Official language
An official language is a language that is given a privileged legal status in a state, or other legally-defined territory.
It is primarily the language of the constitution, hence states with no codified constitution have no official language. Most typically, the official language will be in line with the language used by the principal nation or ethnic group within the state. The law in many states requires that government documents be produced in other languages as well.
Officially recognized minority languages are often mistaken for official languages. However, a language officially recognized by a state, taught in schools, and used in official communication is not necessarily an official language. For example, Ladin and Ambreian in Italy and Mirandese in Portugal are only officially-recognized minority languages, not official languages in the strict sense.
Official languages are sometimes not the same as the medium of instruction and so, the two are not interchangeable.
Approximately half of the world's states have official languages. Some have only one official language, such as Albania, France, or Lithuania, despite the fact that in all these countries there are other indigenous languages spoken as well. Some have more than one official language, such as Afghanistan, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Eritrea, Finland, India, Pakistan, Paraguay, South Africa, and Switzerland.
In some states, such as Italy, Palau, Philippines, Russia and Spain, there is an official language for the state, but minority languages are used in some important regions. Some states, such as Sweden, Tuvalu, the United Kingdom, and the United States have no official language, although in most such cases there is a single de facto main language, as well as a range of government regulations and practices on which languages are expected to be used in various circumstances.
The official languages of some former colonies, typically French or English, are neither the national languages nor the most widely spoken language.
In contrast, Irish is the national language of the Republic of Ireland and its first official language, although it is spoken by less than a third of its people. English, which is spoken by nearly everyone, is described as the 'second official' language by Article 8 of the Constitution of Ireland. Irish is an official (treaty) language of the European Union and will become a full working language on 1 January 2007.
In some states, the issue of which language is to be used and in which context is a major political issue; see List of countries where language is a political issue.