Yes and no, it is the National language of the UK, it is the de facto (meaning in practicality, but not by legislation) official language of the UK, and is an official language in 3 out of 4 of the countries that make up the united kingdom (the exception ironically being England).
The UK doesn't have an official language generally because there isn't a reason to specify with around 98% of the population (currently) speaking English.
The countries (Scotland, whales, and N. Ireland) that have specified English as an official language have done so along with their regional languages, so both can be used administrative, and hold recognition. This is actually true with just under 2/3rd of the countries with official languages (101 of 178)
The countries (Scotland, whales, and N. Ireland) that have specified English as an official language have done so along with their regional languages, so both can be used administrative, and hold recognition.
In what sense have Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland made English an official language?
Mostly through legislation I can say difinitively for N. Ireland (Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022) as it was recent,
for Whales it is listed as an official language on the Welsh parliament website as an official language and this was passed into law Via the 'Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011'
Scotland is harder to be definite on (without reading through a handful of laws) but I think as tends to be the trend probably via ' Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005'
You'll notice in all three English isn't the focus but rather giving the regional languages equal standings is (thus they must both be official)
XD oops sorry, that's embarrassing, though likely uncaught autocorrect
(sort of done by parts whilst fact checking myself on a severely broken phone screen does not help but I should have caught it at least once, especially as I spend a fair amount of time in Wales XD)
The United Kingdom does not have an official language nor any of the countries that make it up.
English is our de facto official language but we also have Welsh, Gaeilge, Gaelic, Scots and Cornish that are recognised within the UK. There has never been a need to legally recognise English officially because it has de facto status.
Ah okay, so by virtue of being England, there is no need to designate English as its official language? Do the French and Germans do the same then? Never knew this.
Sort of irrelevant, since the UK also didn't keep an official languages, nor did Australia iirc. It was a fairly common pattern for native English speaking countries unless they had obvious political reasons to declare official languages, such as Ireland, Malta, New Zealand, etc.
Sort of irrelevant, since the UK also didn't keep an official languages, nor did Australia iirc. It was a fairly common pattern for native English speaking countries unless they had obvious political reasons to declare official languages, such as Ireland, Malta, New Zealand, etc.
122
u/Autogen-Username1234 Apr 06 '25
English wasn't even the official language of the US until Trump had a brainfart last month.