Talk:Languages of the United Kingdom

message: According to the article at this point in time, Punjabi is the UK's second language, with 1.3 million speakers. The reference given for this is a speech given in the House of Commons by John McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington . 
However, 1.3 million seems an implausibly large number for an immigrant community. They would make up over 2% of the UK's population! The Ethnologue report on Laguages of the United Kingdom gives a total figure of 573,000 Punjabi speakers . The Joshua Project gives the total number of the Punjabi community in the UK as 573,000 . This number is roughly equal to the number of Welsh speakers in the UK.
I will e-mail John McDonnell and try to discover where his figure of 1.3 million comes from.
--Akiyama 08:52, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Punjabi

message: According to the Ethnologue report on Languages of the United Kingdom Hindi has 243,000 speakers and Urdu 400,000 speakers . If they are considered as being the same language, they have a total of 643,000 speakers, which I believe would put them above Welsh as the UK's second most commonly spoken native language.
--Akiyama 09:01, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hindi and Urdu

message: How can anyone say that the Celtic languages of Britain are not "Native" when Welsh was used before English came into being. Some people may be going over the top with the NPOV. I'm refering to the language listings below "Languages in United Kingdom".
:The Celtic and Sign language sections are subheadings of the native section - so the article lists them as native. For consistency, it might be an idea to put the native Germanic languages in a similar subheading. Man vyi 21:07, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there are THREE indigenous sign languages (British, Irish, NI) - all of which get used in NI. --MacRusgail 10:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Celtic Languages are Native 

message: The UK government has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in respect of:
*Cornish (in England)
*Irish and Ulster Scots (in Northern Ireland)
*Scots and Scottish Gaelic (in Scotland)
*Welsh (in Wales)
Detailed submissions regarding the status of the UK's qualifying languages  are contained in UK's 2nd Periodical Report 2005. Man vyi 08:15, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  European Charter 

message: Though never having been in Britain, I have seen images of British signboards which often put on an official sign or warning in both English and French. It is hereby requested to include the status of French in the U.K. as to why it is often included in public signs. Cygnus_hansa 20:16, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've lived here all my life and have never seen a public sign written in French.  Welsh and Scots Gaelic, but never French.  Are you sure you're not thinking of Canada?  Yorkshire Phoenix   11:10, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Although... places like Dover and London where Francophones may turn up have some examples of bilingual signage (see pic). Man vyi 12:14, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Request

message: Obviously there are dozens, if not hundreds of non-indigenous languages in the UK. Perhaps we could set a threshold for numbers of speakers if they are to be listed. Indigenous languages are different as there are a limited number anyway. -MacRusgail 18:33, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Immigrant languages 

message: There is a blank, empty section called 'Native', although the prospect of news on the Native language is quite exciting i'm guessing it should probably be removed as i'm fairly sure there is zero notable information about it. Gazh 10:23, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The section isnt blank, it lists in great detail the various language and sub-languages of the Germanic and Celtic groupings. 80.80.176.20 21:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes i misunderstood, i thought Native was being reserved for the language of the Indiginous peoples, which is a bit daft thinking about it now. Gazh 23:05, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Native

message: Yeah I don't know how to say it then.
A lot more then 30% of the people in Scotland speak Scots. There aren't that many people from outside of Scotland who live there.--Josquius 13:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have a source for a reliable statistic that differs from the General Register Office for Scotland figure? Man vyi 16:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunatly not. I don't understand how they could have guessed at that 30%, Scots by definition is the Scotish dialects of English which of course are spoken by most Scottish people.--Josquius 11:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless of course one defines Scots and Scottish English as two different things (as did the UK government by ratifying the European Charter). Man vyi 11:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Depends on what you call Lowland Scots. Many people who claim to speak it are speaking a form of Scottish English rather than Lallans. You have to go to rural areas to hear the real thing, especially in the north east. I personally don't trust the statistics on Lallans for a variety of reasons. --MacRusgail 12:41, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally I don't trust any language statistics based on subjective self-declaration - they might be informative as regards attitudes towards a language but in terms of establishing numbers of speakers they are notoriously unreliable. Man vyi 12:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to agree. They are particularly dangerous in the instance of something that not everyone considers a separate language from English. Hence fluent speakers may say they're using English, but very weak ones might think that they're using "Scots". Most of what I hear in the Central Belt - from the working class, by the way - is English with a strong accent, but it often gets referred to as "Scots" or "Scottish". --MacRusgail 15:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scots 

