page_title: Languages of the United Kingdom
section_title: Immigrant languages
hierarchical_section_title: Languages of the United Kingdom / Immigrant languages
caption_attribution_description: English: Bilingual signs for Nelson Street (納爾遜) at Duke Street (公爵遜) in Liverpool's Chinatown 中文（繁體）‎: 利物浦唐人街中英標誌 - 納爾遜街 (Nelson Street) @ 公爵遜 (Duke Street) 中文（简体）‎: 利物浦唐人街中英标志 - 纳尔逊街 (Nelson Street) @ 公爵遜 (Duke Street)
context_page_description: English, in various dialects, is the most widely spoken language of the United Kingdom, however there are a number of regional languages also spoken. There are 14 indigenous languages used across the British Isles: 5 Celtic, 3 Germanic, 3 Romance, and 3 sign languages. There are also many languages spoken by people who arrived more recently in the British Isles, mainly within inner city areas; these languages are mainly from South Asia, Eastern and Western Europe.
  The de facto official language of the United Kingdom is English, which is spoken by approximately 59.8 million residents, or 98% of the population, over the age of three. An estimated 900,000 people speak Welsh in the UK, an official language in Wales and the only de jure official language in any part of the UK. Approximately 1.5 million people in the UK speak Scots—although there is debate as to whether this is a distinct language, or a variety of English.
context_section_description: Communities migrating to the UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to the country. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 100 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's school children.
  British Asians speak dozens of different languages, and it is difficult to determine how many people speak each language alongside English. The largest subgroup of British Asians are those of Punjabi origin (representing approximately two thirds of direct migrants from South Asia to the UK), from both India and Pakistan, they number over 2 million in the UK and are the largest Punjabi community outside of South Asia. The Punjabi language is currently the third most spoken language in the UK. Many Black Britons speak English as their first language. Their ancestors mostly came from the West Indies, particularly Jamaica, and generally also spoke English-based creole languages, hence there are significant numbers of Caribbean creole speakers (see below for Ethnologue figures). With over 300,000 French-born people in the UK, plus the general popularity of the language, French is understood by 23% of the country's population. A large proportion of the Black British population, especially African-born immigrants speak French as a first or second language.
  The Bengali speaking community in the UK consists of those largely of Bangladeshi origin mainly from the Sylhet Division (predominantly Muslim), and small numbers of Indians from the West Bengal region (mainly Hindu). There are around 700,000 Bengali speakers, 550,000 of whom speak the Sylheti dialect. West Bengalis mainly speak the Rarhi dialect, whereas Bangladeshis mainly speak Sylheti, although children may receive some education in standard Bengali at school. There is some debate to whether Sylheti should be recognised as a language separate from Bengali. The Bengali speaking community in the UK is highly concentrated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
caption: Bilingual street signs in Chinatown, Liverpool, Merseyside
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