section_path: Demographics/Languages
section_name: Languages
paragraph_text: Languages
  
  The English language is the official and most spoken language of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom proactively promotes the language globally to build connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide. It is estimated that 95 per cent of the UK's population are monolingual English speakers. 5.5 per cent of the population are estimated to speak languages brought to the UK as a result of relatively recent immigration. South Asian languages are the largest grouping which includes Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali, Sylheti, Hindi, Pahari-Pothwari, Tamil, and Gujarati. According to the 2011 census, Polish has become the second-largest language spoken in England and has 546,000 speakers. In 2019, some three-quarters of a million people spoke little or no English.
  
  Three indigenous Celtic languages are spoken in the UK: Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic. Cornish, which became extinct as a first language in the late 18th century, is subject to revival efforts and has a small group of second language speakers. According to the 2021 census, the Welsh-speaking population of Wales aged three or older was 538,300 people (17.8 per cent). In addition, it is estimated that about 200,000 Welsh speakers live in England. In the 2021 census in Northern Ireland 12.4% of people had some ability in the Irish language and 10.4% of people had some ability in the Ulster-Scots language. Over 92,000 people in Scotland (just under 2 per cent of the population) had some Gaelic language ability, including 72 per cent of those living in the Outer Hebrides. The number of children being taught either Welsh or Scottish Gaelic is increasing. Scots, a language descended from early northern Middle English, has limited recognition alongside its regional variant, Ulster Scots in Northern Ireland, without specific commitments to protection and promotion. As of April 2020, there are said to be around 151,000 users of British Sign Language (BSL), a sign language used by deaf people, in the UK.