message: The infobox currently shows "French 23%,Spanish 15%". The cited EU document claims that these figures are for percentages of the population able to hold a conversation in these languages. Frankly, I find these figures unbelieveable - I can accept them possibly as the proportion of the population who passed O Level/GCSE in these languages, but I cannot conceive of that many people being able to hold a conversation! -- Arwel (talk) 01:21, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've updated the infobox to say "French 23%, German 9%, Spanish 8%", since that's what the cited supporting source says.  Please note WP:V: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." If there is some other reliable source which contradicts the currently-cited source, info about the contradiction should be repurted in the article and a citation of that other source should be added. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foreign languages spoken in UK 

message: Why does the article need to differentiate in this way?  It strikes me as inconsistent and verging on offensive. As I understand it, Celtic languages are not "native", in that they came into the islands from elsewhere - admittedly a long time ago, indeed perhaps before there were 'islands' - as, later, did the antecedents of the English language.  French (Norman) came in next, followed by Romani, and then at various times all the other so-called "immigrant" languages listed.  What benefit, if any, is given by the differentiation set out in the article? Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:57, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Celtic languages and Norman French are VERY different. Think of all the placenames that these have provided and long established families. They are in quite a different position to languages which have only really gained much of a population in the UK from 100-10 years ago.--MacRusgail (talk) 21:15, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: One can clearly distinguish between languages that developed their modern forms within the territory of the UK and those that did not. For example, although the Germanic and Celtic languages were imported, English, Scots, Welsh, Cornish, Scots Gaelic and Irish developed as identifiable languages nowhere else and are therefore indigenous in a way that, say, Punjabi isn't. I think it's consistent to state which languages are indigenous and which aren't. Man vyi (talk) 06:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I accept the point that the languages you list (other than Irish - mainly not in the UK) developed nowhere else. However I would suggest that - if the consensus is that such languages need to be differentiated at all in this article - the word "endemic", or possibly "indigenous", would be preferable to "native".  I'm still not happy with the word "immigrant" at all - it is a word which (at least in the UK) is used pejoratively by those with certain political agendas to differentiate and discriminate between people because of their origin or ethnicity, and in any case is not sufficiently specific - it is used here to refer to people who have migrated within a relatively recent, but undefined, period. If there is a need to differentiate at all (and I remain to be convinced), I'd suggest the words "endemic" and "non-endemic" (or even "other") as being clearer and less potentially contentious than "native" and "immigrant".  Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: They are indigenous since they have been there for hundreds of years. Another point, the newly introduced languages, don't often persist for too long. Yiddish used to be very prevalent in parts of London, but it's now either present in Cockney loanwords, or in a handful of families. Much of the time these languages disappear within three generations. --MacRusgail (talk) 19:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Native" and "Immigrant" 

message: Approximately 400,000 Dutch/Afrikaans speakers in the UK? Interesting, but seems a bit on the high side. Where do these numbers come from? --Hooiwind (talk) 23:39, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. However, a hell of a lot of white South Africans have moved to the UK, not to mention British people who have lived in South Africa, and picked it up, and black South Africans who know the language (possibly the majority of Afrikaans speakers).--MacRusgail (talk) 15:14, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Source of numbers

message: Even though Gibraltarians are British citizens, Gibraltar does not form part of the United Kingdom and should therefore be excluded from this article. Otherwise it would have to include the other 13 British overseas territories and at the same time make it very clear that they are not part of the UK (which seems silly as this is an article about the UK, as the title suggests). --Gibmetal 77talk 01:35, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a brief mention at - Languages of the United Kingdom#Languages of British Overseas Territories, with a note regarding Gibraltar's status.--MacRusgail (talk) 17:23, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gibraltar 

message: The sentence in the section on Cornwall is rather misleading. It says:
"The Cornish were officially recognised as an indigenous national minority of the United Kingdom the last United Kingdom Census 2001"
There was no "official recognition" of this status. All that happened was a certain number of people stated Cornish as their ethnicity in the 2001 census. An official recognition has to come from the United Kingdom government (which as the following sentence correctly says, recognised the language later).  Getting a sorting code by the body responsible for the census is not "official recognition".  For example in the same year  enough people said they were Jedi Knights to get it a religious code. Clear sources are needed to back up this official recognition claim. To be honest the whole sentence is not needed anyway, this is about languages, not national minorities.  BritishWatcher (talk) 12:16, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I will simply delete the sentence i have concerns about as no one has responded. It doesnt belong in this article anyway for reasons stated above. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:01, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: How do the words "nor should it" and "The people of Cornwall are English/British" in the above post help develop this article?  Who's fanning the "controversy"?  But you're right to remove the sentence.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:24, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I was trying to highlight just how controversial it is. I am glad we agree on the solution.  BritishWatcher (talk) 17:33, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious 

