Posted on 02/03/2013 3:02:13 AM PST by Winniesboy
Data from 2011 census reveals 546,000 people in England and Wales speak Polish
The language-speaking figures recorded for the first time from a survey of 56.1 million residents of England and Wales show 546,000 speak Polish. It is now the second main language in England. There are still slightly more Welsh speakers in Wales at 562,000.
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.
Ealing is the nation's hotspot for Polish speaking, Slough for Punjabi/Urdu, Leicester for Gujarati, Kensington for French and Manchester for Cantonese and Mandarin.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/datablog/2013/jan/31/census-2011-language-map?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2013/jan/30/languages-mapped-england-wales-census
3 million Muslims in the UK and half a million Poles and who do they write about?
Must be because UK muzzies speak several different languages. But they all know how to scream “Allahu Akbar!!!”
For you Brit and Anglophile Freepers- do the Poles become a counterbalance against the Islamization of your nation? I understand most Poles are very devout Roman Catholics, and maybe they can bring a revival to that Agnostic-turned-Muslim island.
While on vacation in Britain several times in the last six years, my wife and I noticed quite a few of the waitstaff in restaurants were Polish. Mostly young girls...and very attractive too.
Poles from Poland are generally Roman Catholic, however, having lived under Communism for 3 generations, many have been somewhat neutralized religiously speaking from my observation (although they are very proud of the late Pope John Paul II), and are heavily materialistic like everyone else. Regardless,it was Prince Sobieski, the Pole and his troops that lead the charge to defeat the Turkish muslims at the Gates of Vienna. One can only hope they can save Britain from the muslims and themselves. God Bless the Poles, victims of both Nazism and Communism and managing to arise again.
They are Europeans, after all, and historically a key part of Western Christian Civilization. As far as the UK goes, I think you'll find, unlike the sinister hordes of worthy oriental gentlemen clogging the once-fair streets of Europe's capital cities, they can be quite interesting in pubs and will not, generally speaking, be trying to gang-rape your little infidel sister or blow up a bus.
Probably Britains best hope of regaining their manhood.
There are some interesting peculiarities, here. To start with, for some reason, the Poles have had a very close relationship with Scotland, going way back, since the 15th Century!
“Some of the earliest contacts between the two groups of people were due to Scottish migration to Poland in the 15th century. During Poland’s ‘golden age,’ which was at it’s height between 1466 and 1648, many Scots settled there.
“Later in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many Scots became mercenaries in the Polish army and were involved in campaigns against the Muscovites, the Turks and the Swedes. By the first half of the 17th Century, some 30,000 Scottish families lived in Poland.
“The granddaughter of King John Sobieski, Clementine, married Prince James Stuart and was the mother of Prince Charles Edward also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie.
“The Polish army rose against foreign control in 1830 but the uprising was crushed in 1831 and the army was disbanded. Some of those involved chose to flee to Edinburgh.
“(In WWII) With the formation of the Polish government-in-exile in London, the First Army Corps, made up of 40,000 Poles who had escaped, was set up and based in Scotland. The Second Army Corps (organized in Russia) arrived in Britain in 1946 after seeing much action and the soldiers were joined by their families. “These families became the backbone of the settled Polish community in Britain, and in Scotland in particular.
“By the early 1990s, there were only about 3,000 Polish-born residents in Scotland but with the collapse of the communist government and an opening up to the West, Poles once again began to migrate to Britain and Scotland in large numbers, this time, not as refugees but as economic migrants.”
(It is also noted that their ties are much deeper, because in either direction, the Scots and the Poles integrate in the other nation after just a generation or two.)
I wish we had more Poles in this country.
Why would they come here?
Good point. Guess I was relying on ancient but not true stereotypes. They are not dumb.
Very interesting - although frustratingly (for your point) these figures are for England and Wales only, and exclude Scotland, which had its own census. I don’t know if the equivalent Scottish data are yet published - but the new Polish diaspora is very evident in Scotland also.
I was visiting my Swiss friend. (In Switzerland, where did ya think? Sheesh!) I noticed a lot of kodas on the roads, Czech cars of excellent quality, relatively low price, brand owned by VW. "Oh, those are the Swiss," he said, referring to the drivers. "See the BMWs?", he asked, "Polish seasonal workers on Swiss farms, who have bought used cars here or in Germany."
It’s no joke. I read that the economic situation in Poland is dire, and young people leave the country for Western Europe seeking jobs. More have left that have been born there in recent times.
I’m not sure “dire” is the right word. They had a bad year and a bad last quarter, but their GDP stats don’t look worse than ours or Britain’s or France’s (assuming I’ve got the right statistics and am reading them right). It’s more a matter of higher salaries and greater opportunities in Western Europe.
You’re right, I stand corrected. Still, there is a documented shortage of jobs there.
From what I have read, Scotland got enormous numbers of Poles before the European economic crisis, when Scotland was still a much better destination. But more recently, many of the Poles in Scotland are moving into England and Wales, leading to this linguistic note.
I suspect it will do the English well to have some fresh blood. People who want to work instead of being on the dole.
This of course could never be printed in an American newspaper:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/shortcuts/2013/jan/30/polish-course-england-wales-language
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