# Which "bilingual" countries are actually bilingual?



## vince

Hello all,

I'm wondering which multilingual countries and regions are actually multilingual?

There are many countries that have several official languages and officially declare themselves multilingual. Or, like in the case of the United States, there is no official language but there are regions where many languages are spoken, especially Spanish.

I'm wondering which countries and regions are truly bilingual in that 
if you talk to the average citizen there, they will be able to fluently speak and write in both?

An example of a bilingual place in Canada would be the sparsely populated area in northern Ontario, a lot of people there speak both French and English fluently. Whereas if you go to Toronto, you can see gov't-sponsored bilingual road signs everywhere but you can swear profusely in French in a crowded mall and the biggest complaint you'd get from parents with children would be to keep your voice down.

I am wondering if you can do the same thing in places like, say, Zürich and Antwerpen.


----------



## TimeHP

In Italy there is a region, Trentino Alto Adige, where people speak both German and Italian.
Ciao


----------



## Pivra

These are the countries that I think really are bilingual:
Switzerland (3- 4 I forgot how many)
India(uncountable)
Spain(castellano y catalàn)
New Mexico (do you count it as a country??)
San Antonio, Texas


----------



## vince

Spain and India are not totally bilingual.

If you are in Sevilla, I don't think you can talk Catalan and be understood.
Try talking Punjabi in Kolkata

I think many areas in New Mexico and Texas are truly multilingual in that many people born and raised there for generations and who consider themselves American still speak both. But in many areas, I think only Mexican immigrants and their families speak Spanish. Hope someone will clarify this.

I would really like to know if Switzerland is trully multilingual.


----------



## Pivra

vince said:
			
		

> Spain and India are not totally bilingual.
> 
> If you are in Sevilla, I don't think you can talk Catalan and be understood.
> Try talking Punjabi in Kolkata


 
Like, I suppose everyone in Panjab or in Kolkata (or almost everyone) can understand Hindi. But people from Tamil Nadu or Bangalore might not. 

Anyone from Bharata Pradesh wants to clear up this curiosity?

dhanyavaad


----------



## Lucyernaga

Isn't País Vasco in Spain a bilingual territory?  They actually have signs in both languages.


----------



## Tresley

In the whole of Wales all the road signs are in Welsh and English, but only the North West part of Wales is truly bi-lingual.


----------



## Bienvenidos

In Afghanistan, native Pashto speakers speak Farsi as a second language, but it's rare to find a native Farsi speaker that speaks Pashto.

*Bien*


----------



## vince

Lucyernaga said:
			
		

> Isn't País Vasco in Spain a bilingual territory?  They actually have signs in both languages.


The presence of signs doesn't indicate anything other than government suppport of a language.

Here in Toronto we have a lot of French-English bilingual signs on highways and streets. But according to the census, only 1.4% of  Torontonians speak French. That's less than the 2% of Torontonians who speak Spanish or the 10% who speak a Chinese language.

What percentage of the population in Euskal Herria actually speak Basque?


Ten to twenty years ago southern China and Taiwan were bilingual. There were, like in India today, countless languages spoken in China, each area was bilingual with Mandarin and the local language. Now most people still know some of the local language, but its usage is decreasing more and more. Eventually China and Taiwan will be unilingual Mandarin. So I am hesitant to say that China is multilingual except for regions where non-Sinitic languages like Uygur and Kazakh are spoken.


----------



## MarcB

Hi Vince, Good topic!
Some of your comments are confusing when you say bi or multilingual, it seems like you want them to be 100%. Then it seems like part of the country is ok such as a state, province etc. Your original post says regions or countries, and then you ask if a regional language is spoken in a different region of the country (Catalan)
I agree many countries with more than one official language does not mean everyone speaks all of them. In fact I do not think anyone can make that claim even monolingual countries often do not claim everyone speaks the language.
Switzerland; many people speak more than one language to varying degrees with many fluent in at least two some more, including English.
The US you already mentioned but of course most people are monolingual despite thee millions who speak two or more.
Belgium most German speakers speak a second language, several French speakers speak Flemish, quite a few Flemish speakers speak French and many of all groups speak English.
Canada Some Anglophones speak French (many study it in school but are not functional) Most French speakers outside of Quebec speak English and many people in Quebec speak English. Many Native people speak two languages.
Paraguay Statistics claim the majority of the population speaks Spanish and Guarani perhaps up to 75%. I will add that many people speak a mixture of both.
You are right neither Spain nor India are completely bilingual. I mentioned the 100% already. Spain has a few regions where Spanish and another language are spoken by some not all of the population in that region.
India is like Spain in this regard just by larger amounts.
North Africa has many people who speak two or more languages.
China and Taiwan are still multilingual. Whether or not all of the languages disappear in the future remains to be seen. I strongly doubt most will. Most Uighur only speak Uighur.
And many Tibetans only speak Tibetan.
Keep in mind that so many countries have people who are fluent in English regardless of what the national language is.
There are none that I know of where everyone speaks more than one
Other posters have given good examples as well.


----------



## vince

I doubt there are any places that are 100% multilingual

I guess my criteria for a place being multilingual is, can I be served at a local business in both languages? This would show that the support for both languages extends beyond government-sponsored bilingualism (like in Toronto). This doesn't necessarily mean that 90% of the population is bilingual, but that the place is bilingual enough that businesses feel the need to hire bilingual staff even for local establishments.

In this way, Catalonia I believe is bilingual. Some old folks might be unilingual, but I believe you can be served in either Catalan or Castilian anywhere.

I saw a linguistic map of the extreme north of France near Dunkerque and although there is an area where people are bilingual with Flemish Dutch, the map shows that it has been shrinking in the past hundred years.

In Canada, there are very few anglophones who speak French, outside of northern Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick.

Interesting to hear that Paraguay is bilingual. How about Bolivia, I heard that it has the highest proportion of native Americans and "mestizos/métis" in the Western Hemisphere.

How widespread is Hindi in India? Is it spoken and understood everywhere in northern India? I once considered learning Hindi but I was hesitant because I was afraid I'd have to learn Urdu, Panjabi, Gujarati, Bangla, etc to communicate with everyone.

About the China being multilingual thing, I think the only languages that will survive are the non-Sinitic ones, like Tibetan, Uighur, and the Tai and Miao-Yiao languages in the south. I don't know whether this argument is valid, but all of the mainland Chinese immigrants that I've seen (and I've seen many, since my college is full of them) speak exclusively in Mandarin. I've talked to one and he says that he still speaks his local language (the Gan language of southern China), but he only uses it to talk to his grandparents. Even to his parents and close friends he speaks Mandarin. I doubt the language will survive to his descendants. I've spoken to a Taiwanese immigrant and she says that she can only passively understand Minnan, and converses with her Taiwanese boyfriend in Mandarin. The only Chinese people here who speak in non-Mandarin are immigrants from Hong Kong, who speak Cantonese.


----------



## Brioche

Pivra said:
			
		

> These are the countries that I think really are bilingual:
> Switzerland (3- 4 I forgot how many)


 
Switzerland has four languages, German, French, Italian and Rhaeto-Romansch - but not much bi- or multi-lingualism.

22 of the 26 cantons are officially monolingual. In the 60s French speakers in Jura succeeded in getting separate cantonal status for their part of a predominantly German-speaking canton.

Each canton in Switzerland behaves pretty much like a separate country.


----------



## mansio

Pivra

Most languages of Northern India and Pakistan are Indo-european languages deriving from Sanskrit. One of them Hindustani was used as a common language and gave birth to Hindi for Northern India, and Urdu for Pakistan. 
The languages of Southern India are a completely different family of languages (except Cinghalese which is Indo-european). So the people from that area are reluctant to use Hindi and often resort to English.


----------



## Chaska Ñawi

In response to your question, Vince, most Bolivians do speak both Spanish and an indigenous language - usually Quechua, Aymara or Guarani.  Due to social pressures, this is slowly changing and an increasing number of people speak only Spanish.  

Now that there are university classes for Quechua as a second language in Argentina, perhaps it won't be such a Cinderella language, however.


----------



## natasha2000

Brioche said:
			
		

> Switzerland has four languages, German, French, Italian and Rhaeto-Romansch - but not much bi- or multi-lingualism.
> 
> 22 of the 26 cantons are officially monolingual. In the 60s French speakers in Jura succeeded in getting separate cantonal status for their part of a predominantly German-speaking canton.
> 
> Each canton in Switzerland behaves pretty much like a separate country.


 
Is Rhaeto-Romanisch used widely and as an official language in Switzerland? I thought it was one of endangered languages....


----------



## LaSmarjeZ

What about Finland?
I think they talk both Finnish and Swedish.


----------



## Vespasian

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Is Rhaeto-Romanisch used widely and as an official language in Switzerland? I thought it was one of endangered languages....


Not widely. It has less native speakers than some native languages of immigrants. It is actually endangered. But the state tries to support the language. You can watch their television news show (http://www.rtr.ch/go/to?siteSect=10103) in the whole country for example.


----------



## natasha2000

Vespasian said:
			
		

> Not widely. It has less native speakers than some native languages of immigrants. It is actually endangered. But the state tries to support the language. You can watch their television news show (http://www.rtr.ch/go/to?siteSect=10103) in the whole country for example.


 
Thaks for the link. I have never heard it before... It sounds like a mixture of Italian, French and German, when listening... Although reading it, I can understand a great part of it...


----------



## aridra

Pivra said:
			
		

> Like, I suppose everyone in Panjab or in Kolkata (or almost everyone) can understand Hindi. But people from Tamil Nadu or Bangalore might not.
> 
> Anyone from Bharata Pradesh wants to clear up this curiosity?
> 
> dhanyavaad


 
What is the criteria for being a multilingual country?  If it is that each and every person must speak more than one language, I wonder if any country will make the grade!!!

However, for all practical purposes, India is definitely a candidate for a being a multilingual country.  People in the cities will definitely speak at least a bit of English in addition to whatever the local language is.  In most of the northern states, Hindi will be understood in addition to the local language (in case it is different).  English is more popular than Hindi in the south as a second language.  Most signs at airports, stations etc will be both in the local language and in English, and sometimes Hindi as well.  In most schools, one learns multiple languages.  And as many people work in areas very far from their home states, they pick up the local language as well.

I speak 5 - English (medium of education), Hindi (local language of area where I grew up and my second language at school), Tamil (mother tongue), Bengali (husband's mother tongue) and I learnt Sanskrit as a third language at school.  This is not unsual.


----------



## aridra

vince said:
			
		

> Spain and India are not totally bilingual.
> 
> If you are in Sevilla, I don't think you can talk Catalan and be understood.
> Try talking Punjabi in Kolkata


 
What???  Punjabi may not work in Kolkata but Hindi and English will!!  If India is not multilingual by your definition, I wonder if you will find any multilingual country at all


----------



## natasha2000

aridra said:
			
		

> What is the criteria for being a multilingual country? If it is that each and every person must speak more than one language, I wonder if any country will make the grade!!!
> 
> However, for all practical purposes, India is definitely a candidate for a being a multilingual country. People in the cities will definitely speak at least a bit of English in addition to whatever the local language is. In most of the northern states, Hindi will be understood in addition to the local language (in case it is different). English is more popular than Hindi in the south as a second language. Most signs at airports, stations etc will be both in the local language and in English, and sometimes Hindi as well. In most schools, one learns multiple languages. And as many people work in areas very far from their home states, they pick up the local language as well.
> 
> I speak 5 - English (medium of education), Hindi (local language of area where I grew up and my second language at school), Tamil (mother tongue), Bengali (husband's mother tongue) and I learnt Sanskrit as a third language at school. This is not unsual.


Well, I suppose that the "bilingual" means that one uses two languages indistinctly as their mother tongues. If not, than all the participants of the forum would be bilingual, and some of them even multilingual... I think it is important to distinguish a foreign language one speaks (it doesn't matter if one speaks it pefectly, it is not its mother tongue) and a language learnt from childhood.
I understand Catalans as bilingual people. 99% of them don't even notice when they pass from speaking Catalan to speaking Spanish and vice versa. Today, for example, I witnissed a conversation of two young people - one speaking Spanish other one Catalan... So naturally, as if they were speaking one sole language!!! I loved it, really.


----------



## KateNicole

vince said:
			
		

> Or, like in the case of the United States, there is no official language but there are regions where many languages are spoken, especially Spanish.


For all practical purposes, isn't English the official language of the United States?  Aside from very extreme circumstances, it seems to me that all people that are born and raised in the US learn to speak English fluently.


----------



## vince

Yes, the U.S.'s de facto official language is English.

I don't think Finland is bilingual except for a few small areas.

what I mean by "bilingual" is looser than natasha2000's definition. The second language may be learnt, but it must be learned to such a degree that the speaker is fluent in both their native language and the second language.

An example of this would be Sweden, which I think is bilingual in Swedish and English despite English not being natively spoken.


A region may be bilingual without both languages being de jure "official" e.g. southern Texas and parts of New Mexico, or Montreal (where the only official language is French).


----------



## KateNicole

Yes, I understood your question (and I've asked myself the same thing many times . . .) I just wasn't sure about that bit on the US.

When I traveled to some cities in the Basque region of Spain, where all (or at least the vast majority) of the signs are bilingual, I expected the natives to be bilingual as well. I tried so hard to overhear a Basque conversation or find someone on the street or working in a store that spoke Basque, and I had absolutely no luck. Granted, I was only there for two days, but I tried very hard and came up with nothing! It seemed like hardly anyone spoke Basque at home or with friends. I'm in no way an expert of the state of the Basque language in Spain. I'm just commenting on my experience, but I think that if the case is that children only learn the given "other" language in school because the class is mandatory (and proficiency is _not_ guaranteed . . . or common for that matter), I don't think a region should be considered bilingual.


