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 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.
On the other hand, some of the languages are in a tiny minority. For example, there was only one person in Barnet who said they spoke Caribbean creole and one person in Bexley.
One million households have no residents with English as a main language, although most had some proficiency in English, the ONS said.
Only 138,000 people could not speak English at all.
As for the Poles in the UK, since 2001 the number rose ten times there. It should be emphasized that this is not just a job on the popular “kitchen sink”. A growing number of immigrants hold manager positions, scientific works, and even run own business. Experts estimate that without Poles there would be a risk of the collapse of British economy.
Together with a growing number of Poles, Polish trade of goods develops. In London there are approximately 100 stores with Polish food, and every Tesco supermarket has a “Polish shelf.” Perhaps the number of Poles in the UK will increase even more, because of the recession coming to Poland, and work markets such as the UK and German are still able to hire employees.
Source: The Guardian, NaTemat.pl
Photo © Mariusz Soltanifar