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Muhammad Fajar

Bilingualism
Bilingualism is the ability of an individual or the members of a community to use
two languages effectively. Adjective: bilingual.
Monolingualism refers to the ability to use a single language. The ability to use multiple
languages is known as multilingualism.
More than half of the world's population is bilingual or multilingual: "56% of Europeans are
bilingual, while 38% of the population in Great Britain, 35% in Canada, and 17% in the
United States are bilingual" (Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia, 2013).
Etymology
From the Latin, "two" + "tongue"
Examples and Observations

Bilingualism as the Norm


"Bilingualism--more generally, multilingualism--is a major fact of life in the world today.
To begin with, the world's estimated 5,000 languages are spoken in the world's 200
sovereign states (or 25 languages per state), so that communication among the citizens of
many of the world's countries clearly requires extensive bi- (if not multi-)lingualism. In
fact, David Crystal (1997) estimates that two-thirds of the world's children grow up in a
bilingual environment. Considering only bilingualism involving English, the statistics that
Crystal has gathered indicate that, of the approximately 570 million people world-wide
who speak English, over 41 percent or 235 million are bilingual in English and some
other language. . . . One must conclude that, far from being exceptional, as many lay
people believe, bilingualism/multilingualism--which, of course, goes hand in hand with
multiculturalism in many cases--is currently the rule throughout the world and will
become increasingly so in the future."
(Tej K. Bhatia and William C. Ritchie, "Introduction." The Handbook of Bilingualism.
Blackwell, 2006)
Global Multilingualism
"The political history of the 19th and 20th centuries and the ideology of 'one state--one
nation--one language' have given rise to the idea that monolingualism has always been the
default or normal case in Europe and more or less a precondition for political loyalty.
Facing this situation, it has been overlooked that the vast majority of the world's
population--in whatever form or conditions--ismultilingual. This is quite obvious when
we look at the linguistic maps of Africa, Asia or Southern America at any given time."
(Kurt Braunmller and Gisella Ferraresi, "Introduction." Aspects of Multilingualism in
European Language History. John Benjamins, 2003)
Individual and Societal Bilingualism
"Bilingualism exists as a possession of an individual. It is also possible to talk about
bilingualism as a characteristic of a group or community of people [societal
bilingualism]. Bilinguals and multilinguals are most often located in groups, communities

Muhammad Fajar

or in a particular region (e.g. Catalans in Spain). . . . [C]o-existing languages may be in a


process of rapid change, living in harmony or one rapidly advancing at the cost of the
other, or sometimes in conflict. Where many language minorities exist, there is often
language shift . . .."
(Colin Baker and Sylvia Prys Jones, Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual
Education. Multilingual Matters, 1998)
Foreign Language Instruction in the U.S.
"For decades, U.S. policy makers, business leaders, educators, and research organizations
have decried our students lack of foreign language skills and called for better language
instruction. Yet, despite these calls for action, we have fallen further behind the rest of the
world in preparing our students to communicate effectively in languages other than
English.
"I believe the main reason for this disparity is that foreign languages are treated by our
public education system as less important than math, science and English. In contrast,
E.U. governments expect their citizens to become fluent in at least two languages plus
their native tongue. . . .
"[F]oreign language instruction in the U.S. is frequently considered a 'luxury,' a subject
taught to college-bound students, more frequently in affluent than poor school districts,
and readily cut when math or reading test scores drop or budget cuts loom."
(Ingrid Pufahl, "How Europe Does It." The New York Times, February. 7, 2010)

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