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Question: Some people say that the following things are important for being truly their national. Others say they are not important. How important do you think each of the following is? "to be able to speak the country's language"
Choices: "Very important" "Fairly important" "Not very important" "Not important at all"
Data: % of "Very important" "Fairly important"
Period:
Area:
34 countries/ areas
Highlight:
1 Denmark97.5%
1 Netherlands97.5%
3 United States97.0%
4 Norway96.8%
5 Sweden96.3%
6 Hungary96.0%
7 Philippines95.7%
8 Venezuela95.6%
9 Slovenia95.1%
10 Bulgaria94.9%
11 Poland94.7%
11 Portugal94.7%
13 Germany94.1%
14 France94.0%
15 New Zealand93.2%
16 Switzerland92.8%
17 Canada92.7%
18 Australia92.0%
19 Czech Republic91.9%
20 Austria91.6%
21 United Kingdom90.8%
22 South Africa88.4%
23 Republic of Korea87.8%
24 Chile87.0%
25 Uruguay86.9%
26 Israel86.8%
27 Slovakia86.2%
28 Finland86.0%
29 Latvia85.8%
30 Russian Federation84.3%
31 Spain84.2%
32 Japan 78.4%
33 Taiwan59.5%
34 Ireland38.7%

Note
Can't choose/ No answer are excluded. Germany: unweighted sum of West and East Germany. Israel: unweighted sum of Jews and Arabs. United Kingdom: excluding Northern Ireland.

No data for 204 countries.
Source
ISSP 2003

 Correlations with major national performance indices
Life satisfaction (10 steps)
No. of data34
Regression equation
Y = 0.245983 X +6.372
Correlation coefficient (r)0.047
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.002
GDP per capita (current US$)
No. of data34
Regression equation
Y = -44177.306097 X +80168.980
Correlation coefficient (r)-0.188
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.035
Life expectancy at birth - Both sexes (years)
No. of data33
Regression equation
Y = -5.011321 X +83.146
Correlation coefficient (r)-0.096
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.009
Fertility rate, total (births per woman)
No. of data33
Regression equation
Y = 0.224038 X +1.461
Correlation coefficient (r)0.057
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.003
Suicide, age-standardized (per 100 000 population)
No. of data33
Regression equation
Y = -4.885196 X +15.207
Correlation coefficient (r)-0.101
Coefficient of determination (R2)0.010