----------



## vince

I agree. That's why although English is required in Japan and French is required in English Canada, these areas are not bilingual because their quality of second-language education is too poor. (Yes, I'd rate Ontario's FSL graduates to be as good as Japanese "Engrish"-speaker's English). But Sweden is a rare example where second-language education reaches the level of fluency.


----------



## KateNicole

. . . Just a comment:  I wouldn't equate an accent (or a lack thereof) with fluency, like in the case of a Japanese accent.


----------



## natasha2000

vince said:
			
		

> Yes, the U.S.'s de facto official language is English.
> 
> I don't think Finland is bilingual except for a few small areas.
> 
> what I mean by "bilingual" is looser than natasha2000's definition. *The second language may be learnt, but it must be learned to such a degree that the speaker is fluent in both their native language and the second language.*
> 
> An example of this would be Sweden, which I think is bilingual in Swedish and English despite English not being natively spoken.
> 
> 
> A region may be bilingual without both languages being de jure "official" e.g. southern Texas and parts of New Mexico, or Montreal (where the only official language is French).


 
Then, I am trilingual???? This is the conclusion that I draw from your definition.
As well as many other foreros here....


----------



## vince

Yes, I guess you are trilingual then

Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, English

But only you as an individual, I don't think there are any regions in the world that are mostly trilingual in these languages.


----------



## natasha2000

vince said:
			
		

> Yes, I guess you are trilingual then
> 
> Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, English
> 
> But only you as an individual, I don't think there are any regions in the world that are mostly trilingual in these languages.


 
Hmm... I really do not see the word "bilingual" "Xlingual" in this way.... But, OK. You placed the question, you make rules  ....


----------



## Outsider

There's a small region of Portugal where a language (or dialect) akin to Spanish, called Mirandese, is spoken in rural areas. However, everyone learns Portuguese as well, and they use Portuguese in the cities and when talking to strangers. Don't know if this counts.


----------



## Kelly B

My cousins from Egypt and Lebanon are truly bilingual - raised with Arabic, educated in French (though accented) - but they are older, and I don't know if it's still done that way.


----------



## murena

I think that in Hong Kong english and cantonese is widely spoken.

Also in Fiji, english and fijian are common.

I have not been to these places, so I may be wrong.

Regards


----------



## timebomb

I use English when I speak to my daughters but Chinese when I converse with my wife.  I can also speak Malay and several dialects.  In Singapore, I'm by no means unusual.  Over here, almost every citizen speaks more than one language, usually English and their mother tongue.

In schools, children are taught 2 languages, English as a first-language subject and their mother-tongue as a second-language subject.  The brighter ones do both languages as first-language subjects.  

Signs here are often in 4 languages, namely, English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil.  English is the official language but Chinese is more commonly spoken.  Our national anthem, however, is in Malay.  

If any country qualifies for being bilingual, Singapore is it.


----------



## rhian_haf

Tresley said:
			
		

> In the whole of Wales all the road signs are in Welsh and English, but only the North West part of Wales is truly bi-lingual.


 
which is where i come from and im lucky enough to be bilingual...


----------



## betulina

As it has been said, the Catalan society is bilingual, as you can speak both Catalan and Spanish all around the country. As for Catalan people, though, I think that some of us have a "first language", which is the one we have learnt to talk with. Of course, that doesn't mean that we cannot speak the other (whichever it is) with absolute fluency (although those with Catalan as first language are more likely to speak Spanish better than vice versa). I think that really bilingual people are those who speak both languages at home and have learnt them at the same time and with "equality". I'm not sure about the proportion of that in Catalonia.

But going back to the specific topic, I would like to point out that there is a small part of Catalonia (a "comarca") in the Pyrenees, "la Val d'Aran", in which there are three official languages and in which people can speak all three languages: Spanish, Catalan and Aranese (I think that's the name in English), which is a variant of Occitan.


----------



## orion

I wonder if, to be considered bilingual, both "languages" you speak must have official status in the country/countries where they are spoken? 

For example, if Spain was still ruled by a fascist dictatorship and the teaching of Catalan in schools continued to be prohibited, would those who speak both Catalan and Spanish fluently be considered bilingual, or just monolingual speakers who have their own special "dialect"? 

Some people think that Scots (spoken in parts of Lowland Scotland) should be classified as a seperate language (as opposed to a dialect of English) so could they justifiably call themselves "bilingual"? (bearing in mind that they would also be fluent in English).

It seems that bilingualism (or, moreover, multilingualism) is not so easy to define, and perhaps you could even say that there are different "degrees" of bilingualism/multilingualism depending on a number of different factors...

For example, in my opinion, someone who can speak both Basque and Spanish fluently (obviously two very distinct languages) is much more "bilingual" than someone who can speak Catalan and Spanish (two relatively very similar languages...)

Just tossing a few ideas around outloud, hopefully not in an off-topic manner.


----------



## natasha2000

> orion said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder if, to be considered bilingual, both "languages" you speak must have official status in the country/countries where they are spoken?
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think so. I would say that it is enough that the language is widely used by people.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> For example, if Spain was still ruled by a fascist dictatorship and the teaching of Catalan in schools continued to be prohibited, would those who speak both Catalan and Spanish fluently be considered bilingual, or just monolingual speakers who have their own special "dialect"?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> In my opinion, if Franco were still alive, it would be like you say, for sure, but only because fascists are in power. This "opinion" would be based on politics and not on real facts. I would compare it with Hitler and his idea that Jews should be exterminated. IT was a political decision and consideration, which didn't have anything to do with the objective, real state of facts.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It seems that bilingualism (or, moreover, multilingualism) is not so easy to define, and perhaps you could even say that there are different "degrees" of bilingualism/multilingualism depending on a number of different factors...
> 
> For example, in my opinion, someone who can speak both Basque and Spanish fluently (obviously two very distinct languages) is much more "bilingual" than someone who can speak Catalan and Spanish (two relatively very similar languages...)
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I would disagree. According to this, then a person whose two mother tongues are, for example, Italian and Spanish, is less bilingual than a person who speaks Spanish and Hungarian. Both of them, if speak both languages indistinctively, are bilingual, because they DO SPEAK two different languages. It is not about the grade of difference or difficulty in languages, it is about the quantity of languages. And both persons speak two languages.
Click to expand...


----------



## orion

I don't think so. I would say that it is enough that the language is widely used by people.

But if the "language" you speak is not officially recognised as such (as in the example of Scots) then apparently you are not bilingual, regardless of how many people may speak it or how unique it may be. Besides, many "languages" are not _widely used_ at all, so that would not be a good way to define them...

In my opinion, if Franco were still alive, it would be like you say, for sure, but only because fascists are in power. This "opinion" would be based on politics and not on real facts. I would compare it with Hitler and his idea that Jews should be exterminated. IT was a political decision and consideration, which didn't have anything to do with the objective, real state of facts.

Obviously politics and language are inextricably linked: that was exactly my point. As Napoleon supposedly once said "Un idioma es un dialecto con un ejército detrás". Objectivity and real facts are what those who have political power always claim to have on their side...

I would disagree. According to this, then a person whose two mother tongues are, for example, Italian and Spanish, is less bilingual than a person who speaks Spanish and Hungarian. Both of them, if speak both languages indistinctively, are bilingual, because they DO SPEAK two different languages. It is not about the grade of difference or difficulty in languages, it is about the quantity of languages. And both persons speak two languages.

Again it's about how you define *what* is a language and *who* defines it (which was really what I was getting at). If I speak asturo-leonés or navarro-aragonés (as well as castellano) then I am bilingual according to those academics who consider these as different languages (and not just dialects) and not bilingual by those who don't. If I speak Basque and Spanish then my "bilingualism" is not up for debate ...although it would have been (among some) when Basque didn't have official status...


----------



## natasha2000

I really didn't mean to argue anything you've said, only gave my opinion....


----------



## Brioche

orion said:
			
		

> Some people think that Scots (spoken in parts of Lowland Scotland) should be classified as a seperate language (as opposed to a dialect of English) so could they justifiably call themselves "bilingual"? (bearing in mind that they would also be fluent in English).


 
Where do you draw the line? Is Yorkshire a separate "language"? Large slabs of Geordie are just as incomprehensible as Lallands Scots.

Up to the beginning of the 16th century, the Scots called their language Inglis.


----------



## badgrammar

I get the feeling it is impossible to answer the original question without first establishing criteria, such as: 

Which countries define themselves as being "bilingual"?
What percentage of the population must speak both languages fluently in order for the country to be considered "bilingual"?
What is your definition of "bilingual"? (This is a question in and of it's own for which no satisfactory answer ever seems to exist in any debate)
What is your definition of a "bilingual country"?

What we are looking at here in this thread is an entirely undefined question, so that no matter what response someone gives, it can be shot down by any other poster's interpretation of all the above individual questions.  We need to start with a basic premise in order to define the question. 

So in my humble opinion, the original question is utterly unanswerable without giving some explicit definition to the terms used.

Sorry to be a party-pooper, but the question really lacks precision, and thus, pertinence...


----------



## orion

Brioche said:
			
		

> Where do you draw the line? Is Yorkshire a separate "language"? Large slabs of Geordie are just as incomprehensible as Lallands Scots.


Yes, I agree...that's why I'm interested in how a language is defined.
With my average Spanish, I can understand Asturian better than Lallands Scots, yet one is supposedly just a dialect of English and the other a language in its own right..


----------



## natasha2000

Now I am confused.... Is "Asturian" actually a language apart, or is it just a dialect of Castilian (Spanish)? I've always thought it was just a dialect of Spanish, like Aragones o Andaluz. It would be nice if some Spanish forero/a could explain....


----------



## french4beth

What about Belgium?  I understand that Flemish/Walloon are both official languages... but by the same token, you can't just go into a Flemish region & expect everyone to speak French, and vice versa.


----------



## vince

orion said:
			
		

> I wonder if, to be considered bilingual, both "languages" you speak must have official status in the country/countries where they are spoken?
> 
> For example, if Spain was still ruled by a fascist dictatorship and the teaching of Catalan in schools continued to be prohibited, would those who speak both Catalan and Spanish fluently be considered bilingual, or just monolingual speakers who have their own special "dialect"?
> 
> Some people think that Scots (spoken in parts of Lowland Scotland) should be classified as a seperate language (as opposed to a dialect of English) so could they justifiably call themselves "bilingual"? (bearing in mind that they would also be fluent in English).
> 
> It seems that bilingualism (or, moreover, multilingualism) is not so easy to define, and perhaps you could even say that there are different "degrees" of bilingualism/multilingualism depending on a number of different factors...
> 
> For example, in my opinion, someone who can speak both Basque and Spanish fluently (obviously two very distinct languages) is much more "bilingual" than someone who can speak Catalan and Spanish (two relatively very similar languages...)
> 
> Just tossing a few ideas around outloud, hopefully not in an off-topic manner.



You bring up interesting points. As you said, a problem arises when the two languages are not universally regarded as such, i.e. there is a "language or dialect?" question going on.

Then I guess it depends on the opinions of the laymen: Swedish people are automatically bilingual in Norwegian and Danish in the popular definition, but linguistically they are monolingual (the Scandinavian language); Swiss Germans are monolingual in the popular sense but bilingual in the linguistic sense (they speak both Standard German and Alemannisch). Then of course you've got the Chinese "dialects" - most southern Chinese people are popularly monolingual ("Chinese"-speakers) but are linguistically bilingual (Mandarin plus their local language).

The world isn't fair, Scandinavian-speakers and Slavic speakers will always be seen as the most foreign-language-eager groups of people, and German-, Arabic- and Italian- and Chinese- speakers don't get credit for any bilingualism they exhibit.


----------



## natasha2000

The most of Slavs *ARE monolingual speakers*, because they* do have only one mother tongue - the language of their own country...*

And Scandinavian and Slavic (most of them) speakers maybe have more motivation to learn foreign languages than for example Spanish or English speaking people, because of a very simple reason: If you are English or Spanish native speaker, it is more likely to find foreigners speaking your mother tongue, than if you are for example Norwegian, or Czech, or Serbian speaker... Many foreigners speak English or Spanish, but almost no foreigner speaks Serbian.... So what am I supposed to do if I want to communicate with you, guys?  Learn languages.


----------



## parodi

aridra said:
			
		

> What is the criteria for being a multilingual country? If it is that each and every person must speak more than one language, I wonder if any country will make the grade!!!


I have asked myself the same question.  Maybe it would be best to distinguish between *public* and *private* bilingualism. 

I think there is almost always a favored language. If a bingual couple is having a verbal argument you have probably observed that they usually revert to their own favored language. This was well observed in the TV show "I Love Lucy" where Ricky always went back to Spanish when he was upset with Lucy. (Since that show was tranlated into something like 45 languages, I think that most of the world must have seen this show.) I love it when one of the mates is yelling in their language and the other is replying in another language. The only time I've seen genuine private bilingualism is when children raised in the household can argue with their parents in one language and their friends in another.

Public bilingualism is more common, I think---and much easier to achieve. But the problem there is politics. My French is awful, yet I have tried to speak it to strangers in Belgium and in Quebec. In Brussels, I stopped a person to ask (in French) if they could direct me to a certain hotel. The person answered in Flemish. I told them I was from the US and they then began to speak perfectly in French. In Quebec, I had sort of the same situation. The speaker refused to speak ANY English until I told him I was from NY.


----------



## panjabigator

What about if you speak Malay and Bahasa Indonesian?  are you Bilingual then?

I'd say that most anywhere you go in North India, Hindi will be just fine.  In the cities, English is good too.  In Bengal and in East India, Bangla and the local language (But English should be fine in Bengal and some should be comfortable with Hindi).  In South India, unless you're in Hyderabad or even Bangalore, English is the way to go.  My father speaks four languages and my mother speaks three...an example of Indian polyglots!


