Language

indianmaps.com, 2012

Gujarati

The language Gujarati is mainly spoken by the Gujarati community from India. It is the official language of the state Gujarat, which is in the western part of India. It was the mother tongue of the Indian freedom fighter, M.K. Gandhi. According to UCLA (2012), Gujarati is spoken by approximately 46 million people all over the world which makes it the thirty-third most spoken language in the world. Majority of the Gujarati speaking population is found in India. Other than India, there are many Gujarati speakers in countries like Tanzania, Uganda, Pakistan, Kenya, the United Kingdom, the USA, Singapore, South Africa, Fiji and many more (UCLA, 2012). We are mainly going to talk about Gujarati in the United Kingdom.

Gujaratis can be found in many parts of the UK. According to BBC (2012):

Gujaratis form the second largest of the British South Asian speech communities, with important settlements in Leicester and Coventry in the Midlands, in the northern textile towns and in Greater London. In a survey of London schoolchildren in 2000, Gujarati was the fourth most commonly spoken language in the capital. Gujarati families are found, in particular, in a western zone from Hounslow to Barnet, including both Harrow and Brent, and in a smaller eastern zone which consists of Lewisham and Newham. More recently there has been some movement of Gujarati speakers from larger cities to areas such as Gloucestershire.

During 1950-60, some Gujaratis came to the UK directly from India while some come from the east African countries where they were working as farmers and traders and the political discontent in Uganda also made many Indian people to move to the UK or Canada (BBC, 2012).


References:

BBC (2012) Voices - Gujarati. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/multilingual/gujarati.shtml#A (Accessed: 13 November 2012).

Indianmaps (2012) Gujarat map [Online]. Available at: http://www.indiainmaps.com/gujarat/ (Accessed: 7 December 2012).

UCLA (2012) UCLA Language Materials Project. Available at: http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/profile.aspx?langid=85&menu=004 (Accessed: 13 November 2012).