Multilingualism

Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population.[1][2] More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue,[3] but many read and write in one language. Being multilingual is advantageous for people wanting to participate in trade, globalization and cultural openness.[4] Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages has become increasingly possible. People who speak several languages are also called polyglots.[5]

Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the so-called first language (L1). The first language (sometimes also referred to as the mother tongue) is usually acquired without formal education, by mechanisms about which scholars disagree.[6] Children acquiring two languages natively from these early years are called simultaneous bilinguals. It is common for young simultaneous bilinguals to be more proficient in one language than the other.[7]

People who speak more than one language have been reported to be better at language learning when compared to monolinguals.[8]

Multilingualism in computing can be considered part of a continuum between internationalization and localization. Due to the status of English in computing, software development nearly always uses it (but not in the case of non-English-based programming languages). Some commercial software is initially available in an English version, and multilingual versions, if any, may be produced as alternative options based on the English original.

  1. ^ Tucker, G. Richard (1999), A Global Perspective on Bilingualism and Bilingual Education (PDF), Carnegie Mellon University, archived from the original (PDF) on 15 December 2019, retrieved 8 May 2018
  2. ^ Valdés, Guadalupe (2012). "Multilingualism". Linguistic Society of America. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 7 September 2016.
  3. ^ "Europeans and their languages, a survey co-ordinated by the European Commission" (PDF). European Commission. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 February 2016. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  4. ^ "The importance of multilingualism". multilingualism.org. Archived from the original on 28 August 2010. Retrieved 16 September 2010.
  5. ^ "Polyglot". Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia. Thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved 10 July 2010.
  6. ^ Kennison, Shelia M. (30 July 2013). Introduction to language development. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-1-4129-9606-8. OCLC 830837502.
  7. ^ Taeschner, T. (1983). The Sun is Feminine: A Study on Language Acquisition in Bilingual Children. Springer Series in Language and Communication. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. p. 4. ISBN 978-3-642-48329-5. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 12 June 2022.
  8. ^ Kaushanskaya M, Marian V (2009). "The bilingual advantage in novel word learning". Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 16 (4): 705–710. doi:10.3758/PBR.16.4.705. PMID 19648456.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.