Official Languages Trivia Quiz

Answer: English & French

Due to its diversity and large immigrant population, many other non-official languages are spoken in Canada. They include Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Vietnamese, Arabic, and Urdu. Though the number of speakers is in decline, Native American languages, such as Cree, Blackfoot, and Inuktitut; are still spoken by the indigenous 1.5 % of Canada's population.

Answer: Finnish & Swedish

Finland was under Swedish control for 650 years from the 12th century until 1809. Swedish influence is still relatively high, with the Swedish minority in the country constituting 6.2 % of Finland's population. In fact, some towns in Finland have both Finnish and Swedish names! In far northern Finland, a tiny minority called the Lapps also speak their own language.

Answer: Catalan

Andorra is a small principality nestled high in the Pyrenees between France and Spain. Its official language, Catalan, is a language originating from and also spoken in the Spanish region of Catalonia. Only one-fifth of the population consists of Andorran citizens, the remainder being foreign residents, mostly from France and Spain.

Not surprisingly, the influence of these two countries is strong. In fact, Andorra today is jointly administered by the Bishop of Urgel in Spain and the President of France.

Answer: German, French, Italian & Romansch

Switzerland's heterogeneous ethnic composition is as follows: German (65 %); French (18 %); Italian (10 %); Romansch (1%); other (6 %). Romansch is one of the three Rhaeto-Romanic dialects of the Romance language family, spoken in northeastern Italy and southeastern Switzerland. It is spoken by approximately 70 000 people in the Swiss canton of Graubuenden. The other two dialects are Friulian and Ladin (not Latin!).

Answer: Poular, Wolof and Soninké

Though French is spoken by the educated elite (the country was a French protectorate from 1903 to 1960), the national languages of Mauritania are Arabic, Wolof, Soninké and Poular. Hasaniya Arabic is the Moorish (northwest African) dialect of standard Arabic. Wolof is a West African language and forms part the Atlantic branch of the Niger-Congo language family.

It is also spoken in Senegal and Gambia.

Answer: French

As a result of its colonial past (French colony from 1890 to 1958), the official language of the Republic of Guinea is French. However, under the twenty-five year Marxist dictatorship of Ahmed Sekou Toure (a Malinke tribe member) following independence, there was an attempt to replace French with local indigenous languages as the official tongue. Portuguese is the official language of a neighboring country, Guinea-Bissau.

Answer: Spanish

Equatorial Guinea was the only Spanish possession in sub-Saharan Africa, and was known as Spanish Guinea from 1778 to independence in 1968. French is also official in the two neighboring countries: Cameroon and Gabon, and more generally in the region. Ibo and Fang are the languages of two prominent indigenous tribes in the region.

Answer: Amharic

Amharic is a Semitic language that uses an alphabet known as 'abugida'. Oromigna is spoken by the Oromo people who comprise 40 percent of the Ethiopian population. Islam is the religion of 35 percent of Ethiopians, making Arabic an notable language as well. English is the most widely studied foreign language in Ethiopia.

Answer: Tigrinya

Around half of the population speak Tigrinya as their native language. Baja, Nara and Saho are spoken by much smaller numbers. Eritrea does not have an "official" language, but Arabic and English (along with Tigrinya) are the main working languages.

Answer: Tetum & Portuguese

East Timor was a Portuguese colony from the early 19th century to 1975 and also occupied by Indonesia from 1975 to 2002, when it was officially recognized as an independent nation. Tetum is a local Austronesian language that includes words derived from both Portuguese and Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian).