The city of half a million people boasts speakers of at least 153 languages including many rare dialects

It boasts City and United, Corrie, world-renowned bands and famously inclement weather. And now Manchester has another claim to fame: the city is arguably the most ethnically diverse in Europe and, possibly, second only to New York in the world.

Linguists at the University of Manchester have discovered that their city boasts a population that speaks at least 153 languages, making it one of the world's most diverse places linguistically.

Research conducted by Professor Yaron Matras, of the University of Manchester's Multilingual Manchester project, suggests the true figure could be even higher.

"Manchester's language diversity is higher than many countries," Matras said. "It is very likely to be top of the list in Europe. As immigration and the arrival of overseas students to the city continues, it's fair to say that this already large list is set to grow."

With a population of half a million, Manchester is a fraction of the size of London, which has some 8 million inhabitants and also scores highly in terms of linguistic diversity. But it appears Manchester punches far above its weight in terms of the number of languages spoken by its inhabitants.

"We know that around two-thirds of Mancunian schoolchildren are bilingual – a huge figure, which indicates just how precious its linguistic culture is," Matras said.

Rare languages spoken in the city include Chitrali from northern Pakistan, Konkani from western India, Dagaare from Ghana, and Uyghur from north-western China.

The city also attracts an increasingly large number of European citizens. "Because of EU enlargement and the access granted to new EU citizens, language diversity in Manchester is more dynamic than most cities," Matras said.

"Melbourne, for example, is famous for its many languages but as it tends to have very established communities it will be less diverse than Manchester. New York, on the other hand, is significantly larger in size and has been attracting immigrants for as long as Manchester, so its diversity is probably greater."

Last week the census revealed that the foreign-born population of England and Wales increased from 4.6 million in 2001 to 7.5 million in 2011. The number of Poles living in England and Wales increased almost 10-fold, from 58,000 to 579,000, between 2001 and 2011, while the Indian-born population increased from 456,000 to 694,000.

"The last decade has seen a very noticeable change in the population of England and Wales, with the foreign-born population increasing from 9% of the population in 2001 to 13% of the population in 2011," said Dr Scott Blinder, deputy director of the migration observatory at the University of Oxford.

But the increase has prompted concerns about assimilation. Labour's leader, Ed Miliband, said: "If we are going to build one nation, we need to start with everyone in Britain knowing how to speak English. We should expect that of people that come here."

Under proposals floated by Labour, the ability to speak English would be mandatory in a greater number of public sector jobs.

But Matras's research suggests the census may have substantially under-estimated the number of multilingual households across the UK. "Most multilinguals speak a language other than English at home, but use English at work or in their place of study, so they will answer that English is their "main" language, even though this is not strictly accurate," he said.