Status
Official status can also be used to give a language (often indigenous) a legal status even if that language is not widely spoken. For example, in New Zealand the Māori language has official status under the Māori Language Act 1987 even though it is spoken by less than five percent of the New Zealand population. Non-national or supra-national organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union may also have official languages.
Read more about this topic: Official Language
Famous quotes containing the word status:
“Knowing how beleaguered working mothers truly are—knowing because I am one of them—I am still amazed at how one need only say “I work” to be forgiven all expectation, to be assigned almost a handicapped status that no decent human being would burden further with demands. “I work” has become the universally accepted excuse, invoked as an all-purpose explanation for bowing out, not participating, letting others down, or otherwise behaving inexcusably.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“As a work of art it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks.”
—Clive James (b. 1939)
“The censorship method ... is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man, and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible and omniscient.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)