Bilingualism is succinctly defined by Uriel Weinreich in his book Languages in Contact (1953) as the ability to alternatively use two languages. He defined the person involved in using two languages as bilingual. Bilingualism is common throughout the world and results from various language contact situations including: (1) colonization – colonizer imposition of a language
Bilingualism is defined as the ability to communicate or be fluent in two languages. Multilingualism (a related term) refers to the ability to communicate or be fluent in three or more languages. Early definitions dating back to the 1930s refer to bilingualism as having “native-like” control of two languages. Nevertheless, research in the fields of
Bilingualism refers to the regular use of two languages by speakers who have a high level of proficiency in each language. In contrast, multilingualism refers to the regular use of three or more languages on a regular basis. Between one third and one half of the world’s population is bilingual or multilingual. In the United