#003 I Monolingual, bilingual or more?
Show Notes
What does bilingualism mean and who is actually bilingual? This episode of BOLD & BILINGUAL deals with a few definitions on the subject of multilingualism. At the end of the episode, you can answer the question of whether you would describe yourself as monolingual, bilingual, or even multilingual.
In the episode “#003 I Monolingual, bilingual or maybe multilingual?” you will find the following topics to be discussed:
Diversity of languages in our world
Definition: monolingualism
Definition: bilingualism
Simultaneous or sequential bilingualism
Passive or active bilingualism
Definition: multilingual
Next episode: What if ...? Can monolingual parents raise their children bilingually?
Links mentioned in this episode:
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bold-bilingual/id1618614100
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tf4R6OGfgpbIortNxtBDI?si=346f4c3eaaae41cc
Music:
Track: Ikson - Blue Sky [Official]
Music provided by Ikson®
Listen: https://youtu.be/zc4ET9viVQ0
Kindersprache
https://www.kindersprache.org/unit/kindersprache/mehrsprachigkeit
PEaCH Project:
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Transcript
A question we probably don't ask ourselves every day, but since this podcast is about languages and in nearly every country we speak another language, I'll just ask you: how many languages are there in the world? Hmm, no idea? What do you think? Just guess and then we'll start with a new episode of BOLD & BILINGUAL.
I’m Sabine Edelhoff, mother of 4 children, project and process manager, and founder of blah - be lingual at home, the first online program for parents who want to raise their children bilingually with a foreign language.
It wasn't that long ago that I lacked the self-confidence, the resources, and the time to plunge into the adventure of our family language journey. But then suddenly I was brave enough and just started with English as our second family language.
Today our children can understand English without any problems and the two older children experience English lessons at school with so much more ease and fun.
I started the BOLD & BILINGUAL podcast to give you simple, actionable step-by-step strategies that will help you do the same.
If you've ever asked yourself, can I raise my children bilingually with a foreign language? and what is the best way to do it so that it will be easier for them to speak foreign languages in school, at work, or later in their everyday life?
Then you are exactly in the right place.
Let's get started.
And how much did you guess? 250 or maybe 800? I asked my husband the same question and he, surprisingly to me, started singing:
There are 194 countries, I want to see each of them
Six and a half thousand languages
I try to understand
The whole world full of adventure
Want to experience as much as possible
But you, baby, you, only you
There's just one for me
Mark Forster did good research for his song “194 Länder” in 2019 ;-) And unlike me, Volker listened really well and said 6,500 languages straight away, while I had to google it to find out this number ...
Diversity of languages in our world
Today's episode of BOLD & BILINGUAL is about the question are we actually monolingual, bilingual, or even multilingual?
Even if we have 194 countries in the world, the number of languages people speak is so much higher. And buckle up - today there are even around 7,000 languages worldwide, and that's not even counting dialects like Swabian or Saxon ;-) Unbelievable, isn't it?
So now the only question that remains is how many people in the world can only speak one language, namely their mother tongue, and how many people are already bi- or multilingual?
Almost 7.9 billion people currently live in the world and it is assumed that at least half of the world's population is bilingual or even multilingual.
Definition: What does it actually mean to be monolingual?
Conversely, less than half of the population is monolingual. And it is certainly not surprising when I now mention that monolingualism is more common in English-speaking countries. That is easy to explain, since English, is the world language. English is the lingua franca used for communication and with the best intention to build bridges around the world.
Definition: What does it actually mean to be bilingual?
But back to bilingualism: bilingualism is more the rule than the exception worldwide and the number of multilingual children is increasing every year.
Looking back, all I can remember is that I only connected bilingualism to those around me who had binational parents and were brought up bilingually with two different mother tongues. Today, linguistic experts share almost all the same opinion that nearly everyone speaks at least a dialect in addition to their mother tongue and therefore already has several language systems.
While the Oxford Dictionary defines bilingual as a person being bilingual if they are fluent in two languages, I would like to join the common definition the PEaCH project always quotes and that is the definition from Professor François Grosjean's:
“a bilingual person is someone who regularly uses two or more languages or dialects in their everyday life”
So, as a concept, bilingualism is much broader defined than many of us think and is not measured by a specific level of fluency. I think that's an important message, which the PEaCH project also deliberately emphasizes in particular, since we parents, who want to bring up our children bilingually, even if the second language is, for example, a foreign language, will be probably relieved by it when hearing this definition.
No matter what language level our children will reach with our attempts at bilingual education, every additional word, even the smallest understanding or even the smallest attempt at language, will help our children to communicate confidently and with more ease with other people in this increasingly globalizing world and hopefully will leave behind the thinking in countries with borders.
What is simultaneous or sequential bilingualism?
If you grew up bilingually from birth, it's called simultaneous bilingualism and if you grow up with one language and later added a second then it's called sequential bilingualism. For our children in the EU begins at the latest, the language adventure when they start going to school in English, or even other languages.
And how can one distinguish between passive and active bilingualism?
So far, so good, but there is another definition when it comes to bilingualism that I also found very interesting and I would like to share with you and that is that one can also be receptive bilingual, which means that one is bilingual when it comes to understanding and reading a language, but cannot speak or write. Or you can also distinguish between passive and active bilingualism.
What does it mean to be multilingual?
So, we still have the definition of multilingual: You are multilingual if you can speak or, let's say use, more than two languages regularly in everyday life.
Unfortunately, I can't count myself among multilingual people, because my Russian skills are simply not good enough for that. How about you, would you describe yourself as bilingual or even multilingual?
Recap
Let me now briefly summarize the many different terms:
You are monolingual if you can only speak one language in everyday life
According to Grosjean, you are bilingual if you regularly use two or more languages or dialects in your everyday life
And you are even multilingual, if you can use more than two languages in everyday life
Our world, the professional world, and also the world of friendships have become multilingual and culturally so incredibly diverse. School prepares our children for this and we as parents can also do our part.
Our free Resource Library
So be BOLD & BILINGUAL and start the adventure of the family language trip with your family. In our free library, we have put many resources in German and English for you that can help you get started right away. So register now and get instant access. You will find the link in the Show Notes or in our shop at belingualathome.com
Next episode: What if ...? Can monolingual parents raise their children bilingually?
In the next episodes I will introduce you to the topic of non-native bilingual parenting. We all learned English plus one other language at school. So what if we simply pass on our foreign language skills to our children in everyday family life as best we can?
So that's it for today. We'll hear from each other again next week: same time, same place here on my podcast BOLD & BILINGUAL.
Until then, take care!
Sabine
