Languages of the UK: Native, Regional and Immigrant Languages Spoken Across the United Kingdom

The linguistic landscape of the United Kingdom spans one de facto official language, six indigenous minority languages, one sign language recognised in law, and hundreds of immigrant languages recorded by the 2021 and 2022 UK censuses. That layering shapes which documents need certified translation for the Home Office, UKVI, HM Courts, universities and employers across the UK.

What languages are spoken in the UK?

The UK has one de facto official language, English, spoken across the UK, plus six indigenous minority languages — Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Scots, Ulster Scots and Cornish — British Sign Language, and hundreds of immigrant languages recorded in the 2021 census.

Manx is an eighth indigenous language spoken on the Isle of Man. The UK's linguistic map is multicultural and layered rather than monolingual.

Category	Languages	Legal or census status
Official	English	De facto, no Westminster statute
Indigenous Celtic	Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Cornish, Manx	Statutory recognition per nation
Indigenous Germanic	Scots, Ulster Scots	Regional recognition
Sign	British Sign Language (BSL)	British Sign Language Act 2022
Immigrant	Polish, Romanian, Punjabi, Urdu, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Italian and more	Recorded in the 2021 census

How many languages are spoken in the UK?

Hundreds of different languages are spoken throughout the UK — in London alone, community surveys estimate over 300 languages are used daily — but only a small group are recorded as a main language or household language by the 2021 census.

The census in 2021 asked people aged three years and over about their main language and English language proficiency. Many languages appear as household languages without being anyone's first language.

What is the official language of the UK?

English is the de facto official language of the UK but is not designated as such by any Westminster statute. Welsh holds co-official status in Wales under the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, and Scottish Gaelic and Irish have statutory recognition in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Two reference frames coexist. One frame calls English the UK's "de facto" official language because no Act of Parliament designates it. The other frame calls English a "native official" language because it functions as the language of Parliament, courts and HMRC. Both are correct — the UK has no statutory official language at Westminster level, but Welsh has co-official status in Wales.

What are the most spoken languages in the UK?

English is the most widely spoken language in the UK, reported as the main language by the overwhelming majority of usual residents in the 2021 census. Polish, Romanian, Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali and Gujarati follow as the most commonly spoken languages other than English across England and Wales.

What are the indigenous languages of the UK?

The indigenous languages of the UK are English, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Scots, Ulster Scots, Cornish and Manx. All except English are Celtic or Germanic minority languages with statutory recognition in the nation where they are historically spoken.

Language	Family	Statutory status	Census position	Certified-translation authority
Welsh	Brittonic Celtic	Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011	2021 census recorded Welsh language skills in Wales	Welsh Government, HM Courts, UK universities
Scottish Gaelic	Goidelic Celtic	Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005	2022 Scotland census recorded Gaelic speakers	Scottish Government, HM Courts
Irish	Goidelic Celtic	Identity and Language (NI) Act 2022	NI LIFE & TIMES Survey	NI Executive, HM Courts
Ulster Scots	Germanic	Identity and Language (NI) Act 2022	NI census 2021	NI Executive
Scots	Germanic	Recognised regional language	2022 Scotland census	Scottish Government
Cornish	Brittonic Celtic	European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages	Not a main-language census option	Cornwall Council
Manx	Goidelic Celtic	Tynwald recognition	Manx census	Isle of Man Government
BSL	Sign language	British Sign Language Act 2022	2021 census (E&W) captured BSL users	Home Office, HM Courts, NHS

What is the Welsh language and where is it spoken?

Welsh (Cymraeg) is a Brittonic Celtic language spoken as a native language and second language across Wales, with co-official status under the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. The 2021 census question about Welsh language recorded people who said they could speak Welsh, read or write it, or had the ability to understand spoken Welsh.

How many Welsh speakers are there in Wales?

The number of Welsh speakers in Wales is measured by the 2021 census question about Welsh language, which asked people aged three years and over whether they could speak, read, write or could understand spoken Welsh. Welsh-speaking communities are concentrated in North and West Wales.

The census question recorded people who said they could speak Welsh, along with those able to read or write it. Local authorities in England and Wales use these Welsh language skills figures for planning bilingual services.

Is Welsh a first or second language for most speakers?

Welsh functions as a first or second language depending on region. In parts of Gwynedd and Ceredigion it is the household language. Across most of Wales it is a second language taught through Welsh-medium and bilingual schooling. Both categories were captured in the 2021 census.

