Which languages are native to the United Kingdom?

A guide to the UK’s surprisingly rich linguistic landscape

After Queen Elizabeth II passed away in September 2022, her son, King Charles III, spent the first days of his reign touring the four corners of the United Kingdom. In Cardiff, Charles delivered a speech alternating between English and Welsh, as he often does when on official visits to Wales. Prior to becoming the Prince of Wales in 1969, the King had taken Welsh lessons at Aberystwyth University – a chapter in his life that provided the inspiration for an episode of Netflix’s The Crown.

Contrary to popular belief, the United Kingdom is far from being a land of monoglots, as Charles’ example shows. While English unsurprisingly dominates the linguistic landscape, there are numerous other languages native to Y Teyrnas Unedig, An Rìoghachd Aonaichte or, as it is most commonly known, the United Kingdom.

Indigenous languages in the United Kingdom

Geographically, English is spoken nearly everywhere in the United Kingdom and is used in all official capacities. According to the latest census figures, almost 60 million residents – or 98% of the population – speak English fluently. Even so, there are no laws that make English the official language, though it does have de facto official status.

In fact, Welsh is currently the only de jure official language in any part of the United Kingdom, enjoying this distinction within Wales. Over the past several decades, lawmakers in Westminster and Cardiff have passed various forms of legislation to ensure the Welsh language is treated the same as English and is used in all public services. Despite these efforts, the percentage of fluent Welsh speakers in Wales, currently numbering around 312,000 people, is in decline.

The second most common language after English is Scots, which is spoken by over 1.5 million people. Although it is sometimes regarded as a dialect of English instead of a language, Scots was counted separately in the latest censuses. Most speakers have learnt it as a second language, but Scots is a valuable part of Scotland’s identity, appearing in music, poetry and literature.

Scotland is also home to another indigenous UK language: Scottish Gaelic. While the exact origins of the language remain unclear, the common belief is that Irish settlers brought it to the west coast of Scotland around 1,500 years ago. After spreading throughout much of the lands that make up present-day Scotland, Scottish Gaelic was heavily suppressed during the Highland Clearances in the eighteenth century and has since experienced a long decline. Today, around 60,000 people speak Scottish Gaelic fluently, accounting for 1% of Scotland’s population.

Irish is spoken in Northern Ireland and within communities of major UK cities such as Glasgow, Liverpool and London. According to the 2011 census, almost 105,000 Northern Irish residents, or 6% of the population, speak the language. Recently, the UK government took the first steps towards recognising Irish as an official language in Northern Ireland.

The languages of Traveller communities in the United Kingdom

Shelta is a mixed language that originates from a community of predominantly Irish-speaking Travellers. As a result, the language today is heavily based on Irish and Hiberno-English – the English dialects native to the island of Ireland. Official figures are hard to come by, but there are an estimated 35,000 speakers of Shelta in the United Kingdom.

Another mixed language spoken in the UK is Angloromani, which is based on Romani and English. After migrating to the British Isles in the sixteenth century, Romanichal Travellers used Romani until it was gradually replaced by English as the everyday language. The Angloromani language spoken by the descendants of Romanichal Travellers today blends Romani vocabulary with English syntax. As with Shelta, it is difficult to determine the exact number of Angloromani speakers, though the figure may be as high as 40,000.

Sign languages also count

Three different sign languages are also used in the United Kingdom. No official statistics for Irish Sign Language or Northern Irish Sign Language, but 125,000 people use British Sign Language throughout the country. Similar to spoken languages, signed languages vary greatly – Irish Sign Language has more in common with French Sign Language than with the British variant.

Can it be called a language?

The Cornish language is thought to have become extinct in the mid eighteenth century. Following efforts to revive the language in the early twentieth century, there has been increasing interest in Cornish and the number of people studying it. While latest figures show that only around 600 people speak Cornish, it is growing in popularity in the English county of Cornwall and is now recognised as a language under the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages.

Despite the dominance of English, the United Kingdom is linguistically diverse thanks to ALL its indigenous languages, not to mention the plethora of dialects that fall under them. The United Kingdom is also all the richer for the many languages brought to the country through immigration, but that’s a topic for another day.