what language is mainly spoken in england?
English Language
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 English language learning and teaching is an important economic activity , and includes language schooling , tourism spending , and publishing . There is no legislation mandating an official language for England , but English is the only language used for official business . Despite the country 's relatively small size , there are many distinct regional accents , and individuals with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood everywhere in the country . 

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 English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now a global lingua franca . English is either the official language or an official language in almost 60 sovereign states . It is the most commonly spoken language in the United Kingdom , the United States , Canada , Australia , Ireland , and New Zealand , and is widely spoken in some areas of the Caribbean , Africa , and South Asia . It is the third most common native language in the world , after Mandarin and Spanish . It is the most widely learned second language and an official language of the United Nations , of the European Union , and of many other world and regional international organisations . 

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 Decades , and in some cases centuries , of British rule and emigration have left their mark on the independent nations that arose from the British Empire . The empire established the use of English in regions around the world . Today it is the primary language of up to 400 million people and is spoken by about one and a half billion as a first , second or foreign language . 

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 There is no single British language , though English is by far the main language spoken by British citizens , being spoken monolingually by more than 70 % of the UK population . English is therefore the de facto official language of the United Kingdom . However , under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , the Welsh , Scottish Gaelic , Cornish , Irish , Ulster Scots and Scots ( or Lowland Scots ) languages are officially recognised as Regional or Minority languages by the UK Government . As indigenous languages which continue to be spoken as a first language by native inhabitants , Welsh and Scottish Gaelic have a different legal status from other minority languages . In some parts of the UK , some of these languages are commonly spoken as a first language ; in wider areas , their use in a bilingual context is sometimes supported and / or promoted by central and / or local government policy . For naturalisation purposes , a competence standard of English , Scottish Gaelic or Welsh is required to pass the life in the United Kingdom test . However , English is used routinely , and although considered culturally important , Scottish Gaelic and Welsh are much less used . 

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 As its name suggests , the English language , today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world , originated as the language of England , where it remains the principal tongue spoken by 98 % of the population . It is an Indo @-@ European language in the Anglo @-@ Frisian branch of the Germanic family . After the Norman conquest , the Old English language was displaced and confined to the lower social classes as Norman French and Latin were used by the aristocracy . 
