Reliable new data points to an extraordinary 1.5 million UK citizens being able to sign in British Sign Language (BSL), following the release of an important report by National Records of Scotland (NRS).
Derived from Scotland’s 2022 census, the results are part of a wide range of statistics published on ethnic group, national identity, language and religion.
NRS states that 117,300 people in Scotland can sign in BSL, amounting to 2.2% of people aged 3 and over. Against a UK population of some 68 million, the same 2.2% would amount to a total of almost 1.5 million BSL signers.
No previous census in the UK has asked a question allowing such a figure to be calculated. In the previous Scottish census (2011), information on BSL use was only collected through the question “Do you use a language other than English at home?”. NRS presented a new question to Scottish respondents in 2022, enabling this striking information to be brought to light.
Rebecca Mansell, the Chief Executive of the British Deaf Association (BDA), was quick to note the significance of the Census report:
“These figures firmly indicate that well over 100,000 people in Scotland have some BSL skills. That’s a figure we’ve never had before, because of the way the question was framed in the past. All indications are that a similar proportion of the whole UK population can sign in BSL – which means that around one-and-a-half million Britons are now signers!”
“This shows that BSL is a significant feature on the linguistic map of the country. It is a source of pride to the Deaf Community to see our language recognised in national statistics and taken up by the wider population in this way.”
“Tens of thousands of Scotland’s signers are hearing people who have learned BSL in adult life. That’s a huge demonstration of how engaging and rewarding people find it to learn BSL. It opens their minds to ways of seeing and thinking that they simple haven’t encountered before. With England now following the Scottish Qualifications Authority’s lead and creating a BSL GCSE (https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/12/21/british-sign-language-gcse-everything-you-need-to-know/he), the UK as a whole needs to ensure that there is a strong professional supply of fluent, Deaf BSL teachers to respond to this level of enthusiasm for BSL and extend it throughout the school system to maximise the long-term benefit to society.”
The Scottish Census report indicates that around 2,600 people consider sign language to be their main language, but NRS says that not all of these will be BSL signers. Scotland’s population includes families with Deaf members from numerous parts of the world, such as Professor Annelies Kusters, the first Deaf scholar ever to achieve full Professor status in the UK (UK first as deaf scholar Annelies Kusters becomes full Professor at Heriot-Watt University - Heriot-Watt University (hw.ac.uk)). Many, but not all, of these Deaf people will – like Professor Kusters, who is from Belgium – acquire BSL as well as the national sign language with which they grew up.
Equally, a number of Deaf BSL signers will have reported English as their main language, although they use BSL in specific areas of their lives. A Deaf person may live in a household of hearing people and therefore choose to use English at home, whilst still using BSL in their working life.
The BDA’s Head of Policy & Research Tom Lichy commented:
“In Deaf hands, BSL and the sensibilities it reflects must be recognised as an asset to the nation. In line with the BDA’s ‘BSL in our hands’ campaign (https://bda.org.uk/bsl-in-our-hands/), it is vital that deaf infants and their families get free access to high-quality, long-term BSL input from Deaf professionals who can introduce them to the language, culture and community. On such a basis, every deaf child can benefit from a firm bilingual platform (BSL and English) that will be of lifelong value in wellbeing, employability and personal development. Professor Kusters demonstrates that deaf children can achieve the highest academic rankings via BSL and bilingualism. She is a valuable national asset for Scotland and a credit to Scotland’s support for BSL.”
Perhaps surprisingly, the data shows two out of every three BSL signers to be female (67.0%). Females make up a larger proportion of the workforce in the education and health and social work industries (Table 1, Scotland’s Labour Market: People, Places and Regions – industry tables). The NRS report suggests that this is likely to be contributing to the high percentage of BSL signers who are female.
For BDA Scotland, based in Glasgow, Avril Hepner pointed out the direct comparison with other Scottish languages:
“It is striking that the Census data shows the number who can sign to be closely comparable to the number of Scottish Gaelic speakers – 2.2% of the whole population aged 3 years and above for BSL; 2.5% for Gaelic. These are two indigenous languages of Scotland which both need to be protected and promoted, along with Scots, to sustain the rich cultural diversity of the country.”
In the past, it has been proposed that BSL should be recognised as Britain’s fourth language (https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/library-rnid/2013/11/13/official-recognition-of-british-sign-language-1987-2003/). English, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic were understood to be the top three. However, the vast majority of the UK’s signers live in England, which certainly cannot be said for Gaelic. The NRS figures therefore point persuasively to the conclusion that BSL has now moved up in this list to become one of the most widely-used of the UK’s languages.
The new material from NRS is the first of seven reports on different topics to be released over the next few months. The national censuses for the rest of the UK were conducted in 2021, with the first data on the English census being released by the Office for National Statistics in June 2022.
Director of Census Statistics Jon Wroth-Smith said of the NRS report:
“These statistics give a fascinating insight into religion, ethnicity, national identity and language use across Scotland and how they have changed over the years. It is exciting to publish the first of the topic releases and this, along with our other census data to come, will help local and central government, businesses and charities to plan services in the years ahead.”
