Do you know your country's or any other country's official motto?
Mottoes are some short phrases used to describe a country's motives or intentions and can be found on each country's coins or notes.
The Translation Company created a graphic which illustrates the mottoes and associated phrases for 27 countries or regions, such as Luxembourg, South Korea, Hawaii and Greece.
Some rather famous mottoes include USA's "Out of many, one" (E pluribus unum, the motto on the Great Seal; the official national motto since 1956 has been "In God We Trust") and Greece's "Freedom or Death".
Take a look at the graphic below:
A motto is an aspiration, not a personality test
A short official phrase can express an ideal without describing how every resident thinks or behaves. Also distinguish a national motto from wording used on a seal, coin or regional emblem. Those categories are easy to blend in an infographic. The interesting comparison is between the values the phrases announce and the historical settings in which they came to be used.
Official status is a separate question from familiarity
A phrase may appear on a seal or be widely associated with a place without being its current statutory motto. Regional and national designations also differ. The collection becomes more informative when each wording is paired with its language, use and date instead of being presented as a personality description of a population.
Explore the related article: Travel Etiquette: Reading Cultural Tips With Context.
Which motto is official in the United States?
“E pluribus unum” (“Out of many, one”) has been the motto on the Great Seal of the United States since Congress adopted the seal in 1782, and it appeared on coins and paper money from 1795; for most of the country’s history it was the de facto national motto. On 30 July 1956, however, President Eisenhower signed a joint resolution of Congress making “In God We Trust” the official national motto. The phrase had first appeared on the two-cent coin in 1864, has been on all US coins since 1938, and was required on paper currency by a law of 1955, first appearing on the $1 silver certificate in 1957.
Sources: Wikipedia: In God We Trust
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