Which language would you add/remove to/from the United Nations?

[YtownPolyglot]

I don't foresee any changes in the near future. If no languages are eliminated, this means that a new language would need to be translated to and from Arabic, English, French, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Spanish. That's going to mean a certain expense and amount of resources, so I suspect a new language would have to be one that has a certain amount of money behind it. That may well be why Arabic was added in the Seventies.

With the likelihood that India will have a greater population than China in this century, my guess would be that Hindi is a least unlikely possibility.

[smallwhite]

If they added my L1 Cantonese then maybe I could finally understand them better, like, who they are and what they do

[allhandsondex]

The 6 official languages cover just over 33% of the world's population by mother tongue and 141 of the 193 UN member countries, or 73%, in terms of at least one of the official languages of a country, so it seems like they've struck a pretty good balance by their choice. If they were to add more I'd take a stab at Hindi or Turkish being next.

[Chung]

For those who don't know, the six official languages are English, French, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, and Arabic.

If I had to add one, I'd go with another Middle Eastern language such as Persian or maybe even Turkish. The reason being that Persian covers quite a decent spread of area and is probably the second most important language in the region. I would also add German just because of its importance in Europe and the world as an academic and manufacturing heavy region. Although, that may seem like just a bit too many European languages.

Personally, I wouldn't remove any.

Lets replace the current set of official languages with only one of the following sets:

1) Finnish, Kven, Meänkieli
2) Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian
3) Hindi, Urdu
4) Middle Mongol (in honor of the 2nd largest land empire in history )
5) Common Speech (Westron)

[Speakeasy]

I trully believe part of the African problems comes from continuous too much interference both from Europe ...

One could just as easily assert that, historically speaking, most of Europe's problems stem from too much European interference or, to widen the scope, most of humanity's problems stem from too much human interference.

[AlexTG]

I'd remove Chinese. I'm pretty certain it's only used as an official language in two UN recognized countries, China and Singapore. It's the United Nations, not the United people, who cares how big the speaking population is? Isn't the point of these official languages to facilitate communication between governments?

Russian would be next on my removal list, for the same reason.

I wouldn't add any other languages because no other languages are spread out for official use across a significant number of countries.

[IronMike]

I'd remove Chinese. I'm pretty certain it's only used as an official language in two UN recognized countries, China and Singapore. It's the United Nations, not the United people, who cares how big the speaking population is? Isn't the point of these official languages to facilitate communication between governments?

Russian would be next on my removal list, for the same reason.

I wouldn't add any other languages because no other languages are spread out for official use across a significant number of countries.

Spanish is an official language in 20 countries. Russian is official or secondary in 16 countries. With French you have about 29. 26 for Arabic. About 50 for English.

I'd keep Russian.

[Cavesa]

I trully believe part of the African problems comes from continuous too much interference both from Europe ...

One could just as easily assert that, historically speaking, most of Europe's problems stem from too much European interference or, to widen the scope, most of humanity's problems stem from too much human interference.

I knew I wasn't a misanthrope, it was just my intuition telling me this truth.

Ok, but even then, I think an afrikan language would be a great addition. Of course it is unlikely any change will be made within our lifetimes, but my unimportant feelings would still consider an african language the best.

[Henkkles]

I would add all and remove none because I'm pragmatic like that. Just need to hire a few speakers of all of the languages in the world. You could probably get by with some 20,000 new translators provided some of them are bilingual.

[reineke]

I'd remove Chinese. I'm pretty certain it's only used as an official language in two UN recognized countries, China and Singapore. It's the United Nations, not the United people, who cares how big the speaking population is? Isn't the point of these official languages to facilitate communication between governments?

Russian would be next on my removal list, for the same reason.

I wouldn't add any other languages because no other languages are spread out for official use across a significant number of countries.

Spanish is an official language in 20 countries. Russian is official or secondary in 16 countries. With French you have about 29. 26 for Arabic. About 50 for English.

I'd keep Russian.

Russia and China have veto power on UN resolutions and at least 192 nukes apiece so I believe that the two languages will remain official for a foreseeable future. Portuguese and Hindi have a chance and the interested parties have been lobbying for the introduction of these two languages as official UN languages in the past. The six official languages are spoken natively by around 2 billion people which is less than a third of the world's population so a case could be for the inclusion of several other languages.

"UN and Multilingualism
An essential factor in harmonious communication among peoples, multilingualism is of particular importance to the United Nations. By promoting tolerance, multilingualism ensures effective and increased participation of all in the Organization’s work, as well as greater effectiveness, better outcomes and more involvement.

Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish are the six official languages of the United Nations. English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat and are used in day-to-day professional exchanges.

The balance among the six official languages has been an ongoing concern of the Secretary-General. Numerous activities have been undertaken, from 1946 to the present, to promote the use of the official languages to ensure that the United Nations, its goals and actions are understood by the widest possible public."

The United Nations is also one of the world’s largest employers of language professionals so I wouldn't remove any languages.