Town's language use investigated in study

Prof Holly Joseph works at the university's Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism

Reading residents are being asked to help a university study into how many languages are used in the town.

The University of Reading's Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM) is asking them to take an online survey in an effort to map where different languages are spoken.

It should take no longer than a minute to take part and results will be used for an event which will celebrate International Mother Language Day on 21 February.

There are no set rules or standards that participants need to meet to say they speak or use the language.

"Lots of British people in particular think of themselves as being monolingual but actually most of us have language here and there," Prof Holly Joseph said.

"Maybe we learned it at school or maybe we have a friend who is Arabic and we learned a few words or maybe we went on a long holiday somewhere.

"Most of us do know some other languages to some extent. So we are leaving it up to the person who's completing the survey as to whether that language should be there or not.

"Sometimes it's part of someone's identity. My father speaks Malayalam but my Malayalam is very poor. But it's quite an important part of my identity because it relates to that part of my family."