[gumby]

Interesting that the pass just has Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk) and English -- no French. Is French no longer the Lingua Franka? My kid's German passport still has German / English / French and my Australian one is still English / French.

I've used French in some weird remote corners of the world where English didn't work.

[chmars]

French hasn't been the been the modern lingua franca for some time, it's obviously English (well, actually many variants of English) now.

The ICAO still recommends to issue passports in English and French _or_ in the national language plus English or French although using the national language(s) plus English and French is still common in Europe.

European Union passports even use all official EU languages as far as I know (I cannot check right now).

[Symbiote]

EU passports use all the languages, but only via a page with translations for each field.

My British one has English and French on the data page, and a number to look up the translation.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48863000/jpg/_48863568...

[gumby]

Just looked at a few around the house:

- Australian: English/French for the photo page, page for restrictions, and the contact info. All the rest (bit where the GG requests in the queen's name (!) that you be allowed to travel, advice if you get arrested on drugs charges (!!) etc is in English

- USA: English/French/Spanish for name, address and other meta info. Advice on not violating ag rules etc in English. Request for free entry also trilingual

- German: "German Passport", number of pages, other meta info in all EU languages; name, etc in German / English / French. No request for free passage, no advice about being arrested.