message: This sounds great to me, being a Welsh speaker, but how was that conclusion reached from the given reference? Can someone explain it to me? -- Xxglennxx (talk • cont.) 23:27, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Welsh second most spoken language in UK 

message: After updating the table to include current statistics and references, can we discuss the inclusion of Jersey Legal French, Jèrriais, Guernésiais, and Sercquiais; their respective countries/islands aren't technically part of the UK, are they? I'd also like to hear other people's opinions on Angloromani - I've never heard of it being spoken anywhere in the UK, nor have I ever heard mention of it! -- Xxglennxx (talk • cont.) 23:56, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table of language - update 

message: Can anyone explain why Shelta has been excised from the table of languages? It partially evolved within the current territory of the UK (Northern Ireland) and has native speakers in both Gret Britain and Northern Ireland. 
Boynamedsue (talk) 05:51, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there any need for Shelta to be included? As it currently stands, the statistic heading is "Rank: no. of speakers in the UK" and the current reference for Shelta doesn't mention the UK at all, just worldwide. For that reason, I don't think it should be included unless a UK source can be provided. I'll take it out if there's no objection in three days. -- Xxglennxx (talk • cont.) 02:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Taken out today. -- Xxglennxx (talk • cont.) 16:06, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shelta 

message: Anglo-Cornish is classified as a West Country dialect, despite the peculiarities that stem from its Celtic substrata and its partial origin in the emmerging Standard English of the 16th-18th centuries. The West Country English article includes it in its scope, and given English speakers were present in Eastern Cornwall in 1066 (there were also Cornish speakers in Devon at this point, but that's by the by), it's clear that its origins are partially found in the Western dialect group.
Therefore I've returned it to a sub-section of West Country in the Anglic dialect listing, rather than a separate English on its own account.
Boynamedsue (talk) 09:19, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anglo-Cornish 

message: I can't see at a glance what way the table of languages was sorted initially. Why Welsh before Scots, for instance? A second problem was that, although the table is sortable, the fourth column - No. of speakers - was sorted by ASCII code, so that 125,000 came before 2,000, which was followed by 55 million. So I have changed the fourth column to "Rank: no. of speakers" so that clicking on that heading will rank the languages according to number of speakers, and I have also changed the order they first appear in so that it is ranked by number of speakers as well.  Scolaire (talk) 14:12, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table of languages 

message: The following sentance is quite bizzare, quite offensive and probably an incorrect use of  punctuation:
:Conversely, some first-language speakers may choose not to report themselves as such; unlike Scottish Gaelic, which is sometimes viewed as a regional language even in Scotland itself, Welsh has long been strongly associated with nationalism.
Its first of all absurd to claim that 'Welsh speaking=nationalist'. I doubt very much that any first language Welsh speaker whould hold that view, let alone fill in their census form incorrectly in case, well, in case of what exactly? I'm removing this from the article, and who ever wrote it in the first place can reinstate it if there is any evidence of this taking place.
I do know (but won't add this as it's original research) Welsh speakers, both first-language and second- language, who do not put down that they speak Welsh as they don't consider their Welsh 'good enough' - people who I've spoken nothing but Welsh with them!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.245.247.100 (talk) 12:37, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually Plaid Cymru and nationalists have pushed the language. Glenys Kinnock, Rhodri Morgan etc are examples of non-nationalist speakers, but the 1950s/60s impetus for Welsh language activism was largely nationalist. Plaid is tied to the language issue in a way that the SNP is not.--MacRusgail (talk) 17:04, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe, but it's still a long strech to then suggest that non-nationalist or non-PC members who speak Welsh would then declare that they don't speak Welsh on the census.--92.245.247.100 (talk) 13:34, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

text: If they spoke a form of diluted Welsh (especially true in the east and the south) then they might not register themselves. Nationalistic learners on the other hand, who were not proficient would do the opposite.--MacRusgail (talk) 14:05, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Implied reason for under-representation of Welsh speakers' numbers

message: According to Ethnologue, it's 21,000, but in this article it's 200,000 - unsourced. I'm not disputing it, as ethnologue is known for major errors, but can someone please find a source for that? Thanks! BigSteve (talk) 21:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Malayalam 

message: If so, the lead is incorrect in asserting Welsh as the only official language in any part of the UK. Rob (talk) 17:07, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope. Welsh is the only de jure official language in the UK; English is de facto "official". -- Xxglennxx (talk • cont.) 11:28, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Isn't English a ''de jure'' official language in Wales? 

