The UK is one of six countries in this database that does not legally have an official language, only a ‘de facto’ one: English. English is the #1 most widely spoken language in the world – according to The Future of English, a 2023 publication by the British Council, around 2 300 000 000 people around the globe speak English; that is: approximately a quarter of the world’s population, while around 60% of the Internet is in English. The UK regularly conducts national language censuses, and Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland conduct their own censuses, as well. The UK is an exception when it comes to official data on sign language users – questions on sign languages were included in multiple surveys in the past. For its best estimate on user numbers, the British Deaf Association extrapolates from the percentage of ‘British Sign Language (BSL) users at home’ from the Scottish census in 2011 as the question about BSL was “badly phrased in the Census for England, Wales and Northern Ireland”. Their estimate comes up to 151 000 BSL users in the UK, 127 000 BSL users in England, 12 556 in Scotland, 7 200 in Wales, and 4 300 in Northern Ireland, of which 87 000 are deaf in the UK, 73 000 in England, 7 200 in Scotland, 4 000 in Wales, and 2 500 in Northern Ireland. The self-governing British Crown Dependencies (the islands of Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man) were included in the Map partly because other countries’ Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) are included, partly because Manx is covered by the ECRML and partly because the other two languages spoken there (Jèrriais and Guernèsiais (although recently written as ‘Guernesiais’) are severely endangered. The 2001 Guernsey Census found that only 2% of the Channel Island’s population (1 327 people) could fluently speak Guernesiais – a number that has only decreased further since, with local organisations stating that there are fewer than 100 fluent speakers left, with many over the age of 70. On the neighbouring island, much work has gone into the Jèrriais Language Strategy 2022 – 2025 in an attempt to support further empowerment of the language.