British minority speakers

The same situation can be found in the United Kingdom. The nation gives every appearance of being monolingual, and visitors certainly need to learn no other language than English. Even this appearance, though, is somewhat deceptive. It is true that England has not had an indigenous linguistic minority. The United Kingdom does not have a constitutionally defined official language. English is the main language (being spoken monolingually by more than 70% of the UK population) and is thus the de facto official language. However, statistics may not fully indicate the language skills of the population. Some low ability users record themselves as speakers of various languages, while others who are fluent or nearly fluent may choose not to, due to the stigma (sign of social unacceptability) attach to some minority languages. The UK government has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in respect of:

Cornish (in Cornwall);

Irish and Ulster Scots (in Northern Ireland);

Scots and Scottish Gaelic (in Scotland);

Welsh (in Wales).

Cornish became extinct in the eighteenth ctntury; Welsh is the first language of about a fifth of the population of Wales; Scots Gaelic is spoken natively by about 70,000 people, largely in the West Highlands and Hebrides ['hebridiz] Islands of Scotland. There are today sizeable groups of speakers from India, Pakistan, the South African Union, whose national languages greatly differ from British English. The Welsh language is officially protected by the Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of Wales Act 1998. Since 1998 it has been common for almost all British Government Departments to provide printed documentation and official websites in both English and Welsh. According to the 2001 census, Welsh is spoken by about 20% of the population of Wales, giving it around 600,000 speakers. Furthermore, no question about Welsh-language ability was asked in the 2001 census outside Wales, ignoring a considerable population of Welsh speakers - particularly concentrated in neighboring English counties and in London and other large cities. The same 2001 census found that there were 58,652 Scottish Gaelic speakers (roughly 1% of the population of Scotland). About 92,400 people aged three and over in Scotland had some Gaelic language ability. But according to a 1996 estimate of the General Register Office for Scotland 30% of the Scottish population speak Scots (approximately 1.5 million speakers). In Northern Ireland, about 7% of the population speak Irish according to the 2001 census (around 110,000 speakers) and 2% speak Ulster Scots, seen by some as a language distinct from English.

Cornish, a Celtic ['keltik] language, related to Welsh and quite distinct from English, is spoken roughly by 3,500 people. The Cornish were officially recognised as an indigenous national minority of the United Kingdom in the last United Kingdom Census 2001 and since 2002 the Cornish language has been recognised by the United Kingdom government as a UK official minority language under the Council of European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Public funding of minority languages continues to produce mixed reactions, and there is sometimes resistance to their teaching in schools. Partly as a result, proficiency in languages other than "Standard" English can vary widely.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11