| Country | Languages |
| Qatar | Arabic (official), English commonly used as a second language |
| Romania | Romanian 91% (official), Hungarian 6.7%, Romany (Gypsy) 1.1%, other 1.2% |
| Russia | Russian, many minority languages |
| Rwanda | Kinyarwanda (official) universal Bantu vernacular, French (official), English (official), Kiswahili (Swahili) used in commercial centers |
| Saint Barthelemy | French (primary), English |
| Saint Helena | English |
| Saint Kitts and Nevis | English |
| Saint Lucia | English (official), French patois |
| Saint Martin | French (official language), English, Dutch, French Patois, Spanish, Papiamento (dialect of Netherlands Antilles) |
| Saint Pierre and Miquelon | French (official) |
| Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | English, French patois |
| Samoa | Samoan (Polynesian), English |
| San Marino | Italian |
| Sao Tome and Principe | Portuguese (official) |
| Saudi Arabia | Arabic |
| Senegal | French (official), Wolof, Pulaar, Jola, Mandinka |
| Serbia | Serbian 88.3% (official), Hungarian 3.8%, Bosniak 1.8%, Romany (Gypsy) 1.1%, other 4.1%, unknown 0.9% (2002 census)
note: Romanian, Hungarian, Slovak, Ukrainian, and Croatian all official in Vojvodina |
| Seychelles | Creole 91.8%, English 4.9% (official), other 3.1%, unspecified 0.2% (2002 census) |
| Sierra Leone | English (official, regular use limited to literate minority), Mende (principal vernacular in the south), Temne (principal vernacular in the north), Krio (English-based Creole, spoken by the descendants of freed Jamaican slaves who were settled in the Freetown area, a lingua franca and a first language for 10% of the population but understood by 95%) |
| Singapore | Mandarin 35%, English 23%, Malay 14.1%, Hokkien 11.4%, Cantonese 5.7%, Teochew 4.9%, Tamil 3.2%, other Chinese dialects 1.8%, other 0.9% (2000 census) |
| Slovakia | Slovak (official) 83.9%, Hungarian 10.7%, Roma 1.8%, Ukrainian 1%, other or unspecified 2.6% (2001 census) |
| Slovenia | Slovenian 91.1%, Serbo-Croatian 4.5%, other or unspecified 4.4% (2002 census) |
| Solomon Islands | Melanesian pidgin in much of the country is lingua franca; English (official; but spoken by only 1%-2% of the population); 120 indigenous languages |
| Somalia | Somali (official), Arabic, Italian, English |
| South Africa | IsiZulu 23.8%, IsiXhosa 17.6%, Afrikaans 13.3%, Sepedi 9.4%, English 8.2%, Setswana 8.2%, Sesotho 7.9%, Xitsonga 4.4%, other 7.2% (2001 census) |
| South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands | void |
| Southern Ocean | void |
| Spain | Castilian Spanish (official) 74%, Catalan 17%, Galician 7%, Basque 2%, are official regionally |
| Spratly Islands | void |
| Sri Lanka | Sinhala (official and national language) 74%, Tamil (national language) 18%, other 8%
note: English is commonly used in government and is spoken competently by about 10% of the population |
| Sudan | Arabic (official), Nubian, Ta Bedawie, diverse dialects of Nilotic, Nilo-Hamitic, Sudanic languages, English
note: program of "Arabization" in process |
| Suriname | Dutch (official), English (widely spoken), Sranang Tongo (Surinamese, sometimes called Taki-Taki, is native language of Creoles and much of the younger population and is lingua franca among others), Caribbean Hindustani (a dialect of Hindi), Javanese |
| Svalbard | Norwegian, Russian |
| Swaziland | English (official, government business conducted in English), siSwati (official) |
| Sweden | Swedish, small Sami- and Finnish-speaking minorities |
| Switzerland | German (official) 63.7%, French (official) 20.4%, Italian (official) 6.5%, Serbo-Croatian 1.5%, Albanian 1.3%, Portuguese 1.2%, Spanish 1.1%, English 1%, Romansch (official) 0.5%, other 2.8% (2000 census)
note: German, French, Italian, and Romansch are all national and official languages |
| Syria | Arabic (official); Kurdish, Armenian, Aramaic, Circassian widely understood; French, English somewhat understood |
| Taiwan | Mandarin Chinese (official), Taiwanese (Min), Hakka dialects |
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This page was last updated on 6 October, 2008 |
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