also considered as official languages in the Caribbean Netherlands.
English, Urdu, pashto, Punjabi,Sindhi, saraiki, Baltit, Farsi, Hindko, Baluchi, Brahui etc. That’s not even exhaustive.
Now divide the land area of India by Pakistan, and multiply the languages above, and that’s APPROXIMATELY how many MAIN languages are spoken in India.
I don’t know that much about China, but seeing as how you missed Cantonese I’m guessing you made similar omission there as well. Please correct.
(From America so ignorant to this stuff)
When I was writing this answer, I first wrote "at 3th grade", but then I changed it "on 3th grade", and I am not sure, whether either of them is correct. So, often choosing the correct preposition is still a guessing game for me.
South Africa and Ethiopia are killers
By the way, Chinese is not a language but more like a language family since for example, Mandarin and Cantonese are definitely mutual unintelligible, so please do not include Chinese as a correct type in.
Nice quiz though
Got better by now.
Thanks, anyway
The Wikipedia Page for the Vatican City does mention Latin in the sidebar, yes. However if you follow the source it cites, you'll notice that source actually doesn't say that - in fact it says quite the opposite: that Latin is not an official language of the Vatican.
Also on that same Wikipedia page, if you scroll down to the section on Languages it expands on that and correctly explains that while Latin is used on official documents for the Holy See, it is not an official language of the Vatican.
TL;DR - the sidebar on the Wikipedia page is wrong.
Hence, the terms official and national shouldn't be used interchageably.
As for Bolivia, 75% speaks Spanish, 25% speaks Quechua, and 16.77% speak Aymara before it drops to Guarani with 0.69%. A cutoff of 3 seems logical.
And finally Zimbabwe, 40% speaks Shona, 35% speaks northern Ndebele, and finally English with 85% of the population speaking it as a second language.
Welsh is spoken by a tiny minority. Even in Wales, few speak it as their first language.
Why not add Polish or Punjabi? Those languages have more speakers in the UK than Welsh does.
So it defeats my color scheme system. Maybe I'll do something about it at some point.