How to get a country's official languages?

Question

Of the 193 widely recognized countries, 178 have an official language at the national level

(NB:or more than one)

The only exceptions are:

Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Eritrea, The Holy See, Luxembourg, San Marino, Sweden, Tuvalu, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Yemen

CountryData[] supports three language related properties:

"Languages", "LanguagesDialects", "LanguagesFractions"

But none of them seems to return the "Official Languages".

Is there a way to get a country's official languages within Mathematica?

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 11 '14 at 13:40

10

You can use the undocumented option OfficialLanguages

CountryData["Republic of South Africa", "OfficialLanguages"]

{"Afrikaans", "English", "IsiZulu", "IsiXhosa", "Sepedi", "Swati", "Ndebele", "Sesotho", "Xitsonga", "Setswana", "Venda"}

answered Mar 11 '14 at 13:40

Sektor

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how did you find the undocumented option? – Zviovich Mar 11 '14 at 13:53
Still not completely right answers (at least comparing with Wikipedia results). But at least it's an internal solution. Well done :) – Dr. belisarius Mar 11 '14 at 13:56
@belisarius Comparing to wiki - yes, but if memory serves me well we have mentioned in primary that the country with most official languages is Republic of South Africa. That was some years ago, so it may have changed... – Sektor Mar 11 '14 at 14:04
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@PatoCriollo Honestly - just playing around :D – Sektor Mar 11 '14 at 14:04
From Wikipedia: "However, in the plurinational state of Bolivia, Article 5-1 of the Constitution recognises 37 official languages" – Dr. belisarius Mar 11 '14 at 14:48
@belisarius Never been there, can't confirm :D – Sektor Mar 11 '14 at 16:28
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But I did :) – Dr. belisarius Mar 11 '14 at 17:00
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Xhosa is a very interesting language, due to its clicks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZlp-croVYw – Zviovich Mar 11 '14 at 17:39
CountryData seems pretty weak at identifying official languages. CountryData["India", "OfficialLanguages"] gives {"Hindi", "English"}. I believe there are a lot more. I know, for example, that Urdu is one. – m_goldberg Mar 11 '14 at 20:44
@m_goldberg Yup, India was my first try :D – Sektor Mar 11 '14 at 20:45
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@m_goldberg Only Hindi and English are the official languages. Individual states can set their own official language... – rm -rf Mar 25 '14 at 04:59

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 11 '14 at 13:07

2

what about.

    {#, WolframAlpha[
        StringJoin["Official Language ", #], {{"Result", 1}, 
         "ComputableData"}]} & /@ {"Argentina", "Belgium", "Belarus", 
      "Ireland", "Ukraine"}
     (*{{"Argentina", {"Spanish"}}, {"Belgium", {"Dutch", "French", 
        "German"}}, {"Belarus", {"Belarusan","Russian"}}, {"Ireland",{"English",""}}, {"Ukraine", {"Ukrainian"}}}*)

answered Mar 11 '14 at 13:07

Zviovich

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Please try with China or Bolivia (and compare with the corresponding Wikipedia entries). They are making the world's data computable, but they aren't still there – Dr. belisarius Mar 11 '14 at 13:35

How to get a country's official languages?

2 Answers2

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