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thread_title:  Trouble archiving links on the article 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I'm struggling to comprehend - in context - the expression in the 2011 census "All other Chinese excludes Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese Chinese" for the entry for Chinese under immigrant languages. Surely the majority of Chinese speakers in the UK speak Cantonese, yet this wording suggests that "all other Chinese" refers to forms of Chinese that are not Cantonese or Mandarin. That is, neither Cantonese nor Mandarin are in the top 19 non-indigenous languages spoken, but "other Chinese" taken as a unit is. I have plausibility issues with this. Can someone clear this up? OsFish (talk) 10:02, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mandarin and Cantonese excluded?  

message: Re Languages of the British Isles see  Rwood128 (talk) 11:53, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: There has been comment re correcting the name of this article, to take account of the inclusion of places outside of the UK. Rwood128 (talk) 11:53, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplication 

message: The population of the United Kingdom is given as 63,181,775 by that article. I'm tired but this doesn't match the figures given here "According to the 2011 census, 53,098,301 people in England and Wales, 5,044,683 people in Scotland, and 1,681,210 people in Northern Ireland can speak English "well" or "very well"; totalling 59,824,194. Therefore, out of the 60,815,385 residents of the UK over the age of three, 98% can speak English "well" or "very well"." 
Presumably the difference is the number of children under three? If so it should be made clear (even though it is obvious). Statistics in this subject seem especially tricky/unreliable! Thanks. Rwood128 (talk) 19:52, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  2011 census 

message: OsFish  has suggested, in connection with the merge proposal, that the name of this article should be changed to Languages of the United Kingdom and Crown Dependencies, so that the languages of Jersey, Guernsey, and theIsle of Man, can be included.. In fact this article already mentions them, but also includes "Languages of British Overseas Territories". 
Is the following acceptable?
*(1)I That the "Languages of British Overseas Territories" doesn't belong here and should, therefore, be removed, and moved to the main article for the Territories.
*(2) That the title be changed.
*(3) That some reference to the use of the languages in other parts of the world, i.e. Welsh in Patagonia, the Irish language in Newfoundland, can be included.
Rwood128 (talk) 13:44, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Are we waiting on a consensus forming here? Pocketed</sup> 17:51, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: As there have been no objections, I have already acted on the above – prior to implementing the merge. The name can be changed anytime. I think it should stay as is, and there seems to be a consensus on that. Rwood128 (talk) 18:47, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:   Languages of the United Kingdom and Crown Dependencies 

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message: The map used at the beginning of this article doesn't seem to be correct. For a start it misses out some languages, like Irish in Northern Ireland. Then there are inconsistencies between the languages shown, Welsh appears to only be shown in areas where over 15% speak it, whereas Scottish Gaelic is shown in areas where over 2% speak it. If it showed the same for Welsh as Scottish Gaelic then pretty much all of Wales would be highlighted. Ditto for Irish in Northern Ireland. To top this off whilst most areas of Wales where over 15% speak Welsh are shown, there are large areas of Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire left out. See the 2011 Census maps for each of the languages. Bodrugan (talk) 14:29, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll look into correcting it in line with the census data. I think I'll use 10% as the cut off to get a decent distribution for Irish. Rob984 (talk) 18:26, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

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message: The lead map is wrong, as it shows SW Wales is English-speaking, whereas it should be Welsh/English hatched, as the rest of Wales. Perhaps someone who knows about maps can correct it. Tony Holkham (Talk) 10:52, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The whole map is nothing more than a pretty rough guide. South Pembrokeshire is traditionally known for being an  English language enclave which probably explains the issue you highlight in the lead map. As a rough guide I see no reason to change it, but if change is needed I would remove the map entirely. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 11:28, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  The 2011 Census Data suggest Pembrokeshire is 18.8% Welsh-speaking, which is just above the average for the whole country. It would perhaps be better to have it Welsh/English. For what it's worth, the map now doesn't have ALL of the rest of Wales as Welsh-speaking. The South East is depicted as English speaking. OsFish (talk) 09:27, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