----------



## sound shift

I've just got back from Belgium which, as already mentioned, has a Flemish/Dutch-speaking north and a Walloon/French-speaking south. My  anecdotal and unscientific impression is that the north has more 'bilingualism' than the south, both in numbers of speakers and degree of competence. French was the dominant language in the whole of Belgium until well into the 20th century, after all.

Brussels is officially bilingual but all this means is that the local authorities are obliged to deal with the citizen in the language of his/her choice: either Flemish/Dutch or Walloon/French. On the street, French dominates.

Just outside the Brussels city limits (and therefore in Flanders) some of the municipalities have "facilities" for French speakers. These are a bone of contention: the French speakers say they are permanent, while the Flemings say they were only ever meant to be temporary.


----------



## PedroAznar

In Ireland all the roads signs are in Irish and English but only a tiny proportion of the population actually speak Irish. They're mainly concentrated on the west coast.


----------



## Hakro

vince said:


> I don't think Finland is bilingual except for a few small areas.


Finland is officially bilingual and for certain official jobs one has to prove the ability to speak both Finnish and Swedish. About 5 % of the people speak Swedish as mother tongue but most of them understand and speak Finnish without problems. On the other hand, only higher educated Finns speak fluently Swedish. Nowadays it's easier to find a Finn who speaks English than one who speaks Swedish.


----------



## Frank06

Hi,


vince said:


> I'm wondering which multilingual countries and regions are actually multilingual?



Most Black African students I have met so far (roughly from the 'triangle 'Senegal - Kenya - Mozambique) speak at least two languages, quite often three: a very local language, a supraregional language and one of the (ex-colonial but still) official languages, such as French, English or Portuguese.

Groetjes,

Frank


----------



## Chipiron

natasha2000 said:


> Now I am confused.... Is "Asturian" actually a language apart, or is it just a dialect of Castilian (Spanish)? I've always thought it was just a dialect of Spanish, like Aragones o Andaluz. It would be nice if some Spanish forero/a could explain....


Hi!!

In Spain as a country there is one “common” official language, (the Spanish/Castilian), but in some “Autonomias” (regions) there are 2 official languages (or a language and a dialect) that coexist.

Gallego, Vasco and Catalán are consider languages, whereas Bable (asturian), Mallorquin and Valenciá are considered dialects.** 
The governments of these regions promote and stimulate the use of their local language. 

I think that Pais Vasco is the less bilingual region because of the difficulty of the language. (Whilst Spanish, Catalan and gallego… are Latin languages, Vasco is a completely different language without any similarity to Spanish wich makes it more difficult to learn.) 

In Cataluña the use of Catalán is widespread and also in Galicia. The difference is that Gallego is less used in cities (but most of the people from rural and seaside areas speak gallego (or a gallego – castellano mix)) 

I think that Valenciá and Mallorquin are quite used but I´m not sure. 

Cheers,


** These classification is a bit controversial. There are people that consider Mallorquín and Valenciá a language, but I´ve followed the classification of RAE:

*gallego**, ga**.* Del lat. _Gallaecus_).
*7.* m. Lengua de los *gallegos.*
*catalán**, na**.*
*3.* m. Lengua romance vernácula que se habla en Cataluña y en otros dominios de la antigua Corona de Aragón.
*vasco**, ca**.** 4.* m. *euskera.*
*2.* m. Lengua hablada por parte de los naturales del País Vasco español, francés y de la comunidad de Navarra
*bable.*
1.m. Dialecto de los asturianos.
*valenciano**, na**.*
*5.* m. Variedad del catalán, que se usa en gran parte del antiguo reino de Valencia y se siente allí comúnmente como lengua propia.
*mallorquín**, na**.*
*3.* m. Variedad de la lengua catalana que se habla en la isla de Mallorca.

P.S. Correct my mistakes.


----------



## Samaruc

Chipiron said:


> ...Gallego, Vasco and Catalán are consider languages, whereas Bable (asturian), Mallorquin and Valenciá are considered dialects...
> 
> ...These classification is a bit controversial. There are people that consider Mallorquín and Valenciá a language, but I´ve followed the classification of RAE...



Hi Chipirón, 

The Catalan language has two official names: "Català" in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands and "Valencià" in Valencia. Two official names but just one language.

What is spoken in the Balearic Islands and Valencia is as Catalan/Valencian as what is spoken in Catalonia and what is spoken in Catalonia is as dialectal within the Catalan/Valencian language as what is spoken in the Balearic Islands and Valencia.

Sorry, I know it has been off-topic...

Have a nice weekend!


----------



## Setwale_Charm

What about Aragones?


----------



## Outsider

As far as I know, Aragonese, Astur-Leonese, and Extremaduran are not officially recognized as languages. For all practical purposes, they are treated as dialects of Spanish.
However, in recent years there has been growing interest in these language varieties, though they now have few speakers.


----------



## Setwale_Charm

I guess, all of the former Soviet Republics and many autonomous republics within Russia can be considered bilingual.


----------



## Dale Buttigieg

I know four languages English, Spanish, Maltese and Llanito. In Gibraltar most people know Spanish, English, and Llanito (mix of Spanish, English, Genoese Italian, Maltese, Hebrew and Portuguese) . We mix the Spanish and the English in such a way, that people can't believe it. We can be thinking in English and speaking in Spanish and vice versa. I can be arguing with my brother in Spanish and he is answering back in English.


----------



## Brioche

vince said:


> Then of course you've got the Chinese "dialects" - most southern Chinese people are popularly monolingual ("Chinese"-speakers) but are linguistically bilingual (Mandarin plus their local language).
> 
> ...... Chinese- speakers don't get credit for any bilingualism they exhibit.


 
The differenciation between a _language_ and a _dialect_ is often political.

It suits the rulers of China to define things in such a way that the Chinese people all speak Chinese. _One people, one lanaguage, one country_ - and, of course, - one Pary.


----------



## panjabigator

I'd say Paraguay is the most bilingual country in the world.  Where else can you see such an emphasis on the indiginous language, Guarani, and the colonial language, Spanish?  I hope other multilingual states can achieve something comparable one day.


----------



## Layzie

In Arabic countries people speak their colloqial dialect and anyone who reads/watches tv/ listens to the radio also has to know Modern Standard.


----------



## Gvcc1girl

Well, as many have stated, I'm sure qualifying as a truly bilingual country is near impossible, but having visited many countries, I have to give Japan my vote.

I lived in Japan for 4 and a half years.  As I was told by many Japanese friends, virtually all Japanese study English in school and if you are speaking to a Japanese person and they don't appear to understand your English, ask for a pen and write down what you're trying to say because most Japanese, if not understanding spoken English, will understand written English.

I tested this on more than one occasion and found this to be absolutely true, with the exception being instances in very rural villages.

After having lived there and functioning rather well with minimal Japanese language skills, I have to say that it would not be difficult for an English-speaker to know virtually no Japanese and live in Japan... especially in bigger towns-- and without a doubt, in Tokyo!


----------



## taikuri

*Re: Which "bilingual" countries are actually bilingual?* 
What about Finland?
I think they talk both Finnish and Swedish.

Well we do have a lot of Swedish-speaking Finns in here but I really can't say that these two languages are equal here. Swedish is an obligatory subject in our schools and I personally love to learn and speak it. Even though, Finnish is our primary language. Ofcourse, you can have service in Swedish in civil service departments and most offices and there are some towns and areas were people speak only Swedish (mostly in Southern and Western Finland). I live in the Southern Finland near Helsinki and I have few friends who speak Swedish at home with their parents. 

Aaargh I think I had something smart to say but I just ended up blathering... Maybe someone who knows more of this should tell ya. But my point was (I quess) that despite the image we're trying to give, these two languages aren't equal in Finland.

Thank you


----------



## TrentinaNE

TimeHP said:


> In Italy there is a region, Trentino Alto Adige, where people speak both German and Italian.


Ciao, Time.  German is really not spoken in Trentino, except for the _Mocheni_ dialect in one valley, but it is an official language in Alto Adige (Sud Tirol). I have cousins who live in Bolzano/Bozen who speak only Italian, and I'm told that there are separate Italian-langugage and German-language schools, often virtually side-by-side. The wiki article, however, notes that:


> Public jobs are assigned by ethnic quotas, and require proficiency in both Italian and German, with the effect of protecting the local labour market from immigration.


 
Elisabetta


----------



## DrWatson

taikuri said:


> *Re: Which "bilingual" countries are actually bilingual?*
> Well we do have a lot of Swedish-speaking Finns in here


If 6% of the population is a lot... 


taikuri said:


> I really can't say that these two languages are equal here. Swedish is an obligatory subject in our schools and I personally love to learn and speak it.


Yeah, I also have a positive stance for Swedish, unlike most of my friends. Swedish isn't probably popular here due to the geographical location of my city; there's not much just Swedish-speaking settlement this north.


taikuri said:


> But my point was (I quess) that despite the image we're trying to give, these two languages aren't equal in Finland.


 That'd me my point too. The inequality is clear, mostly because, as I stated above, Swedish-speakers are a minority. Also the fact that Swedish as an obligatory subject was dropped from the matriculation exams contributes to that.


----------



## Outsider

What about the Sami languages? How do they fare in Finnland?


----------



## Hakro

In Finland there are three Sami languages spoken (and they don't understand each other!) but practically all Sami people (there's six or seven thousand of them) speak Finnish without any problem. On the other hand, very very few Finns speak Sami.
For about fifteen years Sami has been an official language in the areas where Sami people live. People there can get education and basic service (in hospitals etc.) in Sami.


----------



## taikuri

> If 6% of the population is a lot...


 
I may have exaggerated it a bit...  But you know, I live in the Southern Finland and as I'm doing my part-time job in a local pharmacy it sometimes feels like every other customer speaks Swedish  Maybe they're just sick all the time?



> Yeah, I also have a positive stance for Swedish, unlike most of my friends. Swedish isn't probably popular here due to the geographical location of my city; there's not much just Swedish-speaking settlement this north.


 
Same thing here: on the 9th grade, there were at least 50 guys in our school studying the A-Swedish. And now when I'm in the senior high there are about 40... And this is one of the ten biggest senior highs in Finland! I think it's kind of alarming...


----------



## keladry

What about the Philippines? Everyone can speak the official languages (Filipino and English) and their own dialect such as Tagalog, Cebuano, etc.


----------



## choppy seas

Heres a brain-teaser for all of you.Talking of the Phillipines,I have an even more complex case to pose.
 In India we are officially bilingual, with the two official languages being Hindi and English.But in all, there are over twenty-seven or twenty-eight major languages, many of which have a greater number of speakers than the major European languages! Additionally they all have written scripts and are quite developed as languages.Would you call the country bilingual or multi-lingual?!


----------



## panjabigator

> Would you call the country bilingual or multi-lingual?!


  Multilingual.  Because with bilingual, the question arises "bilingual in what?"  I think multilngual works best!


----------



## vince

choppy seas said:


> Heres a brain-teaser for all of you.Talking of the Phillipines,I have an even more complex case to pose.
> In India we are officially bilingual, with the two official languages being Hindi and English.But in all, there are over twenty-seven or twenty-eight major languages, many of which have a greater number of speakers than the major European languages! Additionally they all have written scripts and are quite developed as languages.Would you call the country bilingual or multi-lingual?!



India, like China, is multilingual as a whole, with dozens of languages with tens of millions of native speakers being spoken thoughout the whole country. But we are talking about whether the country is truly bilingual/multilingual: i.e. do most people in most areas speak two or more languages?

i.e. do most people in your area also speak fluent Hindi and English?


----------



## panjabigator

Well, I can comment from where my family is from.  In the capital, New Delhi, most Hindi speakers are also fluent in English.  And Panjabi, Bengali, etc are also fluent in English and Hindi.  In Chandhigarh, the capital of Panjab, I'd say most people are fluent in both Hindi and Panjabi, and only some with English.  I do believe there are some monolingual Panjabi speakers who may not even understand Hindi very well...I'll pay better attention when I go back to visit.


----------



## choppy seas

vince said:


> India, like China, is multilingual as a whole, with dozens of languages with tens of millions of native speakers being spoken thoughout the whole country. But we are talking about whether the country is truly bilingual/multilingual: i.e. do most people in most areas speak two or more languages?
> 
> i.e. do most people in your area also speak fluent Hindi and English?


 Well that is a more complex question than you realise!  People have varying levels of proficiency.For example you may study in a particular medium but be more fluent in another medium. People are first of all fluent in their local languages and then with Hindi. The comfort level with English is low, except ofcourse the elite, most of whom who are thoroughly anglicised...This is despite the fact that virtually all major national news networks, newspapers and books are in English! This paradox often creates serious communication blocks, and maybe one reason that the potential of the country has not been realised! Things are however now slowly changing with the greater emphasis put on vernacular languages by state governments...


----------



## Ludito

A few more precisions about Belgium:

*1.* The Northern Part is called Flanders (Vlaanderen). There people officially speak Dutch. The term 'Flemish' refers to an important difference of accent and vocabulary with Dutch. Whilst Dutch is spoken on TV and understood by everyone there, there are people who speak it differently, and they like to name their language "Vlaams" (Flemish)

In Flanders, many people used to speak French (since it used to be the only official language of Belgium, and since it is a fact that french is a more powerful language). Yet less and less Flemish (want to) speak French. The majority of Flemish can speak English  -very well- as it has become a very important influence on TV (films are not dubbed) and in the society in general.


*2.* the Southern Part is called Wallonia (Wallonie). In this region, people speak French. I insist that they do not speak Walloon (!)
Wallon used to be a very common dialect there and is VERY different from French. Whilst people in Flanders carry on speaking Flemish, people from Wallonia don´t.

In this Southern part, people are becoming concious that they should learn Dutch (as it is spoken by more than half the country's inhabitants, and as Flanders is definitely more dominant and strong in term of economy and industry). French-speakers in Belgium do learn English, but they do not seem too concerned about it (unlike Flemish people).

