Official Languages
Asia and Europe are the only two continents where most countries use native languages as their official languages, though English is also widespread.
- Abkhazia: Abkhaz, Russian
- Afghanistan: Persian, Pashto
- Armenia: Armenian
- Azerbaijan: Azerbaijani
- Bahrain: Arabic
- Bangladesh: Bengali
- Bhutan: Dzongkha
- Brunei: Malay, English
- Burma: Burmese
- Cambodia: Khmer
- China: Chinese
- Cyprus: Greek, Turkish
- East Timor: Tetum, Portuguese
- Georgia: Georgian
- India: Hindi, English
- Indonesia: Bahasa Indonesia
- Iran: Persian
- Iraq: Arabic, Kurdish
- Israel: Hebrew, Arabic
- Japan: Japanese
- Jordan: Arabic
- Kazakhstan: Kazakh, Russian
- Kuwait: Arabic
- Kyrgyzstan: Kyrgyz, Russian
- Laos: Laotian
- Lebanon: Arabic, French
- Malaysia: Malay, English
- Maldives: Dhivehi
- Mongolia: Mongolia
- Nepal: Nepalese
- North Korea: Korean
- Oman: Arabic
- Pakistan: Urdu, English
- Philippines: Tagalog
- Qatar: Arabic
- Russia: Russian
- Saudi Arabia: Arabic
- Singapore: English, Chinese, Malay, Tamil
- South Korea: Korean
- South Ossetia: Ossetic, Georgian, Russian
- Sri Lanka: Sinhalese, Tamil
- Syria: Arabic
- Taiwan: Chinese
- Tajikistan: Persian
- Thailand: Thai
- Turkey: Turkish
- Turkmenistan: Turkmen
- United Arab Emirates: Arabic
- Uzbekistan: Uzbek
- Vietnam: Vietnamese
- Yemen: Arabic
Read more about this topic: Languages Of Asia
Famous quotes containing the words official and/or languages:
“We were that generation called “silent,” but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period’s official optimism nor, as others thought, because we feared its official repression. We were silent because the exhilaration of social action seemed to many of us just one more way of escaping the personal, of masking for a while that dread of the meaningless which was man’s fate.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1935)
“The trouble with foreign languages is, you have to think before your speak.”
—Swedish proverb, trans. by Verne Moberg.