Lower level language classification for census 2021

FOI reference: FOI-2024-2209

You asked

I appreciate that in many cases the 95 classification of language in the 2021 census is sufficient but some of the "any other" classifications mask the presence of sizable language communities and potentially do a disservice to the speakers.  

Please could you supply greater detail on the number of languages included in responses to the census and the specific languages and estimated numbers of speakers included in the following categories, ideally with ISO639-3 codes if these are part of your classification 

Country level data is sufficient, but lower level output would be appreciated if easily available. 

I appreciate that you may need to have a cut off population for releasing this. For my own purposes 100 speakers at country level or 10 speakers if at ward level 

I would like to use the data for research into languages present in Europe (broader than EU) and to submit updates to Ethnologue.com

We said

Thank you for your freedom of information request. 

Main language (detailed) is readily available down to Local Authority level from the ONS website or NOMIS. Please see the associated download to view this information. NOMIS is a service run on behalf of ONS by the university of Durham. 

You may be able to get more detail, or a lower level by commissioning your own ad hoc dataset. Ad hoc datasets are additional tables that have not been included in ONS's standard publications and are created in response to customer requests. The person or organisation requesting the ad hoc dataset is charged for the service and, once the tables are created, they are published for all to use under Open Government Licence. The creation of ad hoc datasets is constrained by the data, by the availability of skilled staff to compile them, by any similarity to what ONS has already released or plans to release, and by statistical disclosure control.  

Please see the following link where you will find the order form for this service - commissioned table service.

On receipt of your completed order form (which can be downloaded from the link above), you will be added to the waiting list. Please note that any table commissioned will have to pass our strict statistical disclosure control process to ensure there is no risk of disclosure of personal information in the table. More information on this process is available here: Protecting personal data in Census 2021 results - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)