Washington, DC – 21 February 2024 – About 7,000 – that is how many languages people around the globe speak.
More than 350 – that is the number of “mother languages” in the United States, a number that includes Native North American tongues like Navajo, Dakota, Apache, and Cherokee.
Almost half of the world’s people speak at least two languages.
In the US, just one in five Americans are bilingual – but the number who speak a language other than English at home has tripled since 1980. Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Tagalog and Vietnamese are the top five mother tongues in the US, after English.
Research finds significant cognitive and other benefits in learning and using a second language – even for older adults. The US Department of Education recently launched an initiative, “Being Bilingual is a Superpower,” which highlights benefits to students’ success, economic competitiveness, and global engagement.
Across the globe, 40 percent people do not have access to education in a language they speak or understand, making this a significant impediment to development. Mother tongue education is a way to extend learning to many of the 250 million children and young people still not in school. "The scientific studies are clear: learning in one’s mother tongue is essential to success at school,” said Audrey Azoulay, the Director-General of UNESCO in marking International Mother Language Day. “This boosts self-esteem, awakens curiosity from an early age, and facilitates cognitive development." It also helps boost the basic literacy skills to 763 million adults who lack them, and supports those who want or need to learn new languages.
The United Nations is one of the world’s largest employers of translators and other language professionals. And it of course is a hub for multilingual people – from diplomats who represent the UN’s 193 member states, to staff whose careers often depend on their ability to speak more than one language.
At its founding, the UN had five “official” languages – Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. It added a sixth, Arabic, in 1973. Today much of its work also is translated into Kiswahili, which is spoken in 14 countries by 80-110 million people, and Portuguese, the mother tongue of nearly 260 million people in 10 countries. Still other languages are in the world’s most-spoken, including Hindi, Japanese, Bengali, and Urdu.
United Nations Information Centres around the world are among those working to ensure students, journalists, and others interested in the UN’s work can access what they need in the mother languages that are a vital way to connect people across borders, communities and generations.
