Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > World Forums > World
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 10-05-2014, 05:03 PM
 
Location: London, UK
9,970 posts, read 12,341,326 times
Reputation: 3473

Advertisements

Canada, South Africa, China and Finland are all Multi lingual countries but how do these countries function governmentally? (Yep not an actual word )

For example in Canada can there ever be a French speaking prime minister??
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 10-05-2014, 05:50 PM
 
2,807 posts, read 6,409,808 times
Reputation: 3758
Quote:
Originally Posted by P London View Post
Canada, South Africa, China and Finland are all Multi lingual countries but how do these countries function governmentally? (Yep not an actual word )

For example in Canada can there ever be a French speaking prime minister??
There have been French-speaking Prime Ministers in Canada. (They were bilingual)
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-05-2014, 07:58 PM
 
Location: Gatineau, Québec
26,785 posts, read 37,782,011 times
Reputation: 11561
Regardless of whether they have been native speakers of French or English, all Canadian prime ministers have been bilingual since 1968.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-05-2014, 09:39 PM
 
Location: singapore
1,869 posts, read 1,820,063 times
Reputation: 580
Singapore is a mulit-lingual country... How do it function governmentally ?

English is the main offical language... Honestly i dont get what you are trying to ask here..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-06-2014, 12:40 AM
 
Location: Hong Kong / Vienna
4,499 posts, read 6,320,496 times
Reputation: 3986
German is the only official language on federal level so everything discussed in parliament, every law published and all of the Supreme Court decision, ... are in German.

Hungarian, Croatian and Slovene have a special status in the federal states of Carinthia, Styria and Burgenland, though. There are Hungarian/Croatian/Slovene schools, bilingual signs on the streets, the minority languages are recognised before court and (regional) government officials are required to answer your questions in the language you feel most comfortable with.

I'm pretty sure that all speakers of a minority language are bilingual, though. You wouldn't realise that they grew up speaking a different language and they have the usual Austrian accent.

And yes, it's perfectly normal for them to become high-ranking government officials: Fred Sinowatz (Chancellor, Burgenland Croatian), Nikolaus Berlakovich (Minister for Agriculture, Burgenland Croatian), Norbert Darabos (Minister of Defence, Burgenland Croatian), Maria Rauch-Kallat (Minister; Burgenland Croatian), Terezija Stoisits ("Volksanwältin"/Ombudsmann, Burgenland Croatian), Valentin Inzko (high ranking diplomat, Carinthian Slovene), Angelika Mlinar (MEP), ...
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-06-2014, 03:58 AM
 
Location: Kharkiv, Ukraine
750 posts, read 899,858 times
Reputation: 821
Quote:
Originally Posted by P London View Post
how do these countries function governmentally?
By using an assault rifle (its about Ukraine)...
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-06-2014, 05:19 AM
 
6 posts, read 9,089 times
Reputation: 10
China is not a multi-lingual country officially. It has 1 official language or dialect only, Putonghua.

Quote:
Originally Posted by P London View Post
Canada, South Africa, China and Finland are all Multi lingual countries but how do these countries function governmentally? (Yep not an actual word )

For example in Canada can there ever be a French speaking prime minister??
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-06-2014, 05:24 AM
 
Location: London, UK
9,970 posts, read 12,341,326 times
Reputation: 3473
Oh I though china recognized the many languages.

So in every country it seems that there's always a dominate language even if the country is multi lingual.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-06-2014, 05:26 AM
 
Location: Finland
24,144 posts, read 24,706,169 times
Reputation: 11103
Our current prime minister is Swedish speaking, the first one since 1959. All prime ministers in history have spoken Swedish at an adept level at least, it is expected of them. Same with the presidents.

The order of business in the parliament is only in Finnish, but you're allowed to hold your speeches and get the documents in Swedish.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-06-2014, 06:06 AM
Status: "Wishing all the best of health and peace!" (set 21 hours ago)
 
43,380 posts, read 44,106,416 times
Reputation: 20425
Israel is a bilingual country as both Hebrew and Arabic are official languages. All over the country public signs are in Hebrew, Arabic and English. All Arabic speakers learn Hebrew at school and nowadays all Hebrew speakers are required to study Arabic at school. So in terms of language there isn't a problem for the country to function.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > World Forums > World

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:43 AM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top