*3.* The Eastern part of Belgium is a territory given as a present from Germany to Belgium, after the war. In this very small region, people officially speak German. However, it is considered as a 'facility' region, in which French is commonly used too.

*4.* The Brussels DC region is officially bilingual. There all official signs and notice boards are in both French and Dutch. It does not mean that people speak both languages. However, they are very encouraged to speak the second language (strong language programmes in education for instance) and it is a fact that people in Brussels are more likely to speak both languages than people from other parts. Following the development of Brussels as a European district -and thus the arrival of many other Europeans-, people feel that learning English is a necessity and they are also more open to other languages.

This is my view, as a French-speaker (and language teacher) who lived in Belgium until last month and studied in Wallonia, Brussels and Flanders.


----------



## Frank06

Hi,



Ludito said:


> *2.* the Southern Part is called Wallonia (Wallonie). In this region, people speak French. I insist that they do not speak Walloon (!) Wallon used to be a very common dialect there and is VERY different from French. Whilst people in Flanders carry on speaking Flemish, people from Wallonia don´t.



Oh, I heard them talk that  I even heard people (still) talk Letzburgisch in the Belgian province of Luxemburg, near the border with the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg.

One small correction: people in Flanders don't talk 'Flemish'. They only do so in the province of West-Flanders (and partially east-Flanders). More information on the word 'Flemish' can be found here (in Dutch) and here (in English). This overview from ethnologue.com might also be of interest.

Groetjes,

Frank


----------



## Ludito

Frank06 said:


> Hi,
> 
> 
> 
> Oh, I heard them talk that  I even heard people (still) talk Letzburgisch in the Belgian province of Luxemburg, near the border with the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg.
> 
> One small correction: people in Flanders don't talk 'Flemish'. They only do so in the province of West-Flanders (and partially east-Flanders). More information on the word 'Flemish' can be found here (in Dutch) and here (in English). This overview from ethnologue.com might also be of interest.


 

Thanks for your precisions. I may have generalised Flemish too much. However people in Antwerp often use other words, that may be the reason why I said that.

I still disagree about people talking Walloon.
There might still be (very old or very very very isolated  ) people who can speak it but hardly none would use it. I personally only understand a few words when I see it writen since it is a Roman dialect. That is it.

There was also something I wanted to underline. Often French people think that French-speaking Belgians speak a very different French than them. There are a few differences, but very minor (70 : septante, 90. nonante, for instance) just like differences we can notice between French from the Midi, or from Alsace. Basically it is really the same language.

As for Letzburgisch, it is more and more used in Luxembourg. It is actually compulsory in the Education (I could not go and teach there because I did not speak the language). I think it is very normal that you may have heard Letzburgisch in the very South of Belgium. It is simply very close to the boarder (as you mentioned) which is thus a logical phenomenon.


----------



## lupecita

I know that in the case of the country of Ecuador, a very, very large percentage of the population speaks both Quichua (the local dialect/variant of Quechua) and Spanish fluently.
Country-wide I would estimate it at around 30%, but in the mountains and the selva (two of the three main geographical regions of the country, with the coast being the third), there are many more indigineous communities and so I would probably estimate about 50% of the population there to be fluent in both Spanish and Quichua.  A large number of Quichua words have also been adopted into the everyday Spanish of monolingual speakers, and lots of Spanish words have also been adopted into Quichua.  There are courses in Quichua at many local universities, but I think lots of mestizos still attach a stigma to speaking Quichua, and I would say the number of monolingual Quichua speakers is very small and probably only limited to older members of the community.


----------



## chics

Spain has 44 milion of inhabitants, and almost half of them are bilingual. A great area of around 13 milion peope is bilingual Catalan&Spanish, 3 milion are bilingual Galician (and some, Portuguese, too) and Spanish, at least a milion of Euskera & Spanish... and sum up all the "fronter regions", the "small" areas (Aran Valley, etc. ), bilingual people of not-official languajes.


----------



## PABLO DE SOTO

I think the original question of this thread is Which officially bilingual country is really a bilingual country?.
In *Spain* ,as it's been said,there are important autonomous regions that are officially bilingual,but real bilinguilalism is not the same in every area.
*Catalonia *can be considered a real bilingual region where Catalan and Castilian/Spanish are spoken and understood by the most people.
In Barcelona suburbs Spanish is more widely spoken than in inner Catalonia where Catalan is the prevailing language.
Barcelona is a real bilingual city where you can hear both languages in the streets,although because of political reasons,public signs are only in Catalan.
*Basque Country *is also bilingual,but Basque disappeared in half of the area during former centuries.
There is a strong nationalist feeling in the Basque Country and people,even those whose mother language is only Spanish,support the language politics that want to spread the Basque throughout the whole area.
Some rural areas and small towns are really bilingual,but in Bilbao or Vitoria you will hardly hear a conversation in Basque.
*Galicia*,although galician is known by the majority,the language is more spoken in rural areas in small towns than in the bigger towns as Vigo or Corunna.
*Valencia*,the regional variety of Catalan is official in this region,but you won't hear much Valenciano in Valencia or Alicante streets.
The language is alive in rural areas,northern province and in mid size towns like Alcoy or Gandía.
*Balearic Islands*,I don' know much about the real language situation on these islands,but I believe Catalan is widely spoken in rural areas and islands as Minorca.
*Navarra*,Basque is official in the northwestern part of the region but you won't hear much Basque in Pamplona and other areas of the region.


----------



## Caulifleur

Singaporeans for an instance is billingual, sometimes trilingual too.


----------



## ham_let

Interesting. The only country that I can think of where almost ALL of the population can speak the same 2 languages is Paraguay.

Sure a lot of countries have multiple languages for various regions, but people from other regions won't know how to speak those languages... IMO, the need for a 'bilingual' country isn't really important, because once you have a single language that can be understood by everyone, there's no more need for people to learn the other languages of the country. For example, Catalans, Basques, and Galicians all understand Spanish (by Spanish i mean 'Castilian' of course), but most Castilians, Basques, and Galicians aren't fluent in Catalan, since they can already talk to a Catalan in Spanish.


----------



## space2006

Here in Galicia we have two languages: Spanish and Galician. I would say that everybody can understand both of them, and most people can speak them too. However, Spanish is more spoken in the big cities, whereas Galician is more spoken in rural areas. 

At school, some of the subjects are in Galician and some others in Spanish.


----------



## AkErBeLtZ

KateNicole said:


> Yes, I understood your question (and I've asked myself the same thing many times . . .) I just wasn't sure about that bit on the US.
> 
> When I traveled to some cities in the Basque region of Spain, where all (or at least the vast majority) of the signs are bilingual, I expected the natives to be bilingual as well. I tried so hard to overhear a Basque conversation or find someone on the street or working in a store that spoke Basque, and I had absolutely no luck. Granted, I was only there for two days, but I tried very hard and came up with nothing! It seemed like hardly anyone spoke Basque at home or with friends. I'm in no way an expert of the state of the Basque language in Spain. I'm just commenting on my experience, but I think that if the case is that children only learn the given "other" language in school because the class is mandatory (and proficiency is _not_ guaranteed . . . or common for that matter), I don't think a region should be considered bilingual.


Hi, KateNicole.
I don't know where did you go when you came to the Basque Country, but if you only went to big cities it's normal that you didn't hear people speaking Basque. It's sad, but in big towns (such as Bilbao, Basauri, Barakaldo, Getxo, Portugalete...), specially from Biscaye or Araba, no one speaks Basque. They do know it because they learn it at school (and they could speak with fluency because I've tried to speak in Basque with people that never uses it and the result wasn't too bad), but they just prefer Spanish, I don't know... If you really want to hear people speaking Basque, you should move away from the big cities, and better if in the north.
I myself live in a small town called Zaratamo (it's only 10 minutes from Bilbao) and you can perfectly hear people (specially children) speaking Basque.


----------



## panjabigator

AkErBeLtZ said:


> Hi, KateNicole.
> I don't know where did you go when you came to the Basque Country, but if you only went to big cities it's normal that you didn't hear people speaking Basque. It's sad, but in big towns (such as Bilbao, Basauri, Barakaldo, Getxo, Portugalete...), specially from Biscaye or Araba, no one speaks Basque. They do know it because they learn it at school (and they could speak with fluency because I've tried to speak in Basque with people that never uses it and the result wasn't too bad), but they just prefer Spanish, I don't know... If you really want to hear people speaking Basque, you should move away from the big cities, and better if in the north.
> I myself live in a small town called Zaratamo (it's only 10 minutes from Bilbao) and you can perfectly hear people (specially children) speaking Basque.



Y estás de acuerdo que tanta la gente castellanoparlante que la vascoparlante quiere hablar y aprender el idioma vasco como ha sugerido Pablo de Soto?


> *Basque Country *is also bilingual,but Basque disappeared in half of the area during former centuries.
> There is a strong nationalist feeling in the Basque Country and people,even those whose mother language is only Spanish,support the language politics that want to spread the Basque throughout the whole area.
> Some rural areas and small towns are really bilingual,but in Bilbao or Vitoria you will hardly hear a conversation in Basque.


Si voy a una pequeña tienda en el País Vasco en una ciudad grande como Bilbao, tendré éxito usando el idioma vasco con los dependientes o piensas que el castellano me serviría mejor?  ¿Qué escoges tú?


----------



## fandel

Puerto Rico IS TRULY bilingual. Spanish and English (b/c it is a US commonwealth)


----------



## AkErBeLtZ

panjabigator said:


> Y estás de acuerdo que tanta la gente castellanoparlante que la vascoparlante quiere hablar y aprender el idioma vasco como ha sugerido Pablo de Soto?


Sí, he conocido a mucha gente de Araba y Nafarroa que lo quieren aprender. A pesar de que su idioma principal sea el castellano y en su entorno se hable principalmente en castellano, les gustaría aprenderlo hablando con un vascoparlante de verdad. No digo que ésto sea siempre así porque no lo sé, pero sí que hay gente.


panjabigator said:


> Si voy a una pequeña tienda en el País Vasco en una ciudad grande como Bilbao, tendré éxito usando el idioma vasco con los dependientes o piensas que el castellano me serviría mejor? ¿Qué escoges tú?


Siempre que voy a alguna tienda de Bilbao procuro dirigirme al dependiente en euskera, y no siempre me dicen que sólo hablan castellano. En muchos sitios, la gente no tiene ningún problema para hablarte en euskera.


----------



## PABLO DE SOTO

panjabigator said:


> Y estás de acuerdo que tanta la gente castellanoparlante que la vascoparlante quiere hablar y aprender el idioma vasco como ha sugerido Pablo de Soto?
> Si voy a una pequeña tienda en el País Vasco en una ciudad grande como Bilbao, tendré éxito usando el idioma vasco con los dependientes o piensas que el castellano me serviría mejor? ¿Qué escoges tú?


 

Sin duda el castellano te serviría mejor porque lo hablan todos, mientras que no es seguro que todos hablen vasco.De hecho es normal que los mayores no lo hablen.
La gente joven lo ha estudiado y lo sabe pero lo normal con desconocidos es hablar castellano.
Ahora bien, si tú te diriges en vasco, muchos vascos van a apreciar ese gesto y les agradará la idea de que un foráneo se dirija en la lengua autóctona.
Por otra parte, es normal que muchos castellanoparlantes ,por no decir todos, deseen que sus hijos aprendan el euskera aun sin ser nacionalistas vascos, debido a que se lo van exigir por ejemplo para trabajar en la administración o en las empresas privadas y van a tener muchas más oportunidades laborales y sociales.


----------



## avok

natasha2000 said:


> Thaks for the link. I have never heard it before... It sounds like a mixture of Italian, French and German, when listening... Although reading it, I can understand a great part of it...


 
hei, I listened to it and it actually sounds like portuguese


----------



## avok

Gvcc1girl said:


> Well, as many have stated, I'm sure qualifying as a truly bilingual country is near impossible, but having visited many countries, I have to give Japan my vote.
> 
> I lived in Japan for 4 and a half years. As I was told by many Japanese friends, virtually all Japanese study English in school and if you are speaking to a Japanese person and they don't appear to understand your English, ask for a pen and write down what you're trying to say because most Japanese, if not understanding spoken English, will understand written English.
> 
> I tested this on more than one occasion and found this to be absolutely true, with the exception being instances in very rural villages.
> 
> After having lived there and functioning rather well with minimal Japanese language skills, I have to say that it would not be difficult for an English-speaker to know virtually no Japanese and live in Japan... especially in bigger towns-- and without a doubt, in Tokyo!


 

I am sorry but Japan would be my last choice as a bilingual country...in europe and in many other countries around the world, all students take english classes but we can't consider all of these countries as "bilingual"


----------



## cennet

In Luxemburg we have three official language: luxemburgish, german and french. 
The mother tongue of every native Luxemburger is Luxemburgish but also German.  
There are very few books and only one tv programm written or broadcastet in Luxemburgish so every child learns German from a very young age. 
The language spoken in school classes is Luxemburgish but the school books are written in German and for the last 4 school years in French.
As far as everyday life is concerned you usually speak all three languages daily cause there are many so called ''frontaliën''( people who live in germany, france or belgium but work in Luxemburg.)
So you usually don't leave your house to go shopping or to the cinema or whatever without having spoken at least two of those languages 
greetings


----------



## domangelo

If you find a truly bilingual country, please tell us. The biggest obstacle is that inevitably one of the official languages will have more prestige than the other(s), and thus, many native speakers of the lower prestige languages will be bilingual, but the native speakers of the high prestige language will not even consider it. This is the case in Canada (with high prestige English) Belgium (with high prestige French) and Switzerland (with high prestige French and German in their cantons and low prestige Italian). The list can go on and on.


