Multilingualism is the act of using polyglotism, or using multiple languages, either by an

individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual

speakers in the world's population.[1] Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the
needs of globalization and cultural openness. [2] 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.

The definition of multilingualism is a subject of debate in the very same way as the definition of
language fluency. On one end of a sort of linguistic-continuum, one may define multilingualism
as complete competence and mastery in another language. The speaker would presumably have
complete knowledge and control over the language so as to sound native. On the opposite end of
the spectrum would be people such as tourists who know enough phrases to get around using the
alternate language.

Because of the lack of any true definition for multilingualism, it is very difficult to define an
individual as being multilingual. Having no specification of how much knowledge of a language
is required for a person to be classified as bilingual makes it difficult for language teaching
institutions to teach languages to students to the point of fluency. As a result, since most speakers
do not achieve the maximally ideal level, language learners may come to be seen as deficient and
by extension, language teaching may come to be seen as a failure.

Bilingualism Ability to speak two languages. It may be acquired early by children in

regions where most adults speak two languages (e.g., French and dialectal German in Alsace).
Children may also become bilingual by learning languages in two different social settings; for
example, British children in British India learned an Indian language from their nurses and
family servants. A second language can also be acquired in school. Bilingualism can also refer to
the use of two languages in teaching, especially to foster learning in students trying to learn a
new language. Advocates of bilingual education in the U.S. argue that it speeds learning in all
subjects for children who speak a foreign language at home and prevents them from being
marginalized in English-language schools. Detractors counter that it hinders such children from
mastering the language of the larger society and limits their opportunities for employment and
higher education.

Bilingualism means that there is more than one official language for example Canada has
English as a fist language and French as a second language.

An individual can be bilingual by having some degree of fluency in two languages. People can
be fluent or nearly so in the standard spoken form of a language while having less skill in reading
or writing it. The kind of fluency here does not necessarily involve knowledge and ease of use of
the many specialized vocabularies that any language has that deal with medical, scientific and
other fields.
In linguistics, code-switching is switching 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 in 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). Borrowing
affects the lexicon, the words that make up a language, while code-switching takes place in
individual utterances.[1][2][3] Speakers form and establish a pidgin language when two or more
speakers who do not speak a common language form an intermediate, third language. On the
other hand, speakers practice code-switching when they are each fluent in both languages. Code
mixing is a thematically related term, but the usage of the terms code-switching and code-mixing
varies. Some scholars use either term to denote the same practice, while others apply code-
mixing to denote the formal linguistic properties of said language-contact phenomena, and code-
switching to denote the actual, spoken usages by multilingual persons.[4][5][6]

In the 1940s and 1950s, many scholars considered code-switching to be a sub-standard use of
language.[7] Since the 1980s, however, most scholars have recognised it is a normal, natural
product of bilingual and multilingual language use.[8][9]

The term "code-switching" is also used outside the field of linguistics. Some scholars of
literature use the term to describe literary styles which include elements from more than one
language, as in novels by Chinese-American, Anglo-Indian, or Latino/a writers.[10] In popular
usage code-switching is sometimes used to refer to relatively stable informal mixtures of two
languages, such as Spanglish, Franponais or Portuñol.[11] Both in popular usage and in
sociolinguistic scholarship, the name code-switching is sometimes used to refer to switching
among dialects, styles or registers, such as that practiced by speakers of African American
Vernacular English as they move from less formal to more formal settings.[12]

The phenomenon by which permanent alterations are made in the features and the use of a
language over time.

All natural languages change, and language change affects all areas of language use. Types of
language change include sound changes, lexical changes, semantic changes, and syntactic
changes.

Examples and Observations:

 "For centuries people have speculated about the causes of language change. The
problem is not one of thinking up possible causes, but of deciding which to take
seriously. . . .
 "Even when we have eliminated the 'lunatic fringe' theories, we are left with an enormous
number of possible causes to take into consideration. Part of the problem is that there are
several different causative factors at work, not only in language as a whole, but also in
any one change. . . .

"We can begin by dividing proposed causes of change into two broad categories. On the
one hand, there are external sociolinguistic factors--that is, social factors outside the
language system. On the other hand, there are internal psycholinguistic ones--that is,
linguistic and psychological factors which reside in the structure of the language and the
minds of the speakers."
(Jean Aitchison, Language Change: Progress or Decay? 3rd ed. Cambridge Univ. Press,
2001)

 Anthropological Perspective on Language Change

"There are many factors influencing the rate at which language changes, including the
attitudes of the speakers toward borrowing and change. When most members of a speech
community value novelty, for example, their language will change more quickly. When
most members of a speech community value stability, then their language will change
more slowly. When a particular pronunciation or word or grammatical form or turn of
phrase is regarded as more desirable, or marks its users as more important or powerful,
then it will be adopted and imitated more rapidly than otherwise. . . .

"The important thing to remember about change is that, as long as people are using a
language, that language will undergo some change."
(Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer, The Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to
Linguistic Anthropology, 2nd ed. Wadsworth, 2009)

 Prescriptivist Perspective on Language Change

"I see no absolute Necessity why any Language would be perpetually changing."
(Jonathan Swift, Proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the English
Tongue, 1712)

 Sporadic and Systematic Changes in Language

"Changes in language may be systematic or sporadic. The addition of a vocabulary item
to name a new product, for example, is a sporadic change that has little impact on the rest
of the lexicon. Even some phonological changes are sporadic. For instance, many
speakers of English pronounce the word catch to rhyme with wretch rather than
hatch. . . .
 "Systematic changes, as the term suggests, affect an entire system or subsystem of the
language. . . . A conditioned systematic change is brought about by context or
environment, whether linguistic or extralinguistic. For many speakers of English, the
short e vowel (as in bet) has, in some words, been replaced by a short i vowel (as in bit),
For these speakers, pin and pen, him and hem are homophones (words pronounced the
same). This change is conditioned because it occurs only in the context of a following m
or n; pig and peg, hill and hell, middle and meddle are not pronounced alike for these
speakers."
(C.M. Millward, A Biography of the English Language, 2nd ed. Harcourt Brace, 1996)

 The Wave Model of Language Change

"[T]he distribution of regional language features may be viewed as the result of language
change through geographical space over time. A change is initiated at one locale at a
given point in time and spreads outward from that point in progressive stages so that
earlier changes reach the outlying areas later. This model of language change is referred
to as the wave model . . .."
(Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes, American English: Dialects and Variation.
Blackwell, 1998)