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Jocelyn Wyburd predicts the fate of UK languages education post-Brexit M uch has been said in the media about the Leave campaign's focus on the need to control immigration. Since the UK referendum on EU membership in June, we have seen an increase in expressions of xenophobia and hate crime. Where targets have been Europeans, there has been a tendency to focus on those from Eastern Europe rather than on individuals from longer-standing members of the EU. Clearly the relative prosperity of these countries plays a part in such distinctions. However, these prejudices also mirror attitudes towards the speakers of different languages and, indeed, the extent to which languages other than English are spoken in the UK. The learning of languages in our school system has predominantly meant French, German and Spanish, occasionally accompanied by Italian and Russian. These languages have thus acquired a higher status in the UK than languages associated more with immigration, such as Arabic, Punjabi, Polish and Urdu. A new focus on Chinese, bolstered by investment from the Department for Education (DfE) in the teaching of Mandarin in mainstream schools, reflects shifting geo-political and economic priorities, and is arguably raising its status. It is also worth noting that Cantonese has been more associated with immigration than Mandarin in the history of Chinese migration to the UK. It is hard to predict at this stage, but it is possible that similar priorities to learn languages of strategic (economic) importance to the country in a post-Brexit trading context will be developed in future years. The status and importance of European languages is also up for debate, and will depend on our future political and economic relationships with the remaining EU members. However, geographic proximity, shared histories and long-standing cultural ties, relating to European artistic, literary and musical traditions, are also likely to foster continued interest in studying European languages. The issue of status in relation both to the perception of individual languages and to their learning is, however, exacerbated by declining take-up in schools and universities, resulting in language learning becoming disproportionately the domain of those in higher socio-economic groups. Wales is, of course, a proudly bilingual nation in our midst, with a relatively new strategy – Global Futures – dedicated to promoting language learning and, through languages, greater cross-cultural understanding. Scotland, meanwhile, has a strategy to promote mastery of mother tongue (whether English, Scots or any other language at all) plus two further languages. In both of these strategies English is central – it is the national language of the UK – and no one would argue that citizens and residents of this country should not gain a good mastery of English. But linguistic prejudice, whether against the speaking of Hausa, Polish or FEATURES Learning without EU thelinguist.uberflip.com OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2016 The Linguist 11