----------



## iaf

ham_let said:


> Interesting. The only country that I can think of where almost ALL of the population can speak the same 2 languages is Paraguay.



That's true, Paraguay has two official languages, spanish and guaraní. Mostly everybody understands and talks both of them, except for some people of the higher classes and specially the jounger ones between them. Both languages are touhgt in school.
Even in the north of Argentina and due to the regional influence, it is not uncommon to find people understanding and even talking guaraní.


----------



## sabbathically

I truly do not know of any country where ALL of it's people speak 2 or more languages. 
In the case of my country, Chile, even though the official language is Spanish (castellano) some people speak other regional languages (besides castellano). Also, in the south of Chile many people speak German, Swetish, and Italian (due to the high European immigration during the world wars) however, this languages are increasingly "dying off" since they do not receive "govt. support". The same thing happens with the regional languages such as "Mapudungu" (spoken by Mapuche indians) and "Rapa-nui" (mostly speaken in the Easter Island). But the govt. of Chile does not recognised these languages either (very sad)
anyway,
very interesting topic!


----------



## Outsider

sabbathically said:


> I truly do not know of any country where ALL of it's people speak 2 or more languages.


The Vatican?


----------



## sabbathically

Outsider said:


> The Vatican?


hehehe.
It's true.
even though it is the smallest country in the world. (However, no one from the Vatican city, as far as I know, was actually born there) Are they actually from the Vatican City?

also, can you consider the European Union like a multilengual union?


----------



## nicolioncelle

No one mentionned all former Soviet bloc state : Georgia, Ukraine, Kazhastan, the Prebaltics etc.
Most of them speak Russian like natives (maybe less so for the younger generation ?) in addition to their country's traditional language (Georgian, Ukrainian etc.). 
At least one good thing about the USSR...

Nicolas


----------



## Laztana

PABLO DE SOTO said:


> Sin duda el castellano te serviría mejor porque lo hablan todos, mientras que no es seguro que todos hablen vasco.De hecho es normal que los mayores no lo hablen.
> La gente joven lo ha estudiado y lo sabe pero lo normal con desconocidos es hablar castellano.


Hola,
la verdad es que no estoy del todo de acuerdo. De hecho Los padres y especialmente los abuelos de muchos de mis amigos crecieron hablando casi exclusivamente euskera pero debido a la desafortunada prohibición de hablarlo, mis amigos no llegaron a aprenderlo en casa. Lo que te quiero decir es que mucha gente mayor sabe hablarlo pero no lo hace.
Por otro lado, si bien es cierto que lo más fácil en un sitio como Bilbao es dirigirte en castellano, también es verdad que la situación está cambiando y en algunas tiendas y en muchos bares del casco viejo te atienden inicialmente en euskera.
Saludos


----------



## Forero

sabbathically said:


> I truly do not know of any country where ALL of it's people speak 2 or more languages.


 
In Andorra, everybody speaks at least two languages.  Right?


----------



## Fernando

I think it is a good example. I doubt any Andorran could NOT speak in (at least) Catalan, Spanish and French at a conversational level. Ditto for other tiny countries, such as Luxemburg.


----------



## asm

It really is; not everybody speaks more than one language, but many (many) are bilingual or more. Is there any threshold to say "one more bilingual person and the country will be?" 
My brother-in-law (Swiss) does not recognize his mother language; for him two languages was the norm when he was a child. His case is not isolated or an exception.



vince said:


> I would really like to know if Switzerland is trully multilingual.


----------



## domangelo

I recently saw a program on French television in which they put to the test the multilingualism of the Swiss. The French speaking reporter tried to get information at the town hall in a fairly large German speaking Swiss city, and was unable to make himself understood by anyone until he started speaking English and bits of German. He also went to a German language class in a French speaking high school in a French speaking canton, and found that after four or five years of German, the high schoolers could hardly put a sentence together in that language. I personally would like to see how many of the French or German speaking Swiss he encountered would be able to understand him if he started prattling away in Italian. They would probably be mystified that anyone would expect them to understand that language.


----------



## Juan Carlos Garling

Did somebody mention ? :

_Belgium (French and Flemish)_
_South Africa (English and Afrikaan)_


----------



## Sepia

I do not at all aggree with the definition of a bilingual country that is going around here. Who says that a country, to be considered bilingual, has mainly to be populated by people who were raised bilingually by their parents?

I think bilingualism in a country is a lot more about two languages being fully recognized as official languages. That means that you can go to any of the authorities and expect to find a civil servant there who speaks your  language. It means that you can go to any larger store, restaurant or whatever and be served by someone who speaks your language. And it means that representatives elected into the parliaments, city councils etc. are granted interpreter's services if needed. And of course that both official languages are taught in basic schools.

Especially in Europe you'll find several different approaches to grant more than one language full recognition. 
Here some examples of what this means in practical terms (chosen at random): Spain, Catalunya - tuition in schools have lessons taught in Catalan and lessons in Castellano over the day; Balearic Islands - stores with 5 employees and more must have at least one eployee who speaks Catalan; Spain (again) in the bilingual regions - applicants for state jobs have better chances if they speak the both languages. If equal qualifications on other points the bilingual person must be preferred; Canada - at least signs, patches on uniforms etc. are bilingual. Civil servants are required to learn both languages, not much but at least it is the right direction.
---------------
What Mallorca is concerned - Catalan (Mallorqui) is definitely widely used also in urban areas. Just walk by a school during breaks and listen - or listen to the kids standing at the street corners with their mopeds. You'll hear a lot of Catalan spoken.


----------



## vince

Sepia said:


> I do not at all aggree with the definition of a bilingual country that is going around here. Who says that a country, to be considered bilingual, has mainly to be populated by people who were raised bilingually by their parents?
> 
> I think bilingualism in a country is a lot more about two languages being fully recognized as official languages. That means that you can go to any of the authorities and expect to find a civil servant there who speaks your  language. It means that you can go to any larger store, restaurant or whatever and be served by someone who speaks your language. And it means that representatives elected into the parliaments, city councils etc. are granted interpreter's services if needed. And of course that both official languages are taught in basic schools.
> 
> Especially in Europe you'll find several different approaches to grant more than one language full recognition.
> Here some examples of what this means in practical terms (chosen at random): Spain, Catalunya - tuition in schools have lessons taught in Catalan and lessons in Castellano over the day; Balearic Islands - stores with 5 employees and more must have at least one eployee who speaks Catalan; Spain (again) in the bilingual regions - applicants for state jobs have better chances if they speak the both languages. If equal qualifications on other points the bilingual person must be preferred; Canada - at least signs, patches on uniforms etc. are bilingual. Civil servants are required to learn both languages, not much but at least it is the right direction.
> ---------------
> What Mallorca is concerned - Catalan (Mallorqui) is definitely widely used also in urban areas. Just walk by a school during breaks and listen - or listen to the kids standing at the street corners with their mopeds. You'll hear a lot of Catalan spoken.



Let's run Toronto, a city in bilingual Canada, through these tests:

*That means that you can go to any of the authorities and expect to find a civil servant there who speaks your  language*: PASS for federal and provincial governments, at least in Ontario, legally all towns with over 5,000 french speakers must have services in French. But you might have to wait until they dig around for that French-speaking civil servant until you are helped. FAIL at the municipal (city) level: Good luck trying to buy bus tickets at the kiosk in French.

*It means that you can go to any larger store, restaurant or whatever and be served by someone who speaks your language*: FAIL, in Toronto, if you speak to a store clerk or waiter in French, they will think you are crazy.

*And it means that representatives elected into the parliaments, city councils etc. are granted interpreter's services if needed*: PASS

*And of course that both official languages are taught in basic schools.*: Conditional pass, because the quality of French-as-a-second-language education in the Greater Toronto Area is horrible. Even taking French until high school graduation is not sufficient to hold a full conversation in the language.
---
The situation in Toronto is that its government is legally bilingual at the federal and provincial level. But not at the municipal (city) level: It would be very difficult to find city services like transit, parking, water, recreation, and power in French.

However, I believe that the test of bilingualism is most important in what the people actually use: if no one speaks French except the civil servants, how can you still say that the city is bilingual?
---
I find that central Los Angeles is bilingual in the reverse sense of Toronto: the federal and state governments are mostly in English only, but almost all municipal services are offered in both English and Spanish, and many (if not most) civil servants at the municipal level speak Spanish. Going to most large stores and restaurants you CAN expect to be able to speak Spanish. This is obviously a result of Spanish actually being spoken in LA, while French is NOT spoken in Toronto. And unlike in Toronto, many immigrants from non-Hispanic countries often learn both English and Spanish in LA, whereas in Canada, immigrants often only learn English, even in Montreal!


----------



## Sepia

vince said:


> Let's run Toronto, a city in bilingual Canada, through these tests:
> 
> *That means that you can go to any of the authorities and expect to find a civil servant there who speaks your  language*: PASS for federal and provincial governments, at least in Ontario, legally all towns with over 5,000 french speakers must have services in French. But you might have to wait until they dig around for that French-speaking civil servant until you are helped. FAIL at the municipal (city) level: Good luck trying to buy bus tickets at the kiosk in French.
> 
> *It means that you can go to any larger store, restaurant or whatever and be served by someone who speaks your language*: FAIL, in Toronto, if you speak to a store clerk or waiter in French, they will think you are crazy.
> 
> *And it means that representatives elected into the parliaments, city councils etc. are granted interpreter's services if needed*: PASS
> 
> *And of course that both official languages are taught in basic schools.*: Conditional pass, because the quality of French-as-a-second-language education in the Greater Toronto Area is horrible. Even taking French until high school graduation is not sufficient to hold a full conversation in the language.
> ---
> The situation in Toronto is that its government is legally bilingual at the federal and provincial level. But not at the municipal (city) level: It would be very difficult to find city services like transit, parking, water, recreation, and power in French.
> 
> However, I believe that the test of bilingualism is most important in what the people actually use: if no one speaks French except the civil servants, how can you still say that the city is bilingual?
> ---
> I find that central Los Angeles is bilingual in the reverse sense of Toronto: the federal and state governments are mostly in English only, but almost all municipal services are offered in both English and Spanish, and many (if not most) civil servants at the municipal level speak Spanish. Going to most large stores and restaurants you CAN expect to be able to speak Spanish. This is obviously a result of Spanish actually being spoken in LA, while French is NOT spoken in Toronto. And unlike in Toronto, many immigrants from non-Hispanic countries often learn both English and Spanish in LA, whereas in Canada, immigrants often only learn English, even in Montreal!



And the lousy thing about it is that you'd probably have no problem finding someone who speaks English in Montreal; and the English speaking Canadians take that for granted. 

And if someone asks for a French speaking person at the Coast Guard station in Vancouver where my brother works they are probably going to call for his colleague who originally came from Swizerland.


----------



## JamesM

Sepia said:


> Here some examples of what this means in practical terms (chosen at random): Spain, Catalunya - tuition in schools have lessons taught in Catalan and lessons in Castellano over the day.


 
Isn't this _regional_ bilingualism, though, not national bilingualism? In other words, if you were in a different part of Spain outside Catalunya, would school be taught in Catalan and Castellano? If not, I don't think that's actually an example of a country being bilingual.

In California, for example, we have classes that are taught all in Spanish, others that are a mixture of Spanish and English (for both native Spanish speakers and native English speakers) and all-English classes. I wouldn't expect to find the same set-up in all other states, though; some, yes, and others, no. So, regionally, following your example the U.S would qualify as a functionally bilingual country because of California, but we're not the whole country.


----------



## Sepia

JamesM said:


> Isn't this _regional_ bilingualism, though, not national bilingualism? In other words, if you were in a different part of Spain outside Catalunya, would school be taught in Catalan and Castellano? If not, I don't think that's actually an example of a country being bilingual.
> 
> In California, for example, we have classes that are taught all in Spanish, others that are a mixture of Spanish and English (for both native Spanish speakers and native English speakers) and all-English classes. I wouldn't expect to find the same set-up in all other states, though; some, yes, and others, no. So, regionally, following your example the U.S would qualify as a functionally bilingual country because of California, but we're not the whole country.




Where is the difference? They are autonomous entities, so this can be handled in exactly the same manner as you would if the complete national state were bi-lingual by law. I think they are good examples to learn from, when you are trying to design politics aimed at granting equal rights to different cultural groups within a country.

Could you tell more about how the bilingual situation is handled in California?


----------



## JamesM

Sepia said:


> Where is the difference? They are autonomous entities, so this can be handled in exactly the same manner as you would if the complete national state were bi-lingual by law.


 
California is certainly _not_ an autonomous entity, contrary to what some Californians may believe.    We are citizens of the USA, not citizens of the state of California.  We are subject to all national laws and no state law can be in direct conflict with federal law.  (This gets tested on a fairly regular basis.)

I don't think Catalunya is an autonomous entity, either, although I could be wrong.  Isn't it subject to the laws of Spain?



> Could you tell more about how the bilingual situation is handled in California?


 
The bilingual situation is a point of contention for many people, but for the most part it has arisen out of pragmatism, not political idealism.  I would say that, functionally, we are a bilingual state.  I'm not sure what information you're looking for when you say "handled."  Is there something specific you'd like to know?


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

JamesM said:


> I would say that, functionally, we are a bilingual state.



So, out of interest, if I went to California and spoke only Spanish, could I get by?


----------



## JamesM

Pedro y La Torre said:


> So, out of interest, if I went to California and spoke only Spanish, could I get by?


 
A few million already do, at least in the Los Angeles area. 

You would have Spanish interpreters provided, free of charge, for any court-related work or school conferences. All government documents are in both languages. School notices in our school district are all sent out in both languages. Ballots are in both languages. Many stores are staffed by people who are much more fluent in Spanish than in English. My cable television offers, as part of its basic service, more than a dozen channels in Spanish, from news to talk shows to novelas to movies to 30-minute infomercials to MTV3 and another music video channel. Our mayor speaks both in English and in Spanish at press conferences.

