History of French and is a lingua franca in some regions, notably in Africa. The legacy of French as a living language outside Europe is mixed: it is nearly extinct in some former French colonies (Southeast Asia), while the language has changed to creoles, dialects or pidgins in the French departments in the West Indies, even though people there are still educated in standard French. On the other hand, many former French colonies have adopted French as an official language, and the total number of French speakers has increased, especially in Africa. In the Canadian province of Quebec, different laws have promoted the
National language Australians prior to the arrival of Europeans. Only about 70 of these languages have survived and all but 30 of these are now endangered. Azerbaijani language is the national language in Azerbaijan. Bengali (or Bangla) is the sole official language of Bangladesh. Bosnia and Herzegovina's "de facto" sole national language is Serbo-Croatian. It is officially defined under the three names Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, corresponding to the country's constituent ethnic groups. The Latin and Cyrillic alphabets both have official status. Bulgarian is the national language in Bulgaria. Canada's official languages since the Official Languages Act of 1969 are English (Canadian