[lg policy] Bilingualism's best kept secret: How extensive it is

[Harold Schiffman]

 !
Published on *Psychology Today* (http://www.psychologytoday.com)

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Bilingualism's best kept secret: How extensive it is
By *Francois Grosjean, Ph.D.*
Created *Nov 1 2010 - 4:27am*
 <http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/laughter>

Whenever I give a talk on bilingualism, I surprise my audience with the
following estimate: more than half of the world's population uses two or
more languages (or dialects) in everyday life. Bilingualism is present on
all continents, in all classes of society, in all age groups. We know, for
example, that in Asia and Africa, many people are bi- or multilingual
although precise figures are often lacking. In Europe, a bit more than half
of the population is at least bilingual. Smaller countries such as
Luxembourg, Switzerland, and The Netherlands house many bilinguals whereas
larger countries such as Great Britain and France have fewer of them.

In North America, some 35% of the population in Canada is bilingual and
although the percentage is smaller in the United States - some 17% - this
still corresponds to an estimated 55 million inhabitants. Bilingualism in
the US is very diverse, pairing English with Native American languages,
older colonial languages, recent immigration languages, and so on.

How can one explain such large numbers of bilinguals? One reason is simply
that many countries house numerous languages: 722 in Indonesia, 445 in
India, 207 in Australia and so on. Contact between communities means
learning other languages or, at the very least, acquiring a common language
of communication and hence being bilingual. In addition, some countries have
a language policy that recognizes and fosters several languages - at the
very least their official or national languages. Children learn these
languages (or some of them) and many may well be educated in a language that
is not their native language.

Trade and business are a major cause of language contact and hence
bilingualism. For example, Greek was the language of buyers and sellers in
the Mediterranean during the third, fourth and fifth centuries BCE and, of
course, English has become a major language of trade and business today. I
have known business people in Sweden, Switzerland and Singapore who speak
English all day at work and return home to speak their native language.

An important cause of bilingualism is the movement of peoples. The reasons
are many - political,
religious<http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/religion>,
social, economic - and go back to the beginning to time. For instance,
people have always moved to other regions or countries in search of work and
better living conditions, and this has led to substantial bilingualism. It
is with this in mind that American linguist Einar Haugen, a pioneer of
bilingualism studies, stated that the United States has probably been the
home of more bilingual speakers than any other country in the world.

This said, bilingualism is not very extensive at any one time in the US
since it is basically short-lived and transitional. For generations and
generations of Americans, bilingualism has covered a brief period, spanning
one or two generations, between monolingualism in a minority language and
monolingualism in English.

Things may be changing though. An increasing number of families are
fostering bilingualism by encouraging their children to learn two languages,
English and another language, very often the home language. Many are thereby
keeping their linguistic and cultural heritage alive in addition to giving
their children the possibility of knowing another language. An increasing
number of professions need people who speak two or more languages. In
addition, bilingualism allows you to communicate with different people and
hence to discover different cultures, thereby giving you a different
perspective on the world.


*Source URL:* http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/49899

*Links:*
[1] http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/teaser/2010/11/blog3.jpg


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