Annex 1 – interim approach for selected languages for Minority Ethnic Communities
Information has been gathered from various sources to identify the most in demand language for Minority Ethnic Communities. The number of language translation or interpreting requests to Council since April 2018 are set out below:
| Language | Number of requests |
|---|---|
| Arabic | 15 |
| Russian | 4 |
| Polish | 4 |
| Somalian | 2 |
| Chinese (Mandarin Traditional) | 1 |
| Chinese (Mandarin Simplified) | 1 |
| Romanian | 1 |
| Spanish | 1 |
The Belfast Health and Social Care Trust have provided latest statistics on their most requested languages for interpreting health matters:
| Language | Requests |
|---|---|
|
9235 |
|
4697 |
|
3032 |
|
2708 |
|
2138 |
A collection of Language statistics from Census 2021 were published in September 2022, however more details on Languages will be published during Winter and Spring 2023. Below we have a list of languages spoken at home.
| Numbering | Main Language | Population | % |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
English |
310,386 |
93.000944 |
|
2 |
Polish |
3843 |
1.1514779 |
|
3 |
Irish* |
2659 |
0.7967161 |
|
4 |
Chinese (Mandarin) |
2272 |
0.6807593 |
|
5 |
Arabic |
2046 |
0.6130429 |
|
6 |
Romanian |
1460 |
0.4374597 |
|
7 |
Spanish |
960 |
0.2876448 |
|
8 |
Portuguese |
669 |
0.2004524 |
|
9 |
Slovak |
649 |
0.1944598 |
|
10 |
Malayalam |
527 |
0.157905 |
|
11 |
Tagalog or Filipino |
462 |
0.138429 |
|
12 |
Hungarian |
433 |
0.1297398 |
|
13 |
Chinese (Cantonese) |
415 |
0.1243464 |
|
14 |
Lithuanian |
397 |
0.1189531 |
|
15 |
Russian |
228 |
0.0683156 |
|
16 |
Bulgarian |
179 |
0.0536338 |
|
17 |
Latvian |
123 |
0.0368545 |
|
18 |
Tetan |
20 |
0.0059926 |
|
19 |
Other languages* |
6017 |
1.8028735 |
| Total |
333,745 |
100 |
Please note that Census 2021 asked follow up questions on Irish and Ulster-Scots language ability:
- 17,986 people in Belfast indicated that they can speak, write, and read Irish Language
- 2,553 people in Belfast indicated that they can speak, write, and read Ulster-Scots
Recommendation – top 5 Ethnic Minority Communities languages for translating Council material
Based on the Census 2021 statistics and from language requests issued to the Council and the Belfast Trust in recent years, we are recommending that the following languages to be listed as the top five for translating Council material:
- Polish
- Chinese (Mandarin and Simplified)
- Arabic
- Romanian
- Somali