What is Scottish Gaelic and who speaks it?

Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is a Goidelic Celtic language spoken chiefly in the Outer Hebrides and pockets of the Scottish Highlands, protected by the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005. Gaelic speakers were recorded in Scotland's 2022 census, which asked whether people could speak Gaelic, read or write it.

What is the Irish language in Northern Ireland?

Irish (Gaeilge) is a Goidelic Celtic minority language in Northern Ireland, given statutory recognition alongside Ulster Scots by the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022. The Northern Ireland LIFE & TIMES Survey records main language spoken in the home.

What is Scots and how does it differ from English?

Scots is a Germanic language closely related to English, spoken across Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster (as Ulster Scots). Scots is spoken as a distinct language by some communities and treated as a dialect of English by others — a language-versus-dialect distinction unresolved by linguists.

What is the Cornish language?

The Cornish language (Kernewek) is a Brittonic Celtic language indigenous to Cornwall, revived from the late 18th century after its last traditional native speakers died. Cornish is a recognised UK minority language under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

What is Manx and is it still spoken?

Manx (Gaelg) is a Goidelic Celtic language of the Isle of Man, revived from the late 20th century after its last first-language speaker died in 1974. Manx is now taught in Manx-medium schools and used in official Tynwald contexts.

Is British Sign Language (BSL) widely used in the UK?

British Sign Language (BSL) is the sign language of the UK's Deaf community, recognised as a language of England, Wales and Scotland by the British Sign Language Act 2022. That statutory recognition confirmed what the Deaf community had long established in practice: BSL is a complete, independent language with its own grammar, syntax, and vocabulary — not a manually coded form of English.

BSL is widely used across all four nations of the UK and is distinct from both American Sign Language and Irish Sign Language, each of which has its own separate grammatical structure. Within the UK itself, BSL carries notable regional variation: signs for everyday concepts can differ between London, Glasgow, Manchester and Belfast, in much the same way that spoken accents and dialect words vary across the country.

The practical reach of BSL extends well beyond the Deaf community. Interpreting between BSL and spoken or written English is a specialist professional service that operates across the NHS, HM Courts and Tribunals Service, local government, and private employers with duties under equality legislation. Certified translation and interpreting teams that work with the UK's linguistic communities treat BSL assignments with the same rigour applied to any spoken-language pair — matching interpreters to subject-matter specialism and regional signing conventions where relevant.

Because BSL has its own distinct grammar rather than following English word order, a fluent English speaker cannot simply fingerspell their way through an interpreting assignment. Skilled BSL interpreters must navigate differences in tense marking, spatial grammar, and non-manual features such as facial expressions that carry grammatical meaning. This complexity makes professionally qualified BSL interpreters a high-demand, specialised resource across public services in the UK.

What is the oldest language in Britain?

The oldest surviving indigenous language in Britain is Welsh, whose Brittonic Celtic ancestor was spoken across most of Great Britain long before the Anglo-Saxon migrations of the 5th and 6th centuries. Welsh belongs to the Brittonic branch of the Celtic language family, and its literary tradition stretches back to at least the 6th century — meaning the spoken language itself existed considerably earlier still. Cornish shares that same Brittonic ancestry and was once spoken throughout Cornwall, though it declined sharply from the 14th century onward before undergoing a modern revival.

Scottish Gaelic and Irish descend from a separate Goidelic Celtic branch, introduced to Britain through a different wave of early migration. Goidelic Celtic and Brittonic Celtic are both members of the broader Celtic family but diverged long before the historical record begins in Britain, making them distinct linguistic lines rather than close dialects of one another.

The arrival of Anglo-Saxon settlers brought the Germanic dialects that would fuse into Old English — the word English itself derives from the name of the Angles, one of the principal settling groups. Old English progressively displaced the Brittonic languages from much of England, pushing them to the western and northern fringes. Welsh survived and flourished in Wales, retaining continuous spoken and written use in a way that languages such as Cumbric — a closely related Brittonic tongue of northern England and southern Scotland — did not.

Understanding this deep linguistic history matters for translation work: Welsh documents, place names and personal names carry orthographic and phonological conventions that differ fundamentally from English, and translators working with Welsh require specialist knowledge of both the modern standardised language and the regional variety in which a given document may have been produced.