text:  I wouldn't support removing the map entirely. It seems an obvious graphic to have in an article on this topic.OsFish (talk) 09:28, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The map seems to be based on this map , which is based on percentages, and can be misleading. Cardiff, for instance, is not shown as Welsh speaking at all, having a low percentage of Welsh speakers (estimated by the Office of National Statistics in 2018 at 21.8%), but that's some 75,600 people, a not insignificant figure. Newport, too, has some 30,000 Welsh speakers. Hogyn Lleol (talk) 07:57, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

text: The census questions are table 4 here . All these options translate on wikipedia and in the media as people who can speak Welsh. There seems only one question dealing with people who are L1 or competant L2 speakers (ie read, write, speak Welsh). That comes in at 14.6% nationwide. The 75,600 Welsh speakers in Cardiff seems to include everyone with a spattering of Welsh language knowledge and not just those who can actually speak or use the language, to the level that most of us here are using English. It is not unreasonable to say that if you tried spending a week in Cardiff doing usual day to day tasks such as mall shopping, you would not get very far using only Welsh. That would not be true if 21.8% of Cardiff residents really did speak Welsh properly. In summary, before using any census or statistical data, we must look at the questions being asked, or just treat the figures as what they really are, a rough overview (that give statisticians countless hours of fun playing around with numbers) Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:01, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead map is wrong 

message: The UK total for Welsh speakers is given as: 1,123,500. This adds fully sourced figures as follows:
*1,012,500 - Welsh speakers in Wales (all skills)
*8,200 - UK Census, residents of England using Welsh as a first language in the hime
*1,000 - estimated number of speakers in Scotland
*1,000 - estimated number of speakers in Northern Ireland.
The combined figure is WP:SYNTH and needs to be replaced. We are not adding like with like. As per the page, the estimated number of Welsh speakers in England is much higher (over 100,000), whereas first language speakers in Wales are much lower than this number (and there is another number on the page), and it is not clear what the other numbers estimate. 
I am putting this section here before deleting the number in case anyone has an improved, sourced, UK wide figure to put up. Otherwise I suggest we remove the UK wide figure and let the other numbers stand on their own. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 17:02, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Welsh Speakers 

message: The article states "There are 14 indigenous languages used across the British Isles: 5 Celtic, 3 Germanic, 3 Romance, and 3 sign languages." I tried to reverse-engineer their calculation.
There are two possibilities for the 11 non-Romance languages considered:
Either
5 Celtic: (Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Manx, Shelta);
3 Germanic: (English, Scots, Angloromani);
3 sign: (BSL, ISL, NISL)
or
5 Celtic: (Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Manx, Cornish);
3 Germanic: (English, Shelta, Angloromani);
3 sign: (BSL, ISL, NISL)
I wasn't able to come up with three indigenous Romance languages as stated in the article. The Channel Islands have Guernésiais and Jèrriais, however these are said to be mutually intelligible, so should probably be counted as one.
More explanation of all of these numbers should be added, or a citation given.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.248.243.12 (talk) 19:40, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing statement of the number of languages in the British-Irish Isles. 

message: This article is about the Languages of the United Kingdom and has irrelevant inclusions of languages of areas outside the United Kingdom in the "Languages of the Channel Islands and Isle of Man". Either these parts should be deleted (my preference), or the article should be renamed to Languages of the British Islands. Tumericiangovernment (talk) 11:13, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: You have a point, but I understand it has been decided to include the IoM and Channel Islands, for the sake of practicality. To omit them would be a little odd. Including the CI is IMO more questionable that the IoM, due to their geographical seperation from the British Isles, but that is another issue. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:12, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect title or Incorrect content 

message: Below is copied from my talk page - it better belongs here.
:I appear to have linked to the wrong portion of the act -- it is here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2012/1/section/1 
:I will be replacing my edit with the correct link. I will leave in the original citation; I apologize as I had believed it to be outdated, but it is from the UK general assembly, not the Welsh one. Both links state that Welsh is an official language in Wales, *and* that English is as well -- your edit states that Welsh is the *only* de jure official language in any part of the UK, and this is not true, as English is also official in at least Wales and possibly also in Scotland and Northern Ireland though I am less convinced by the citations I found for those on the page List of territorial entities where English is an official language.  Again, I admit fault in removing the link that was there -- but that is no excuse for throwing out my entire edit. PsyMar (talk) 14:18, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: They are both de jure official.  English is also de facto official.  To say that Welsh is the only de jure official language is even more false and misleading, in my opinion, than to say that they are co-official.PsyMar (talk) 00:57, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

