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
Official language limited funding, however, the government rarely produces documents in most of the languages. Accusations of mismanagement and corruption have been leveled against the Pan South African Language Board, which is in charge of maintaining the system. Standard Chinese is the de facto official language of Taiwan. Note that Standard Chinese spoken in Taiwan is slightly different from that in Mainland China, and variant forms of the former are called Taiwanese Mandarin, locally known as 國語. The Hakka Basic Act and the Indigenous Languages Development Act have recognized the Formosan languages and Taiwanese Hakka (variant forms of Hakka Chinese) as national