Official language to the government in their native languages. In countries that do not formally designate an official language, a "de facto" national language usually evolves. English is the most common official language, with recognized status in 51 countries. Arabic, French, and Spanish are also widely recognized. An official language that is also an indigenous language is called "endoglossic", one that is not indigenous is "exoglossic". An instance is Nigeria which has three endoglossic official languages. By this the country aims to protect the indigenous languages although at the same time recognising the English language as its lingua franca. Around 500 BC,
Official language Cantonese and Mandarin, with spoken Chinese language are simplified and traditional. China's official language is Mandarin and Simplified Chinese which is used as the standard writing system. As time goes by, signage in simplified characters has gained some popularity in a few areas. Some Hong Kong companies may have changed the characters of the signs whilst nearly all Hong Kong people continue to use traditional characters. The Constitution of India (part 17) designates the official language of the Government of India as English as well as Standard Hindi written in the Devanagari script. The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution