0_Wizard
It's weird to think that today, multilingual speakers might outnumber those who only speak one language.
It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population.
chosen_Multilingualism_0
Multilingualism
chosen_topic_0_Multilingualism
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of globalization and cultural openness. Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages is becoming increasingly frequent, thereby promoting a need to acquire additional languages.
Neuroscience of multilingualism
Various aspects of multilingualism have been studied in the field of neurology. These include the representation of different language systems in the brain, the effects of multilingualism on the brain's structural plasticity, aphasia in multilingual individuals, and bimodal bilinguals (people who can speak one sign language and one oral language). Neurological studies of multilingualism are carried out with functional neuroimaging, electrophysiology, and through observation of people who have suffered brain damage. The brain contains areas that are specialized to deal with language, located in the perisylvian cortex of the left hemisphere.
Translanguaging
Translanguaging is the process whereby multilingual speakers utilize their languages as an integrated communication system. It is a dynamic process in which multilingual language users mediate complex social and cognitive activities through strategic employment of multiple semiotic resources to act, to know and to be. Translanguaging involves issues of language production, effective communication, the function of language, and the thought processes behind language use. It is believed that the term was first coined in Welsh by Cen Williams as "trawsieithu" in his 1994 unpublished thesis titled, "An evaluation of teaching and learning methods in the context of bilingual secondary education".
Monolingualism
Monoglottism (Greek μόνοσ "monos", "alone, solitary", + γλώττα "glotta", "tongue, language") or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. In a different context, "unilingualism" may refer to a language policy which enforces an official or national language over others. Being monolingual or unilingual is also said of a text, dictionary, or conversation written or conducted in only one language, and of an entity in which a single language is either used or officially recognized (in particular when being compared with bilingual or multilingual entities or in the presence of individuals speaking different languages).
Code-switching
In linguistics, code-switching occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation. Multilinguals, speakers of more than one language, sometimes use elements of multiple languages when conversing with each other. Thus, code-switching is the use of more than one linguistic variety in a manner consistent with the syntax and phonology of each variety. Code-switching is distinct from other language contact phenomena, such as borrowing, pidgins and creoles, loan translation (calques), and language transfer (language interference).
Global language system
The global language system is the "ingenious pattern of connections between language groups". Dutch sociologist Abram de Swaan developed this theory in 2001 in his book "Words of the World: The Global Language System" and according to him, "the multilingual connections between language groups do not occur haphazardly, but, on the contrary, they constitute a surprisingly strong and efficient network that ties together – directly or indirectly – the six billion inhabitants of the earth." The global language system draws upon the world system theory to account for the relationships between the world's languages and divides them into a hierarchy consisting of four levels, namely the peripheral, central, supercentral and hypercentral languages.
Language
Language is a system that consists of the development, acquisition, maintenance and use of complex systems of communication, particularly the human ability to do so; and a language is any specific example of such a system. The scientific study of language is called linguistics. Questions concerning the philosophy of language, such as whether words can represent experience, have been debated at least since Gorgias and Plato in ancient Greece. Thinkers such as Rousseau have argued that language originated from emotions while others like Kant have held that it originated from rational and logical thought.
1_Apprentice
I don't find that weird at all. Outside of the United States, it's actually quite common for someone to speak two or more languages.