Countrylanguage

Countrylanguage refers to the set of languages used within a country, including those spoken by the population and those designated for official or governmental use. It encompasses official languages, national or regional languages, and languages spoken by minority communities. The concept is important for policy making, education, media, and cultural preservation, as it shapes how information is published, taught, and accessed.

In practice, countries may designate one or more official languages for government and public services, while many other languages are used in daily life, commerce, and education. Some nations have multiple official languages at the national level, and others have official languages restricted to certain regions. Examples often cited include countries with multilingual governance, such as India with its many scheduled languages, Switzerland with four national languages, and Canada with English and French at the federal level. In some places, there is no federal official language, yet a dominant language functions as the de facto standard.

In data contexts, countrylanguage is commonly a dataset or table used to store language information for each country, typically including fields such as the country code, language name, whether the language is official, and the share of the population speaking it. Standards and codes, such as ISO 639 language codes, are often used to classify languages. The concept supports census reporting, policy analysis, and international comparisons of linguistic landscapes.