Should the UN add more official languages?

[Harkonnen]

We had League of Nations...equally useless for people in need

Well it's good you finally agree with me

[Tooting Carmen]

Portuguese, Italian, German, Polish and Japanese should be added.

Too Eurocentric that list.

[The Blade]

Too Eurocentric that list.

Aside from some Asian countries (mainly Japan and China + Iran and Turkey in the western parts), a few cultures outside Europe have or have had some influence on the world (Arabs did/still do in some aspects but Arabic is already on the list). Also, some once strong empires like Mongolia have their influence as a country highly decreased nowadays.

[Tooting Carmen]

Aside from some Asian countries (mainly Japan and China + Iran and Turkey in the western parts), a few cultures outside Europe have or have had some influence on the world (Arabs did/still do in some aspects but Arabic is already on the list). Also, some once strong empires like Mongolia have their influence as a country highly decreased nowadays.

Well my criteria is that the language should reach nine figures in terms of speakers (English and Chinese reach ten).

[Tooting Carmen]

bump

[Tooting Carmen]

Partially correlated with this is that the UN should seriously reform the Security Council - it should either abolish the very idea of permanent members, or alternatively (and IMO less desirably) it should include a greater number of permanent members.

As an aside, another language that is also spoken by 100,000,000 people or more, in addition to those I already listed, is Indonesian.

[Tooting Carmen]

bump

[JosephK]

If someone doesn't read English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese or Arabic, they shouldn't be reading UN documents.

[Tooting Carmen]

If someone doesn't read English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese or Arabic, they shouldn't be reading UN documents.

But why not? What about people who precisely speak languages that are also very big themselves?

[JosephK]

But why not? What about people who precisely speak languages that are also very big themselves?

For the same reason that Chinese isn't the one official language of the UN; despite the vast number of people who speak it, it's still regional. The UN is about global cooperation, so if you haven't bothered to learn a global language, why would you bother to be involved with the UN?