According to Edward, “Multilingualism is a powerful fact of life around the world, a circumstance arising at the simplest level, from the need to communicate across speech communities.” (1994:1)
Multilingualism is an increasing and on-going phenomenon now days in many societies. It is a powerful fact of life as suggested by Edward but the major question is what exactly is meant by multilingualism? The definition of multilingualism which is used by many linguists is the ability to use more than one language, to varying degrees of proficiency by individuals or societies.
Multilingualism has been the topic of interest for many researchers (Weinrecih 1953, Vildomec 1963) however, they differ in their definitions of the term multilingualism which
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Polyglossia (Harry 1992) refers to the communities where a number of languages or varieties are used by individuals within the community for specific purposes where these languages or varieties have different roles.
A person may speak his or her language more easily than other languages, but he or she remains considered as ‘plurilingual’, a term suggested by European Council and a term ‘multilinguality’ is used by Aronin and O Laoire (2004) as the state of knowing two or more languages. It is the use of languages for the purpose of communication whereas a person has proficiency of varying degrees in several languages and experience of several cultures.
In the words of Haugen(1953:7)’ bilingualism is ‘the point where the speaker of one language can produce complete, meaningful utterances in other language’, so multilingualism is the capacity of a society, institution, groups and individuals to engage on a regular basis with more than one language in everyday life. It is the product of human capability to communicate in different languages. ‘The term multilingualism can refer to several language varieties, as well as to (regional) languages and dialects and sign languages’(Franceschini.