Languages Having No Majority Worldwide
Linguistic communities that form no majority in any country, but whose language has the status of an official language in at least one country:
- Tamil language: 70 million speakers, official status in Sri Lanka and Singapore, regional status in India
- Amharic language: 25 million speakers, official status in Ethiopia
- Kurdish language: 22 million speakers, official status in Iraq
- Afrikaans language: 13 million first or second language speakers (16 million speakers with basic knowledge), official status in South Africa, recognized regional language in Namibia
- Galician language: 3-4 million speakers, regional official status in Galicia, Spain.
- Welsh language: 791,000 speakers, regional official status in Wales, UK.
- Basque language: 665,800 speakers, regional official status in the Basque Country (autonomous community) and Navarre in Spain. Although It has no official status in the Northern Basque Country in France.
- Irish language: 391,470 native speakers (1.66 million with some knowledge), official status in the Republic of Ireland and an officially recognised minority language in Northern Ireland, UK.
- Māori language: 157,110 speakers, official status in New Zealand
- Romansh language: 60,000 speakers, official status in Switzerland (Graubünden).
Read more about this topic: Minority Language
Famous quotes containing the words languages and/or majority:
“I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Is a Bill of Rights a security for [religious liberty]? If there were but one sect in America, a Bill of Rights would be a small protection for liberty.... Freedom derives from a multiplicity of sects, which pervade America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)