ABSTRACT
IN 2006, T H E LA B O U R FO R C E SU RV E Y found that for 6 per cent ofthe UK population aged 16 and over the first language spoken at home was not English. In the UK there are at least twenty different varieties of English, over forty dialects of overseas English and 56 different world languages, 12 of which are indigenous. Another survey found that there were at least twelve languages in Britain that could claim over 100,000 speakers. To some people, such linguistic diversity might seem surprising in the homeland of arguably the world’s most successful modern language. These statistics, however, are indicative of the multitude of ways used by the citizens of modern Britain to communicate.