What is the fastest growing language in the UK?

Romanian is the fastest growing language in the UK by census-recorded main-language reporters, rising dramatically between 2011 and 2021 to become the second most common non-English main language in England and Wales — with approximately 472,000 usual residents recording it as their main language in 2021. That represents the largest rank shift of any language between the two census periods and reflects sustained migration patterns, particularly after 2014.

Polish remains the single most commonly spoken non-English main language, recorded by around 612,000 usual residents in 2021. Panjabi and Urdu each account for approximately 270,000–291,000 speakers respectively, reflecting long-established South Asian communities across the UK's major cities. Together, these four languages — Romanian, Polish, Panjabi and Urdu — represent the highest-volume non-English languages in England and Wales and consequently drive significant demand for certified translation services.

The 2021 census also recorded that 91.1% of usual residents aged three and over had English as their main language, a slight fall from 92.3% in 2011, while a further 7.1% of the population were proficient in English but spoke a different language at home. That combined picture means well over four million people in England and Wales operate daily in a language other than English — a figure that underlines the scale of multilingual communication needs across public services, healthcare, legal proceedings and official documentation.

For translation services, the fastest-growing languages create rapidly expanding demand for certified translation of documents such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, educational diplomas, driving licences and criminal record checks — categories in which Romanian, Polish and South Asian language pairs are now among the most frequently requested.

What are the main immigrant languages in the UK?

The main immigrant languages in the UK, per the 2021 census in England and Wales, are Polish, Romanian, Punjabi, Urdu, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati and Italian. These reflect migration from the EU, South Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

Certified translation of foreign languages into English is dominated by these same language pairs. Diploma translation follows a parallel pattern — see our Diplomas service for language coverage. South Asian and Eastern European marriage records also drive volume for our Marriage Certificate Translation workflow.

How did the top immigrant languages shift between the 2011 and 2021 censuses?

Between the census in 2011 and the 2021 census, Polish held first place among non-English main languages, Romanian rose from 19th to second, and South Asian languages — Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali and Gujarati — retained top-10 positions with modest rank changes in England and Wales in 2011 versus 2021.

Which South Asian languages are most spoken in the UK?

Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali and Gujarati are the most spoken South Asian languages in the UK, concentrated in London, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. All four appear in the 2021 census top 10 languages spoken in England and Wales.

What languages are spoken in specific regions of the UK?

Regional distribution varies sharply: English dominates across England, Welsh is co-official in Wales, Scottish Gaelic and Scots are spoken in Scotland, and Irish and Ulster Scots are spoken in Northern Ireland. London hosts the widest range of immigrant languages of any UK region.

What is the main language in England?

English is the main language in England, reported as the household language by the vast majority of people in England and Wales in the 2021 census. Cornish is the only other indigenous language of England, recognised as a UK minority language.

What is the main language in Wales?

The main languages in Wales are English and Welsh, with English or Welsh recorded as the main household language of most usual residents in the 2021 census. Welsh has co-official status and Welsh-medium education is available across the country. The English and Welsh languages appear on Welsh Government forms side by side.

What languages are spoken in Scotland?

The main language spoken by people in Scotland is English (Scottish English), alongside Scots and Scottish Gaelic as indigenous minority languages. The 2022 Scotland census recorded Gaelic speakers and Scots users separately. Scots is spoken across the Lowlands, while Gaelic remains strongest in the Western Isles.

What languages are spoken in Northern Ireland?

The main language spoken in Northern Ireland is English (Hiberno-English), with Irish and Ulster Scots recognised as indigenous minority languages under the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022.

What are the extinct languages of the UK?

The extinct languages of the UK include Cumbric, Norn, and Pictish, as well as the traditional unrevived forms of Cornish and Manx. None retain living native speakers, though two — Cornish and Manx — have undergone organised revival efforts that have produced new communities of learners and speakers.

• Cumbric — a Brittonic Celtic language closely related to Welsh and Cornish, once spoken across northern England and southern Scotland. It died out during the medieval period as Old English expanded northward and Gaelic spread from the west.
• Norn — a North Germanic language derived from Old Norse, spoken in Orkney and Shetland following Norse settlement. It gradually gave way to Scots and then English, disappearing entirely by the 18th century, though Norse-derived words survive in local dialects today.
• Pictish — spoken by the Picts in early medieval Scotland, Pictish is poorly attested and its precise relationship to other Celtic languages remains debated. No continuous written tradition survived, and the language left no living descendants.
• Traditional Cornish — Cornish is recorded as having been spoken locally in Cornwall until the mid-18th century, after which it ceased to be used as a community first language before its modern revival began.
• Traditional Manx — the Goidelic Celtic language of the Isle of Man similarly died as a native first language in the 20th century, though revival programmes have since produced a new generation of learners.

