Punjabi is UK's third most-spoken language

Punjabi is the third most-spoken language in England and Wales, as per figures of the 2011 census. English tops the list, followed by Polish. More than 92% of residents speak English as their main language, and the majority of the rest speak it as well, although 1.38 lakh residents less than 0.5% do not speak English at all, the Office for National Statistics said.

Punjabi is the third most-spoken language in England and Wales, as per figures of the 2011 census. English tops the list, followed by Polish.

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More than 92% of residents speak English as their main language, and the majority of the rest speak it as well, although 1.38 lakh residents less than 0.5% do not speak English at all, the Office for National Statistics said.

About 1% (5.46 lakh people) of the population listed Polish as their main language, a reflection of the wave of eastern European migrants who moved to Britain after the enlargement of the European Union in 2004.

Nationwide, Punjabi is spoken by 2.73 lakh people (about 0.5%), concentrated in the West Midlands, where it is the second most popular language.

Urdu is in fourth place, spoken by 2.69 lakh people, followed by Bengali (2.21 lakh), Gujarati (2.13 lakh), Arabic (1.59 lakh), French (1.47 lakh), Chinese excluding Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese Chinese (1.41 lakh) and Portuguese (1.33 lakh).

The next 10 most popular languages are Spanish, Tamil, Turkish, Italian, Somali, Lithuanian, German, Persian/Farsi, Tagalog/Filipino and Romanian.