You might find that only English is spoken in some settings. For example, a commencement address or graduation day address at school would most likely be only in English. Some high-end stores might have fewer bilingual workers on staff, but I don't imagine it would be difficult to find one. High school classes would most likely be completely in English in most school districts. Many jobs would require basic English proficiency in order to work there, particularly office jobs.

It is not a totally equal handling of the two languages, but as for "getting by", absolutely!


----------



## Sepia

JamesM said:


> A few million already do, at least in the Los Angeles area.
> 
> You would have Spanish interpreters provided, free of charge, for any court-related work or school conferences. All government documents are in both languages. School notices in our school district are all sent out in both languages. Ballots are in both languages. Many stores are staffed by people who are much more fluent in Spanish than in English. My cable television offers, as part of its basic service, more than a dozen channels in Spanish, from news to talk shows to novelas to movies to 30-minute infomercials to MTV3 and another music video channel. Our mayor speaks both in English and in Spanish at press conferences.
> 
> You might find that only English is spoken in some settings. For example, a commencement address or graduation day address at school would most likely be only in English. Some high-end stores might have fewer bilingual workers on staff, but I don't imagine it would be difficult to find one. High school classes would most likely be completely in English in most school districts. Many jobs would require basic English proficiency in order to work there, particularly office jobs.
> 
> It is not a totally equal handling of the two languages, but as for "getting by", absolutely!



These are the kind of things I was hinting at with my question.


----------



## Ilana

I haven't really read the whole of the tread, but as far as I can see, this point hasn't been made:

In Norway we actually have three official languages: Sami, "Book language" and "New Norwegian". It is only a small part of the population speaking Sami, but I think that after the new school laws of last year, everyone have to learn some Sami words and about the culture. Then, "Book language" and "New Norwegian". Officially these languages are seperate, but essentially they're the same. They differ some in grammar and in prefered words, but someone having "Book language" as their "mother tongue" will still understand "New Norwegian". (I write "mother tongue", since they both are written languages, and the spoken languages differs as dialects)
Still, everyone in Norway learn both languages, even though its big discusions about making it optional. Norway is recond as the only bilingual country, where the languages are essentially the same.

And, about "the Scandinavian language".. I can't see that Scandinavians are bilingual just because the languages are similar. I can UNDERSTAND Swedish and Danish (If both I and the one I talk to concentrate), but I can't speak any of them. Speaking about one Scandinavian language isn't really correct, since it is three quite distinct languages. It is possible to understand some Italian if you know Spanish, isn't it..?


----------



## LenyZaZa

Hello, 
There are a few countries that don't have an official language at all, some are the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Japan. Others have an official language, but recognize other languages and they are thus called co-offcial. These co-official tounge states are Russia, China, Iraq, Italy, Serbia and Spain. These are countries that have more than one official language, Afghanistan, Belarus, Ireland, South Africa, India, Israel, Canada, Pakistan, Switzerland, Paraguay, Belgium, Finland, Bolivia, Malta, Peru, Singapore, and New Zealand. I can't tell you if citizens of the multi-lingual countries I listed actually speak more than their main tounge since I live in the U.S. but I do have a friend from Israel who not only speaks Hebrew and Arabic but also English. I hope this helped. 

~~LenyZaZa~~


----------



## jonquiliser

Ilana said:


> And, about "the Scandinavian language".. I can't see that Scandinavians are bilingual just because the languages are similar. I can UNDERSTAND Swedish and Danish (If both I and the one I talk to concentrate), but I can't speak any of them. Speaking about one Scandinavian language isn't really correct, since it is three quite distinct languages. It is possible to understand some Italian if you know Spanish, isn't it..?



Hehe, or perhaps the other way around; if they were one language (it's not _that_ absurd to claim ) we'd be monolingual in this pan-Scandinavian language


----------



## Sepia

jonquiliser said:


> Hehe, or perhaps the other way around; if they were one language (it's not _that_ absurd to claim ) we'd be monolingual in this pan-Scandinavian language




That is a really good argument. 

And it is true, it is not really relevant to speak about "Scandinavia" here because Denmark should be counted in as well. Denmark is not officially bi-lingual. The only areas where other languages than Danish had an official status have been autonomous for decades - and is only granted a certain degree of protection by Denmark and minor influence on legislative procedures in Denmark but not vice versa. 

What the interaction between the languages are concerned it is probably very much a regional thing: Most people I know in Copenhagen - at least those who grew up there - understand Swedish pretty well. My parents who are native Danish speakers hardly understand Swedish at all. And I con only repeat: They ARE separate languages - with different pronounciation rules, different versions of the alphabet, different grammar and a vast number of false friends. I don't see what we need more to define that they are separate languages. 

The fact that some of us undersand each other is no argument.

The fact that Germans can understand Letzeburgisch if they concentrate a bit, does not make them one language either.


----------



## jonquiliser

Sepia, I was not being very serious  Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. Just add a row of blinkers in there...!


----------



## Sepia

jonquiliser said:


> Sepia, I was not being very serious  Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. Just add a row of blinkers in there...!



I understood it as a joke - but it hit the point right on. After all, arguments has been made by others that they should be considered one language - just based on the assumption that people understand each other.


----------



## jonquiliser

Oh good, then that's all clear, and you undestood it just as it was meant!


----------



## Pinyot

There was a time when the Philippines was a bilingual or even multilingual country, if you consider the influences of the English language. Up until the American occupation, Filipinos spoke Tagalog(or other native dialects) and Spanish.

In 1973, the Spanish language formally lost its status as the official language of the Philippines.

Today a Spanish based creole is still spoken in some areas of the Philippines. It is called Chavacano.


----------



## vince

Sepia said:


> That is a really good argument.
> They ARE separate languages - with different pronounciation rules, different versions of the alphabet, different grammar and a vast number of false friends. I don't see what we need more to define that they are separate languages.
> 
> The fact that some of us undersand each other is no argument.



Then I guess Austria is a fully bilingual country, since many people speak both Austro-Bavarian and (Austrian-accented) Standard German. Same goes for most parts of the Arab world (the local Arabic plus MSA), and (southern) Taiwan (Taiwanese Minnan plus Taiwanese-accented Mandarin)


----------



## cuchulainn

In France the main language is the french ^^
But there is a region (west) where people speak an old language.


----------



## panjabigator

Para cuchulainn, uma lista dos idiomas falados em Francia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_in_France


----------



## cuchulainn

Obrigado!
Poucos sabem que tantas línguas são falado na França...


----------



## Sepia

cuchulainn said:


> In France the main language is the french ^^
> But there is a region (west) where people speak an old language.



There are several several regional languages in France, but none except French have been granted any official status.

----

And what Austria is concerned - there is only one official language, just like in Germany. Once again - the Scandinavian languages are separate languages with different grammar and even differnt versions of the alphabet. 

Even if somebody writes Bavarian dialect or something, he still uses the same alphabet - am I right?


----------



## YeahIKnewThat

Macau speaks Portugese and Chinese(Cantonese), the most peculiar bilingulism in my opinion.


----------



## MarX

panjabigator said:


> What about if you speak Malay and Bahasa Indonesian? are you Bilingual then?


One can say either *Bahasa Indonesia* (means= Indonesian language) or simply *Indonesian*.
Sorry for the intrusion. 

Salam


----------



## tinlizzy

fandel said:


> Puerto Rico IS TRULY bilingual. Spanish and English (b/c it is a US commonwealth)


 
Definately Puerto Rico and Guam, Samoa, and Hawaii is nearly tri-lingual (Hawaiian, English, Japanese)


----------



## etabetapi

domangelo said:


> If you find a truly bilingual country, please tell us. The biggest obstacle is that inevitably one of the official languages will have more prestige than the other(s), and thus, many native speakers of the lower prestige languages will be bilingual, but the native speakers of the high prestige language will not even consider it. This is the case in Canada (with high prestige English) Belgium (with high prestige French) and Switzerland (with high prestige French and German in their cantons and low prestige Italian). The list can go on and on.


 
Can any country be really bilingual? I think you've just hit the nail on the head. Truly it is about the prestige of the native languages.

I guess Singapore is as close to a truly bilingual country as anyone can get. That's because English is the official language that's more prestigious than the other official languages (Malay, Mandarin, Tamil).

As you have pointed out "many native speakers of the lower prestige languages will be bilingual". Since English was the colonial language, and hence a foreign language to most Singaporeans, (almost) every Singaporean is a "native speaker of one of the lower prestige languages". And so most Singaporeans are bilingual.

However, it is difficult to maintain the state of being bilingual and we are seeing Singapore sliding into becoming a monolingual English country (as can be seen from the fact that the number of English wikipedia articles pertaining to Singapore is a lot more than the total sum of all articles in the other official languages).

It is my view that no country can be actually bilingual. Though the Singapore government is trying mighty hard to keep Singapore bilingual. We had campaigns to encourage people to speak English; then a decade ago we start having campaigns to encourage people to speak their native language. And in recent years we have campaigns to encourage people to speak grammatical English. It is hard work to keep a country bilingual.


----------



## Sepia

etabetapi said:


> Can any country be really bilingual? I think you've just hit the nail on the head. Truly it is about the prestige of the native languages.
> 
> ...




Trying to downgrade this to a prestige thing is absolutely ridiculous. Obviously you know very few - if any - people who belong to native ethnic minorities and grew up different language than the majority in their countries. How can it be only a prestige thing, that a person can adress authorities or other functions of their native country in the language they speak the best?


----------



## Horazio

fandel said:


> Puerto Rico IS TRULY bilingual. Spanish and English (b/c it is a US commonwealth)


 
Is English the native tongue of Portoricans?......mmmmm...I don't know


----------



## Grosvenor1

I don't believe anyone has mentioned Luxembourg, whose citizens are supposed to be trilingual - French, German and Letzebuergsch (the official language, essentially a German dialect). I think the degree of linguistic attainment varies, though quite a few people also have a command of English.


----------



## SDLX Master

Here in Peru, the languages regarded as official are Spanish and Quechua.


----------



## Chaska Ñawi

A note since my last post in this thread, over a year ago:

I actually heard more Quechua and Aymara in Bolivia this last July than during my last visit, perhaps because the country now has an Aymara president and there isn't the same stigma attached to indigenous ancestry.  Bilingual people switched back and forth between Spanish and Quechua according to the topic of conversation; the schools in my old village were teaching in both languages; and the signs in the La Paz bus terminal were in all three languages.  While I didn't see any interest among Spanish speakers in learning anything other than English or French as a second language, many Quechua and Aymara speakers who spoke fluent Spanish expressed interest in learning each other's languages.


----------



## fabiog_1981

I lived 6 months in Puerto Rico and i can tell you that it's not bilingual at all. 
I mean, everybody speak Spanish and many people know at least some English but only a few can be considered bilingual.


----------



## zpoludnia swiata

Large parts of Africa are effectively bi- or trilingual.  There are often village/tribal languages, then regional languages, and national languages.  In addition there is probably English, French, or Portuguese depending on the country.  People often switch from one to the other depending on topic and who they speak to, they call it "code switching".
What happens is that people are more proficient in one or the other depending on the topic.  This also happens in immigrant communities.  You talk about food with your grandmother in one language, but about banking and finance with your boss at work.  Therefore, you may know the name for some vegetable in one language, finance terms in another, but don't know both terms in both languages.


----------



## siddusom

India is very multilingual.
Trying talking Punjabi in Trivandrum, Kerala.



vince said:


> Spain and India are not totally bilingual.
> 
> If you are in Sevilla, I don't think you can talk Catalan and be understood.
> Try talking Punjabi in Kolkata
> 
> I think many areas in New Mexico and Texas are truly multilingual in that many people born and raised there for generations and who consider themselves American still speak both. But in many areas, I think only Mexican immigrants and their families speak Spanish. Hope someone will clarify this.
> 
> I would really like to know if Switzerland is trully multilingual.


----------



## Mzpean55

vince said:


> Hello all,
> 
> I'm wondering which multilingual countries and regions are actually multilingual?
> 
> There are many countries that have several official languages and officially declare themselves multilingual. Or, like in the case of the United States, there is no official language but there are regions where many languages are spoken, especially Spanish.
> 
> I'm wondering which countries and regions are truly bilingual in that
> if you talk to the average citizen there, they will be able to fluently speak and write in both?
> 
> An example of a bilingual place in Canada would be the sparsely populated area in northern Ontario, a lot of people there speak both French and English fluently. Whereas if you go to Toronto, you can see gov't-sponsored bilingual road signs everywhere but you can swear profusely in French in a crowded mall and the biggest complaint you'd get from parents with children would be to keep your voice down.
> 
> I am wondering if you can do the same thing in places like, say, Zürich and Antwerpen.


 
Haiti likes to call itself bilingual.... French and Haitian Creole.... but the high society "claims" it cannot read it... between us that is baloney. I Left Haiti many moons ago... and I can read and speak Haitian Creole.


----------



## panjabigator

Wikipedia states the following on Latvian and Russian:


> *Languages*
> 
> The official language of Latvia is Latvian, which belongs to the Baltic language group of the Indo-European language family. Another notable language of Latvia is the nearly extinct Livonian language of Baltic-Finnic subbranch of Uralic language family, which enjoys protection by law; Latgalian language — a dialect of Latvian — is also protected by Latvian law as historical variation of Latvian language. Russian is by far the most widespread minority language, also spoken, or at least understood, by large sections of the non-Russian population.[_citations needed_]
> 
> *[edit] *


----------



## Sepia

I would say, this thread has managed to make it totally unclear what anybody means with "bilingual country".


----------



## Outsider

I found an interesting article, _Minority Languages in Spain: The Role of Euskera and Catalan in Creating Alternative Nationalisms_, by Alison McMillen University of Colorado.