The extinction of these languages was rarely a single event but rather a gradual process driven by political absorption, population movement, and the prestige attached to dominant neighbours — primarily English, Scots, and in earlier periods, Latin. Old English itself spread into south-east Scotland through the influence of the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria, demonstrating how political power consistently shaped linguistic boundaries across Britain's history.

Extinct and near-extinct languages present particular challenges for translation and historical research. Documents written in older forms of Cornish, Norn or Pictish inscriptions require specialist palaeographic and linguistic expertise well beyond standard modern-language translation — a reminder that the UK's linguistic heritage is far broader and more complex than its present-day spoken landscape suggests.

How does UK language diversity shape certified translation demand?

UK language diversity shapes certified translation demand by concentrating volume in a core set of immigrant source languages — Polish, Romanian, Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Gujarati — while indigenous Welsh and Gaelic translation is driven by Welsh Government and Scottish Government requirements rather than migration.

Our London casebook mirrors the census: personal documents (birth, marriage, death certificates), diplomas, driving licences and police certificates dominate. Full document coverage is set out on our Document Translation UK: Certified Services for Visas, Legal, Academic and Business Documents page. The Home Office and UKVI accept certified translations produced by CIOL/ITI-registered translators.

Which languages does our UK certified translation service cover?

Our certified translation services cover 150+ language pairs for UK official documents, spanning every indigenous language of the UK plus every top-20 immigrant language recorded in the 2021 census. Every translation is delivered under ISO 17100 with a signed certificate of accuracy.

How much does certified translation cost across these languages?

Certified translation is priced £0.10–£0.20 per word depending on language pair and subject. Single personal documents such as birth, marriage or death certificates start from £25 per document. Same-day and weekend delivery is available at a 30–50% surcharge. Full service detail is on our Certified Translation hub.

How long does certified translation take?

Standard turnaround is 2–3 working days for every document type, single-page or multi-page. Large technical, legal and regulatory projects are quoted individually. Every job is checked by a second linguist under our ISO 17100 process.

Common questions cover the number of languages spoken across the UK, the status of English, the oldest surviving language, the fastest growing language, and which languages appear in the 2021 and 2022 UK censuses.

Frequently asked questions

What are the top 5 languages spoken in the UK?

English is the dominant language of the UK, followed by Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Polish, and Punjabi among the most widely spoken. Welsh holds official status in Wales and is actively taught in schools. Polish rose sharply following EU enlargement and remains one of the most requested languages for certified translation of documents submitted to UK authorities. Punjabi, Urdu, and Bengali are among the most prominent South Asian languages, reflecting long-established communities across England's major cities.

How many languages does the UK have?

The UK is home to well over 100 languages, spanning indigenous, regional, and immigrant communities. English is the de facto national language, while Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, and Scots each carry varying degrees of official recognition or legal protection. Beyond these, decades of immigration have brought a rich variety of South Asian, Eastern European, and African languages into everyday use. Certified translation services covering 150+ languages are routinely needed for official UK documents submitted to the Home Office, courts, and universities.

What is Britain's oldest language?

Welsh is widely considered one of Britain's oldest living languages, with roots in the Brittonic Celtic tongues spoken across much of the island before and during the Roman period. It has been in continuous use for over 1,500 years and today holds co-official status in Wales. Scottish Gaelic and Irish (spoken in parts of Northern Ireland) are closely related Celtic languages of comparable antiquity. These languages occasionally require certified translation for legal, genealogical, or administrative purposes.

What is the fastest growing language in the UK?

Romanian and other Eastern European languages grew rapidly in the UK following successive waves of EU freedom of movement, and several South Asian and Arabic varieties have also seen notable growth. Growth in a language community directly increases demand for certified translation — for example, documents such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, and diplomas from those countries regularly need to be translated for the Home Office or UK courts. Our service covers 150+ languages, and standard turnaround is 2–3 working days, with personal documents starting from £25.