text: If the Welsh language is official and legislation (eg 1993 Act, 2011 Measure) states that Welsh and English must be treated equally in public bodies (not only the National Assembly),and if the courts and tribunals service describes Welsh and English as both "official", doesn't that mean English is de jure official? It sounds reasonable to say co-official.OsFish (talk) 06:45, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

text: Except that the Courts and Tribunals service specifically described English as official. OsFish (talk) 13:54, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

text: Except what? Co-official implies, if not means, equality in all respects, which Welsh and English are not. Your links do not prove the point you seem to be trying to make. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:30, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Welsh and English, recent edits

message: Sylheti language and speakers of UK:
(1) UNITED KINGDOM REGIONAL REPORT No. 3, Older Sylheti Immigrants in Birmingham. 
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/57a08d08e5274a27b20015b1/R7655SylhetiUKreport.pdf Slake000 (talk) 02:13, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: What is your point? Mutt Lunker (talk) 09:04, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add Sylheti language 

message: In the article, Partick train station signage is seemingly used to highlight bilingualism in Scotland - but there is an implication that many people speak Gaelic in Partick/Glasgow. Partick, and Glasgow more generally, does not currently nor ever really has had a large Gaelic speaking population. The signage is more tokenistic - a bit like airport signs in Britain having French translations. Just because there is French in our passports and signage, doesn't mean that there is a particular prevalence of French speakers in Luton or Gatwick. Ditto Gaelic to Glasgow. --EcheveriaJ (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Partick? 

message: The map at the top of the page is seriously misleading, a user reading the map would take away the following info:
* Wales is bilingual in English and Welsh except for Gwent, most of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire and some sections of the border, where Welsh is not spoken.
* In Scotland, Gaelic is currently spoken in all the area west of the Highland Line, as formulated around 1880, except a tiny sliver near (but not including) the city of Inverness (English-speaking since the 17th century).
In reality, Pembrokeshire is nearly 20% Welsh speaking, as are cities like Cardiff, Newport and Swansea. No areas of Scotland except Skye and the Outer Hebrides reach those figures. The Highland council area, which includes the stronghold of Skye (31% Gaelic), has 12,000 Gaelic speakers out of a population of 235,340, about 7.4%. The majority of this area is coloured as Gaelic-speaking on the map, when large areas of it must be as low as 1 or 2% Gaelic-speaking. In Argyll and Bute, 4.3% of the population can "EITHER speak, read OR write" Gaelic, but this includes Tiree, which is a genuinely bilingual area, and Islay where the oldest generations remember Gaelic but no longer use it. 
There is no area in Wales, not even English Maelor, where as few people speak Welsh as speak Gaelic in the mainland areas of the Highland and Argyll and Bute councils. If we applied the same standards for being "bilingual" for Welsh as for Gaelic, then the whole of Wales would be cross-hatched, along with Oswestry and possibly Chester and other border areas as well as South Liverpool and the university district of Bristol! 
The map is really not fit to purpose and seems to be based on the kind of map that used to be published in linguistic atlases in the mid-20th century. The map reflects the situation before the final collapse of mainland Gaelic and the recolonisation of English-speaking areas by Welsh.
Boynamedsue (talk) 11:40, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I have never liked that map; creating it doubtless gave a geek something to do - bin it say I! Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: That's fine by me, what could go in its place as an image though? Boynamedsue (talk) 21:12, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terrible map

message: Francish7 has been trying to change a long standing consensus that a language can be official without there being anything in writing to confirm that: the de facto-de jure difference. He has chosen not to use this talk page when reverted so I have started done that instead. Is English the official language of the UK and if not why not? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:01, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Official status

message: The infobox gives Cornish as a "regional" language and Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, etc are all "minority". The official status of Cornish is that it is an extinct language with its last native speaker passing away. Any attempts at a revival have not yet yielded any L1 speakers. The other Celtic languages and Scots are all regional languages with a few speakers outside of those regions. - 51.149.249.35 (talk) 07:46, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The "official" status of Cornish, according to UNESCO anyway, is currently "critically endangered", not extinct. There are a few L1 speakers actually. I have no idea why Cornish is treated I can probably guess why Cornish is treated differently from other minority languages in this article. There are Cornish speakers in Wales, London, Hawaii...  Tewdar  08:19, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I changed it to minority language. It's fucking ridiculous and WP:POINTY WP:OR to segregate Cornish in this manner.  Tewdar  08:59, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox - Cornish is "regional" while all the others are "minority"?