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Bilingual Upbringing -
of Children in the Home
Definitions:
Bilingualism:
[from Latin
bi-
two,
lingua
tongue and
-alism
as in nationalism] The capability to make alternate (and sometimes mixed) use of two languages, in contrast to
monolingualism or unilingualism
and
multilingualism
. In the social context of languages like English, especially in England and the US, the traditional tendency has been to consider the possession and use of one language the norm. Bilingualism, however, is at least as common as monolingualism, about half the world's population (about 2.5bn people) is bilingual and kinds of bilingualism are probably present in every country in the world. The capability to function in two (or more) languages has been closely researched in recent years and is often discussed in terms of such categories, scales, and dichotomies as:
Individual and social bilingualism
Balanced bilingualism
Compound and coordinate bilingualism
Additive and subtractive bilingualism
(from the "Oxford Companion to the English Language)
Monolingualism:
If someone is only capable of speaking and understanding one language, his mothertongue. Or to put it another way, if someone is not fitting in any of the
categories of multilinguals
.
Multilingual:
using or able to use several languages
Multilingual:
Similar to bilingualism, but with more then two languages.
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last update: Sep 23, 2002