Polish becomes England's second language

[super jumbe]

A Polish delicatessen in Streatham, London: 546,000 residents of England and Wales now speak Polish. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian


Data from 2011 census reveals 546,000 people in England and Wales speak Polish

Polish is now the main language spoken in England and Wales after English and Welsh, according to 2011 census data released by the Office of National Statistics.

The language-speaking figures recorded for the first time from a survey of 56.1 million residents of England and Wales show 546,000 speak Polish. It is now the second main language in England. There are still slightly more Welsh speakers in Wales at 562,000.

The next biggest main languages are the south Asian languages of Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali and Gujarati, followed by Arabic, French, Chinese and Portuguese. The statisticians said they recorded over 100 different languages and 49 main languages with more than 15,000 users.
English was the biggest of that group and Swedish the smallest.

Polish becomes England's second language | UK news | guardian.co.uk

[damiensk]

thats supprises me!!!

thought urdu or mandarin would have been higher up the table?

[super jumbe]

Don?t see many of them.

If we ever withdraw from Europe our second language will be Punjabi for argument sake why can not we have the Punjabi lessons in school now??

[Meat-Head]

Theres a street here renamed poland street. Full of them no only one inglish bird in the entire street.

[GastonJ]

Theres a street here renamed poland street. Full of them no only one inglish bird in the entire street.

Is it a starling and when will it get cooked?
I don't suppose that the UK is unique in the language thing anyway, I dare say France, Germany, Spain and Italy have similar numbers for their non native speaking languages as well.

[bobwill]

I don't suppose that the UK is unique in the language thing anyway, I dare say France, Germany, Spain and Italy have similar numbers for their non native speaking languages as well.

the tables for migration for EU Countrys and table for acquired citizenship in EU on link. I can not get tables big enough to paste on dk so they can be read
Migration and migrant population statistics - Statistics Explained

[Canker_Canison]

I don't believe the data is correct. Or SJ can't count & has missed some of the details.

First, if English & Welsh are the top languages...Polish can't be second, it would be third.

Second, I see no mention of the sub dialect know as 'chav & smack-rat'. In areas around here it's the prominent spoken tongue on the streets after 7pm.

[Shady]

its the third most spoken in BRITAIN but the second most spoken in England or Wales, i think is what the story is trying to say.
agree with chav language innit bruv?

how far down the list are meatys language and sj's respectively?

[Nutsandbolts]

Hi. i know the deli well as i live nearby. The shop has become famous for its lack of light inside. I went in once and could not see what i was buying.. Next time i went there i bought my own torch. By the way what happened to the italian lingo???

Take care

[lagerland]

How strange i thought english was englands second language..................

[super jumbe]

How strange i thought english was englands second language..................