Official language after unifying the country in 221 BC. Classical Chinese would remain the standard written language for the next 2000 years. Standardization of the spoken language received less political attention, and Mandarin developed on an "ad hoc" basis from the dialects of the various imperial capitals until being officially standardized in the early twentieth century. According to an undated chart by the American pro-English-only organization known as U.S. English, 178 countries have an official language at the national level. Among those, English is the most common with 67 nations giving it official status. French is second with 29 countries, Arabic is
The Orissa Official Language Act, 1954 The Orissa Official Language Act, 1954 The Orissa Official Language Act, 1954 is an Act of Odisha Legislative Assembly that recognizes Oriya(Odia) "to be used for all or any of the official purposes of the State of Orissa." Article 345 of the Constitution of India empowers the Legislature of the State to adopt 'any one or more of the languages in use in the State or Hindi as the language or languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes' of the concerned State. But it provides for the continued use of English for the 'purposes within