Languages of the United Kingdom

Languages of the United Kingdom
English   Scots   Welsh   Scottish Gaelic
Main languages	English (98%;national and de facto official)
Minority languages	Scots (2.5%),Welsh (1%),Ulster Scots (0.05%), Cornish (<0.01%), Scottish Gaelic (0.1%), Irish (0.1%)
Main immigrant languages	Polish (1%), Punjabi (0.5%), Urdu (0.5%), Bengali (0.4%), Gujarati (0.4%), Arabic (0.3%), French (0.3%), Portuguese (0.2%), Spanish (0.2%), Tamil (0.2%)
Main foreign languages	French (23%), German (9%), Spanish (8%)
Sign languages	British Sign Language, Irish Sign Language, Northern Ireland Sign Language
Common keyboard layouts	British QWERTY
a.^ Statistics indicate respondents who can speak at least "well". b.^ Statistics indicate respondents with at least basic ability.

English, in various dialects, is the most widely spoken language of the United Kingdom, however there are a number of regional languages also spoken. There are 11 indigenous languages spoken across the British Isles: 3 Germanic languages, 5 Celtic languages and 3 Romance languages. There are also many immigrant languages spoken in the British Isles mainly within inner city areas; these languages are mainly from South Asia and Eastern Europe.

The de facto official language of the United Kingdom is English, which is spoken by approximately 59.8 million residents, or 98% of the population, over the age of three. An estimated 700,000 people speak Welsh in the UK, an official language in Wales and the only de jure official language in any part of the UK. Approximately 1.5 million people in the UK speak Scots—although there is debate as to whether this is a distinct language, or a variety of English.

There is some discussion of the languages of the United Kingdom's three Crown dependencies (Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man), though they are not part of the United Kingdom.

The table below outlines living indigenous languages of the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). The languages of the Crown Dependencies (the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) are not included here.

UK speakers, in the 2011 census, 59,824,194 (over the age of three) 98%.