Talk:Languages of the United Kingdom

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[edit] Punjabi

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 [1].

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 [2]. The Joshua Project gives the total number of the Punjabi community in the UK as 573,000 [3]. 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)

[edit] Hindi and Urdu

According to the Ethnologue report on Languages of the United Kingdom Hindi has 243,000 speakers and Urdu 400,000 speakers [4]. 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)

[edit] Statistics

The statistics I have added to the article are partly from the BBC. Anyone care to list alternate sources? —Gabbe 22:15, Jun 25, 2004 (UTC)

The Beeb's source is the 2001 census, so I reckon that's good enough. An anonymous user had put in a statement about Welsh which felt a bit POV (well, it put my back up a little, which is prolly an adequate sign), so I've tried to neutralise it a little. Still not entirely comfortable with it, but I'm most certainly not NPOV on the issue of Yr Iaith, so I guess that I shouldn't be too comfortable with it ;o) — OwenBlacker 12:01, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
"Spoken monolingually by 95% of the population" can't be right. Many English-speakers are bilingual or multilingual. Evertype 11:20, 2005 Mar 23 (UTC)

[edit] Swardle

In the Yorkshire Dales, Swaledale to be precise, there's another dialect/language - well, whichever, as the line blurs.

A friend of mine from over t'dale near Semer Water can speak it and my word he comes out with some odd phrases. 'I'm bassarking today' - meaning, I'm not doing much. I've no idea where this comes from.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/455618.stm

[edit] Celtic Languages are Native

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)
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)

[edit] Zeaxysch

As a conlang, Zeaxysch seems not to belong comfortably in the list of languages, so I've moved it here. Comments welcome. Man vyi 17:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] European Charter

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)

[edit] Request

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)

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 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland God's own county 11:10, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
French in the London Tube
French in the London Tube
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)

French can be found in some places on the south coast, and road signs, usually "priorite a gauche/droit" type things. However, French can be found in legal terms, in mottos ("Honi soit que mal y pense" to Aberdeen's "Bon Accord") and even in a few placenames - Beaumaris and the bizarre Ashby de la Zouche. MacRusgail 18:35, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Immigrant languages

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)

[edit] Native

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)

Btw i meant 'euskara' not 'eureka' lol. Gazh 10:39, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

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)
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)

[edit] Scots

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)

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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)

[edit] English as official language

A recent change to the List of official languages by state cited this page at the Commonwealth Secretariat website which does, in fact, name English as the official language of the UK. The cited page does not cite a supporting source for that. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:37, 19 April 2008 (UTC)