Although this part of the preface worries me: "In the short nine days that I was there [...]" How can she make so many generlizations about language in the Basque Country, when she was only there for "short nine days"?!


----------



## vince

Sepia said:


> Trying to downgrade this to a prestige thing is absolutely ridiculous. Obviously you know very few - if any - people who belong to native ethnic minorities and grew up different language than the majority in their countries. How can it be only a prestige thing, that a person can adress authorities or other functions of their native country in the language they speak the best?



In many cases, it IS a prestige thing, whether the minority language is viewed as a language in its own right, or "just some uneducated patois"

For example,
"Monolingual" Singaporeans are in fact bilingual: In English and Singaporean Creole. (I detest the colloquial, unscientific term "Singlish", as it conjures the image of mangled English).

Most of the "Arab world" is bilingual, in Modern Standard Arabic and the local Arabic.

Many parts of southern China are bilingual in the local Chinese language and Mandarin. Hong Kong is bilingual in another sense: The people there speak Cantonese, but write in Mandarin-based Standard Chinese

Austria and Bavaria are bilingual (Austro-Bavarian and Standard German), and so is central and eastern Switzerland (Allemanisch and German)

But the general public do not consider these places to be bilingual because the other language lacks prestige.


----------



## Sepia

vince said:


> In many cases, it IS a prestige thing, whether the minority language is viewed as a language in its own right, or "just some uneducated patois"
> 
> For example,
> "Monolingual" Singaporeans are in fact bilingual: In English and Singaporean Creole. (I detest the colloquial, unscientific term "Singlish", as it conjures the image of mangled English).
> 
> Most of the "Arab world" is bilingual, in Modern Standard Arabic and the local Arabic.
> 
> Many parts of southern China are bilingual in the local Chinese language and Mandarin. Hong Kong is bilingual in another sense: The people there speak Cantonese, but write in Mandarin-based Standard Chinese
> 
> Austria and Bavaria are bilingual (Austro-Bavarian and Standard German), and so is central and eastern Switzerland (Allemanisch and German)
> 
> But the general public do not consider these places to be bilingual because the other language lacks prestige.



Still it is absolutely un-transparent what you call bi-lingual. You mix up regions where most people speak two languages, where in some way or other two different languages have some official status, and where people may still speak some kind of dialect and where most people definitely do not speak the original regional language that actually belonged there. 

And I doubt very much that you have any older relatives that were ever prevented from speaking their mother tongue - the language they knew best - in public because this could result in severe repercussions from the authorities.

And when authors and song writers express ther deepest feelings in words - words of their mother tongue it is just a natural thing to do when it happens to be English or High German or some other major language - and when the mother tongue happens to be that of a minority in that country? Just a prestige thing. Sure why don't the idiots not just learn the language of the majority just as well as that in which their parents spoke when they played with them when they were little? It is just a prestige thing, right?

I might to some extent accept such an argument from someone so talented that he can speak a second language just as well as his first one. Of course, some people can, but surely not all. Can you?


----------



## etabetapi

Sepia said:


> I might to some extent accept such an argument from someone so talented that he can speak a second language just as well as his first one. Of course, some people can, but surely not all. Can you?


 
Ahem. I can speak English just as well as Mandarin, and all my friends can do the same; but it has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with environment. Of course, if you compare our Mandarin with a Chinese's, we are not as good. And if our English is compared with a British's, we are not as good as well.

We are ethnic Chinese who were willing to abandon Mandarin in favour of English in the 70's and 80's. Weaker students who were not able to cope with learning 2 languages would choose to give up Mandarin and learn only English. Even among students who were learning both languages, we saw a deterioration of Mandarin in the face of the prestige of English.

In the recent decade, China's boom has risen the prestige of Mandarin and deterioration of Mandarin has slowed somewhat. But still, Mandarin is not the language of science and technology; the prestige of Mandarin may have risen, but English is still more prestigious. Those who can't speak English are viewed as uneducated while those who can't speak Mandarin are not discriminated.



Sepia said:


> And I doubt very much that you have any older relatives that were ever prevented from speaking their mother tongue - the language they knew best - in public because this could result in severe repercussions from the authorities.


 
We haven't seen such a severe ban on mother tongues. But still our mother tongues are discouraged. Mandarin is not our mother tongue; our mother tongues are the various dialects of southern China. It is okay for TV and radio stations to broadcast shows in Korean and Japanese [though they are not our official languages], but they are banned from broadcasting in our mother tongues [Hokkien (Taiwanese), Cantonese, Hakka, Teochew].

Most young people can no longer speak their mother tongue. Those who still can, are only able to hold simple conversation at a "survival level" proficiency (that's a lot lower than elementary level). Older people who can only speak their mother tongue and nothing else are marginalized. Many grandparents have learnt Mandarin just so that they can communicate with their grandchildren. Some grandparents have even learnt English to attempt to converse with grandchildren who can't speak Mandarin.
The language situation in my country is sad indeed, but such is life and English still holds its position as a language of prestige here.

And we were able to become a bilingual country only because English is prestigious and no one wants to be marginalized.


----------



## Sepia

etabetapi said:


> ...
> The language situation in my country is sad indeed, but such is life and English still holds its position as a language of prestige here.
> ...



I can understand there is a certain prestige in being able to speak certain languages - like everywhere else - but that was not really the issue. I suppose you also find that maintaining Hong Kong as bi-lingual Mandarin/Cantonese on all levels of society is not a matter of prestige rather than a matter of survival of a culture. 

Obviously the PRC government don't see any prestige in that, on the contrary.


----------



## etabetapi

Sepia said:


> Obviously the PRC government don't see any prestige in that, on the contrary.


 
If you are counting Mandarin, then I'll say Hong Kong is trilingual.

First Hong Kong was bilingual with Cantonese and English; with English being the language of the colonists. The locals who learnt English could get prestigious jobs (as clerks or book-keepers, for example). English was the prestigious language in Hong Kong. That's how Hong Kong became bilingual.

If we consider written Mandarin-based Standard Chinese as another language in its own rights, then Hong Kong is trilingual.

All through history, written Chinese was never a verbatim written language. We spoke our own local Chinese languages (with different grammar and vocabulary) and wrote in Classical Chinese (which was _the_ Standard Chinese before 1919). Being able to write in Standard Chinese has always been a sign of an educated person, and hence a prestige.

Cantonese is Hong Kong's mother tongue; the "foreign" language here is Mandarin. Why don't they just speak Cantonese and write Cantonese? Being able to write in Mandarin is prestigious (writing Standard Chinese= an educated person). Writing in Cantonese is not prestigious and is restricted to tabloids and pop culture.

The PRC government probably doesn't see any prestige for Hong Kong to keep Cantonese. Reportedly many young Chinese in China can't speak their own local languages (which the government label as _dialects_). The way to get a population _become_ bilingual is to have the population recognize that "the foreign language is more prestigious than their own", so that they are willing to learn this foreign language. To keep a population bilingual is to _stop_ a population turn monolingual in favour of the foreign language and losing its own language altogether. Obviously the PRC government was not interested in keeping bilingual populations.

I still maintain that it's a prestige thing. A "bilingual" country needs to create the illusion that the foreign language is prestigious before it can become bilingual.


----------



## Taraborn

I'd say the Spanish region of Catalonia is probably the closest we can think of in terms of bilingualism. Almost everyone (certainly anyone younger than 30) speaks both languages fluently, and both languages are taught at school, so if you don't know one they will teach you there from a very young age. We have media (newspapers, TV channels, radio...) in both languages. Additionally, to some of your friends you'll speak in Catalan and to others in Spanish (and some of those to whom you speak in Catalan may speak in Spanish with other people  ).


----------



## Sepia

Taraborn said:


> I'd say the Spanish region of Catalonia is probably the closest we can think of in terms of bilingualism. Almost everyone (certainly anyone younger than 30) speaks both languages fluently, and both languages are taught at school, so if you don't know one they will teach you there from a very young age. We have media (newspapers, TV channels, radio...) in both languages. Additionally, to some of your friends you'll speak in Catalan and to others in Spanish (and some of those to whom you speak in Catalan may speak in Spanish with other people  ).



It is my impression too that Catalunya is a good example.

Nevertheless, you are running the risk of reversing the problem. I find it totally OK that a good deal of the lessons in your schools are given in Catalan, but we already see signs that it is going a bit too far; a rising number of kids coming from Castellano speaking families are dropping out and we are talking about proportionally more than those coming from bilingual or Catalan speaking families. 

Leading politicians on the Islas Baleares are heading in the same direction. 
That is sooner or later going to be a problem too, I think. Some of the "nationalist" politicians would even like to force the local television stations only to allow Mallorqui spoken on the air - not just any kind of Catalan. This goes for dubbed films too. This, of course is ridiculous because if a film is dubbed in Catalan, then it will probably be the mainland dialect, and furthermore, before the film is out in Catalan lots of people will have seen the version dubbed in Castellano, I suppose. And why should talented people from the mainland be prevented from working for Mallorcan television, just because their pronounciation is slightly different and their grammar or vocabulary may be slightly differen on some minor points?

Another good example is Switzerland, I'd say.


----------



## papillon

Sepia said:


> It is my impression too that Catalunya is a good example.
> Nevertheless, you are running the risk of reversing the problem. (...) a rising number of kids coming from Castellano speaking families are dropping out...


I would suggest threading lightly here, lest this turn into an umpteenth thread on status of Catalan and Spanish in Catalonia and all things related. Should you feel inclined to weigh in on that, there are already plenty of threads, for example here, here, here, here and even here; the fate of the last one is what prompted me to write this.

As for the title question, if we are wiling to modified it and ask: _to what extent is this or that country/region bilingual?_ then I would agree with *Taraborn* that Catalonia is very very bilingual. On the scale of 1-10, with 10 being absolutely bilingual, I give Catalonia a solid 7. Large parts of Ukraine would probably score pretty high as well, with lots of people being proficient in Russian and Ukrainian. I would give Ukraine a 6.


----------



## xenon

papillon said:


> As for the title question, if we are wiling to modified it and ask: _to what extent is this or that country/region bilingual?_ then I would agree with *Taraborn* that Catalonia is very very bilingual. On the scale of 1-10, with 10 being absolutely bilingual, I give Catalonia a solid 7. Large parts of Ukraine would probably score pretty high as well, with lots of people being proficient in Russian and Ukrainian. I would give Ukraine a 6.


Maybe Scotland would get a 3 because apparently about 30% of Scottish people speak Scots... ah, but is Scots a different language or just a dialect of English? Well, seeing as there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing languages from dialects, I wouldn't like to say... But the sure thing is that there they have a hell of a lot more in common than, say, Swahili and Icelandic. I think anyone who can speak those two languages fluently has a much, much higher level of bilingualism than someone who can speak Catalan and Spanish, which, let's face it, are relatively speaking verrry similar (I can understand most of the messages in the Catalan section of this forum just from being able to read/write Spanish).
I guess my point is that if we are going to put a scale on how bilingual a country/region is, I think something else should be factored into the equation, and that is how similar or unsimilar the languages spoken there are.


----------



## Sepia

papillon said:


> I would suggest threading lightly here, lest this turn into an umpteenth thread on status of Catalan and Spanish in Catalonia and all things related. Should you feel inclined to weigh in on that, there are already plenty of threads, for example here, here, here, here and even here; the fate of the last one is what prompted me to write this.
> 
> As for the title question, if we are wiling to modified it and ask: _to what extent is this or that country/region bilingual?_ then I would agree with *Taraborn* that Catalonia is very very bilingual. On the scale of 1-10, with 10 being absolutely bilingual, I give Catalonia a solid 7. Large parts of Ukraine would probably score pretty high as well, with lots of people being proficient in Russian and Ukrainian. I would give Ukraine a 6.



Again we are back into a totally different definition of what at least a lot of people - obviously including myself - would use for "bilingual country", so I am not going to comment on that.


----------



## papillon

Sepia said:


> Again we are back into a totally different definition of what at least a lot of people - obviously including myself - would use for "bilingual country"...


Not necessarily. I am pretty much playing off of your own definition. I'll even provide it here once again:


Sepia said:


> I think bilingualism in a country is a lot more about two languages being fully recognized as official languages. That means that you can go to any of the authorities and expect to find a civil servant there who speaks your  language. It means that you can go to any larger store, restaurant or whatever and be served by someone who speaks your language. And it means that representatives elected into the parliaments, city councils etc. are granted interpreter's services if needed. And of course that both official languages are taught in basic schools.


My point was to change from the absolute measure - yes or no, black or white, to, well, shades of grade, as the real world seems to be full of nuances and shades. Instead of saying -yes this country is bilingual, no this country is almost there but not quite and so it's not bilingual, I ask: _to what extent_ is this country bilingual, or to what extent does it conform to the ideals you or others have outlined.

Take Catalonia - certainly one of the more bilingual places on this planet. And yet it still doesn't answer to all of your qualifications. So instead of rejecting it as not truly bilingual, I say - it gets a 7 on the scale of "bilinguism"- a very good mark.


----------



## Sepia

papillon said:


> Not necessarily. I am pretty much playing off of your own definition. I'll even provide it here once again:
> 
> My point was to change from the absolute measure - yes or no, black or white, to, well, shades of grade, as the real world seems to be full of nuances and shades. Instead of saying -yes this country is bilingual, no this country is almost there but not quite and so it's not bilingual, I ask: _to what extent_ is this country bilingual, or to what extent does it conform to the ideals you or others have outlined.
> 
> Take Catalonia - certainly one of the more bilingual places on this planet. And yet it still doesn't answer to all of your qualifications. So instead of rejecting it as not truly bilingual, I say - it gets a 7 on the scale of "bilinguism"- a very good mark.



That a lot of people are bilingual is a nice thing, but I don't see it as important in defining if a country is bilingual as such. If it were I could claim that almost evey country in Northern Europe were bilingual as lots of people if not most also speak English.

