Asia

• Hong Kong became independent from Britain in 1997. English and Chinese are the official languages.

• India: Besides English and Hindi, which is the primary tongue of 30%, there are several official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Sanskrit. Most of them are mutually unintelligible, that is why English has an important role in national, political and commercial communication.

• Pakistan: English is the official language, the lingua franca of Pakistani elite and most government ministries. Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi and Pashtu are official as well, and Balochi and other languages are spoken.

• Philippines gained independence from the US in 1946. English and Philippino are official, but Spanish and Visajan are spoken as well.

• Singapore gained final independence from Britain in 1965. English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil all official languages, and Malay is national.

.