As part of the data collected from the Census in 2011, the Office for National Statistics have released information on the language used by people across England and Wales.
The results showed that over 9 in 10 people reported English (English or Welsh in Wales) as their main language. However, 4.2 million people (7.7%) reported another language.
Polish was reported as the most popular ‘Other’ main language with 546,000 speakers (1.0 % of the total population). Punjabi and Urdu were the next most spoken ‘Other’ main languages reported.
London was revealed to have most ‘Other’ main language speakers with 22.1%. Here in the Yorkshire and Humber region, only 5.9% of the residents spoke another main language.
Except for London, all other regions reported at least 92% of residents spoke English as their main language.
In England and Wales, 726,000 people (1.3%) reported that they could not speak English to a high standard. While 138,000 people (0.3%) reported that they could not speak English at all.
Similar statistics were revealed for the Yorkshire and Humber region with 1.3% of residents admitting they struggle with English but just 0.3% could not speak it at all.