I’m surprised by South Korea not using Korean, and slightly surprised by Japan not using Japanese.
I was trying to figure out why Myanmar spoke Mongolian, then I realized the Mongolian color and the not in the UN color were very similar
Same for me trying to figure out why Italy would go with Portuguese.
The effects of colonialism can be seen quite clearly in this map. Many people used either English, French, Spanish or Portuguese, and that’s not a coincidence.
Even the Holy See speaks English. Sometimes speaking the language everyone else understands is just being a decent guy.
In Europe, having former imperial dependencies seems to be the minimum requirement for getting to use your own language at the UN.
Austria, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden do not check out.
I’m actually surprised Germany and Austria did not speak German. It’s still an important language.
Internationalism speaks English in Germany at the moment. My guess for that is a) historical reasons and b) necessary for power display as “European” voice.
