Kinetic все записи автора Though the UK does not have a de jure official language, the predominant spoken language is English, a West Germanic language descended from Old English, featuring a large number of borrowings from Old Norse and Norman. The other indigenous languages are Scots (which is closely related to English) and the Insular Celtic languages (which are not). The latter fall into two groups: the P-Celtic languages (Welsh and the Cornish language); and the Q-Celtic languages (Irish and Scottish Gaelic and Manx). Celtic dialectal influences from Cumbric persisted in Northern England for many centuries, most famously in a unique set of numbers used for counting sheep (see Yan Tan Tethera).

The English language has spread to all corners of the world (largely due to the British Empire) and has thus become the business language of the world. Worldwide, it is taught as a second language more than any other.[54] The United Kingdom's Celtic languages are also spoken by small groups around the globe, mainly Gaelic in Nova Scotia, Canada, and Welsh in Patagonia, Argentina.

Recent immigrants, especially from the Commonwealth, speak many other languages. The United Kingdom has the largest number of Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, and Punjabi speakers outside of Asia.[citation needed]It has recently acquired many speakers of Eastern European languages, notably Polish.