So that is where we differ considerably. I see a bilingual country/region/province as one that has considerable parts of its native population having different native languages and - in the ideal case - these are both fully recognized on all levels of society. This means to me that a person can go to authorities or stores and be served in their mother tongues, both cultural groups have acces to schools in their respective languages or that public schools at least grant both groups equal opportunities, that parliamentary processes run bilingually with translation services and interpreters for those who want it, that signs and public messages (ex.: I public transportation systems) by loudspeakers are made in both languages etc.

But of course it is wonderful when people speak both official languages when they live in a bi-lingual country. But it is unfair to expect that they all can.


----------



## jonquiliser

Sepia said:


> That a lot of people are bilingual is a nice thing, but I don't see it as important in defining if a country is bilingual as such. If it were I could claim that almost evey country in Northern Europe were bilingual as lots of people if not most also speak English.
> 
> So that is where we differ considerably. I see a bilingual country/region/province as one that has considerable parts of its native population having different native languages and - in the ideal case - these are both fully recognized on all levels of society. This means to me that a person can go to authorities or stores and be served in their mother tongues, both cultural groups have acces to schools in their respective languages or that public schools at least grant both groups equal opportunities, that parliamentary processes run bilingually with translation services and interpreters for those who want it, that signs and public messages (ex.: I public transportation systems) by loudspeakers are made in both languages etc.
> 
> But of course it is wonderful when people speak both official languages when they live in a bi-lingual country. But it is unfair to expect that they all can.



Yet I find it strange to determine the (x)linguism of a country depending on the (x)linguism of either the entire or just a "considerable" portion of the population, or as a regional feature. I would say that any country where more than one language exist as the "native languages" of people, are bi/multilingual. And yes, that goes for pretty much every single country. Obviously not everyone will speak both or all languages. But the country has multiple languages nonetheless! (Some recognised, others not, unfortunately.) The fact that whether people are bilingual/multilingual depends on their actual capacity to speak those languages I see as a different matter.


----------



## avok

I think "Cape Verde" is a truly bilingual country where everyone speaks Portuguese and Crioulo.

These kinds of countries are more likely to be bilingual:

*Countries where people speak any kind of creole. Local people tend to speak both their own creole and the ex-colonial language.

*Countries with so many different dialects.

*Countries where there are different regional languages. 

Can somebody stop this "but in Holland everyone speaks English so is it a bilingual country?" thing. Of course not, in Holland peoples' mother tongue is Dutch not English. But Frisians may be bilingual both in Dutch and ......Frisian. One needs a (near) native proficiency to be able to talk about a bilingual situation in a bilingual country.

P.S. Please, don't quote from me and ask for a reply because I may not visit this thread again.


----------



## Mimi2005

The province of Friesland (Frisia) in the Netherlands is largely bilingual, most local people can speak Frisian and Dutch. Just the Dutch "import" speaks only Dutch.


----------



## Sepia

jonquiliser said:


> Yet I find it strange to determine the (x)linguism of a country depending on the (x)linguism of either the entire or just a "considerable" portion of the population, or as a regional feature. I would say that any country where more than one language exist as the "native languages" of people, are bi/multilingual. And yes, that goes for pretty much every single country. Obviously not everyone will speak both or all languages. But the country has multiple languages nonetheless! (Some recognised, others not, unfortunately.) The fact that whether people are bilingual/multilingual depends on their actual capacity to speak those languages I see as a different matter.



But if you also coun smaller, non-native cultural groups, there is not point in determining the country anything in respect of x-lingualism because they would all have some 50-100 languages represented. 

And why and how should a state officially recognize a language spoken by, say, 0,4% of the population? What would "recognized" mean in practical terms, according to you?


----------



## dojibear

vince said:


> but all of the mainland Chinese immigrants that I've seen (and I've seen many, since my college is full of them) speak exclusively in Mandarin.


Historically, the US has more Cantonese-speaking immigrants than Mandarin-speaking immigrants. That is probably still true today -- there are more permanent residents of the US that speak Cantonese than Mandrarin.

However, since the 1950s Mandarin has been the official language in China, and is taught in all the schools. Actually the official language is 普通话 Putonghua ("the common language") which is similar to the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. So any Chinese students who attends college is fluent in Mandarin. Many of them are also fluent in their "mother tongue". An email friend of mine attended college in China. She and her room-mate spoke mutually unintelligible languages. But they both also spoke Putonghua.

Your college is probably full of Chinese students from China (not immigrants), all of whom speak Putonghua (as well as English, as well as their mother tongue).


----------



## Penyafort

Outsider said:


> As far as I know, Aragonese, Astur-Leonese, and Extremaduran are not officially recognized as languages. For all practical purposes, they are treated as dialects of Spanish.


I know the post is from 2007 but I must say that what is said by Outsider, apart from wrong from a linguistic point of view -at least in the case of Aragonese and Asturian-, is also outdated. Both languages are officially recognized as such and have their own official Academies, even if they are not official as a whole in the territory of their respective Autonomous Communities.


Forero said:


> In Andorra, everybody speaks at least two languages.  Right?


If by bilingual country we understand countries where two languages are official, then Andorra is not, as the only official language there is Catalan.

If we are talking about citizens, then most Andorrans can also speak Spanish but also Portuguese and French, given that a high percentage of residents are from either Spain, Portugal or France.


----------



## merquiades

There are many areas in the world where two or more languages coexist and/or are official but the only place I consider truly bilingual/multilingual is Luxembourg.
Most people, from whatever walk of life,  speak French and/or Lëtzebuergesch or German and often English or Portuguese or Spanish or Italian too. They switch with ease and don't even seem to have a preference. In general their level is as high as you can get too.
In what other country can you speak to absolutely anyone in at least two but often four or five languages?


----------



## Frank78

merquiades said:


> There are many areas in the world where two or more languages coexist and/or are official but the only place I consider truly bilingual/multilingual is Luxembourg.
> Most people, from whatever walk of life,  speak French and/or Lëtzebuergesch or German and often English or Portuguese or Spanish or Italian too.



Lëtzebuergesch IS German. Distinguishing them both is like saying someone from London speaks Cockney and English. 

The division is rather a political and less a linguistic issue.


----------



## dojibear

merquiades said:


> They switch with ease and don't even seem to have a preference. In general their level is as high as you can get too.
> In what other country can you speak to absolutely anyone in at least two but often four or five languages?


Absolutely anyone? That may be true only in Luxembourg.

But in many (most?) countries a significant portion of the population is bilingual. Even in the US (a very 1-language country) around 22% of the population is bilingual and fluent in both languages. If you count AAVE (Black English) as different from English, that rises to 30%.

I don't count dialects, like the UK's Cockney/RP or the US's New York/Southern. Those might differ in sound, but they use the same words and grammar, except for some slang phrases.


----------



## merquiades

Frank78 said:


> Lëtzebuergesch IS German. Distinguishing them both is like saying someone from London speaks Cockney and English.
> 
> The division is rather a political and less a linguistic issue.


Frank, if you go to Luxembourg and say that you are dead!  No joke.
It's different enough not to understand. There is something changed in every word. Enough that I decided not to try to learn it. It would destroy my fragile German.

@dojibear I've never seen people go from one language to another with such as people living there. Normally there is a preference but there there isn't. It's effortless.
In the US could you imagine a bus driver in Kansas answering spontaneously in 4 different languages and it being fluent and correct? If he could he wouldn't be driving a bus.


----------



## Terio

Canada is officially bilingual. That means that French and English are (legally) equal for the federal government.

New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province.

In Quebec, French is the only official language. But according to the constitution of Canada, laws must be adopted and published in both French and English, both can be used in the courts, etc. (Good luck if you want a trial in French in a federal court in other provinces !)

In other provinces (for provincial governments), English is the only official language. But they are supposed to provide services in French (education in particular) where the French minorities justify it. Generally they do the less they can.

Since the territories (Yukon, Nunavut, Northwest Territories) are basically federal jurisdiction, both languages are supposed to be offical there. The Northwest Territories and Nunavut also recognize indigenous languages (12 in NWT and 2 in Nunavut).

Even if Quebec is official unilingual and New Brunswick bilingual, it is far easier to get public services in English in Québec than to get them in French in New Brunswick.

When Lower and Upper Canadas were united (1840), one of the goals of the union was to assimilate the "Canadiens". It's part of Canada's DNA. French did not survive thanks to Canada. It did in spite of Canada.


----------



## dojibear

merquiades said:


> In the US could you imagine a bus driver in Kansas answering spontaneously in 4 different languages and it being fluent and correct? If he could he wouldn't be driving a bus.


My imagination is stereotyped and inaccurate. Uber and Lyft drivers make less money than bus drivers. I have had Lyft drivers that were fluent in 3+ languages and could use them spontaneously. I know 5 languages well enough to ask questions.

And why wouldn't he be driving a bus? Do you think that every multi-lingual person has a high-paying job?

But if your point is that the US is different from Luxembourg (language-wise) I agree 100%. I have met countless people in the US who spoke at least 2 languages fluently. In the Boston area, they often spoke French or Russian or German. Here, they often speak Hmong or Spanish or AAVE. But I've also met countless US people who only speak English.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

dojibear said:


> or AAVE.


That's not a different language, surely.


----------



## dojibear

Many Americans can't understand AAVE. I understand much of it, but I can't speak it at all.  I'm about the same with French and Spanish: I can read or listen, but I cannot speak. So I think of AAVE as a different language.

But most people consider AAVE a dialect of English, rather than a different language.


----------



## Perseas

Cyprus is a bilingual country (Greek and Turkish are official languages), but I don't know how many citizens are bilingual in these languages. I guess most Greek Cypriots speak Greek (the  Cypriot Greek variety & the standard Greek) and English, at least.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Gibraltar is the only example I can think of. Everyone speaks English and Spanish.


----------



## merquiades

For me a bilingual country is one where two languages are actually spoken and used by everyone living there. 

Canada may be bilingual officially but could you get by in Vancouver if you only knew French?   Even the example of Switzerland, could I live in German in Geneva?


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

merquiades said:


> Canada may be bilingual officially but could you get by in Vancouver if you only knew French?


Definitely not. You may not even get by in much of New Brunswick. And I don't think you'd get by in Sept-Îles (Quebec) if you spoke only English.


----------



## Penyafort

There are some 50 officially bilingual countries. In practice, this means that the two languages are spoken by sections of their population, rather than the whole of the population speaks the two of them.

As it is been pointed out before, perhaps Luxembourg would be the closest case. Otherwise it's easier to talk about bilingual territories, as most of the really bilingual territories on Earth are political entities within a country rather than countries as a whole.

Then there are officially monolingual countries in which most of the population is indeed bilingual. Andorra would be one of the examples mentioned.


----------



## gato radioso

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Gibraltar is the only example I can think of. Everyone speaks English and Spanish.


Certainly.
And they are very creative, as they use lots of local words in casual contexts and mix English and Spanish.


----------



## Terio

merquiades said:


> For me a bilingual country is one where two languages are actually spoken and used by everyone living there.


You set the bar very high. In a bilingual country, you may have to use one or the other language according to the places or the social circunstances, but, for the great majority of the persons, one of the two remains a foreign language forever.


----------



## merquiades

Terio said:


> You set the bar very high. In a bilingual country, you may have to use one or the other language according to the places or the social circunstances, but, for the great majority of the persons, one of the two remains a foreign language forever.


Yes, I guess so. I suppose I'd call those countries multiethnic or multilingual, maybe polylingual.


----------



## Linnets

There are some official regional languages in Italy such as Friulian and Sardinian and all their speakers use also Italian; of course also so called "dialects" (such as Venetian, Neapolitan and Sicilian) are distinct languages, but they're not recognized by law.


----------



## dojibear

WR dictionary list definitions of the adjective "bilingual" (in American English):

able to speak two languages with the facility of a native speaker. (Linguistics)
spoken, written, or containing similar information in two different languages: (Linguistics)
_a bilingual dictionary; Public notices at the embassy are bilingual._
of, involving, or using two languages: (Linguistics)
_a bilingual community; bilingual schools._
Every person doesn't have to be bilingual (definition 1) for the community to be bilingual (definition 3).

But that doesn't solve the question "What is a bilingual country?" Any large country is a bunch of communities. Some of them might be bilingual communities while might not be. Consider Italy and China:


Linnets said:


> There are some official regional languages in Italy such as Friulian and Sardinian and all their speakers use also Italian


So the Friulian and Sardinian communities are bilingual. But what about the community near Rome (or whever the local language is "Italian")?

In China, the official country language is based on Mandarin (the Beijing dialect of Hanyu). So people in Beijing speak one language. But people near Hong Kong are bilingual, speaking both Cantonese and Mandarin.

Some countries includes bilingual parts and non-bilingual parts. So what is the country?


----------



## Penyafort

There are people who think that territories "don't speak". But the fact is that the concept of "linguistic territory" exists and is useful to clearly define the boundaries of a territory in which a language is spoken, so that laws can be applied within it, regardless of the actual number of speakers of the language within that territory. The concept is therefore different to that of linguistic rights for citizens or groups of people, which are more aimed at an individual level.


----------



## vince

dojibear said:


> WR dictionary list definitions of the adjective "bilingual" (in American English):
> 
> able to speak two languages with the facility of a native speaker. (Linguistics)
> spoken, written, or containing similar information in two different languages: (Linguistics)
> _a bilingual dictionary; Public notices at the embassy are bilingual._
> of, involving, or using two languages: (Linguistics)
> _a bilingual community; bilingual schools._
> Every person doesn't have to be bilingual (definition 1) for the community to be bilingual (definition 3).
> 
> But that doesn't solve the question "What is a bilingual country?" Any large country is a bunch of communities. Some of them might be bilingual communities while might not be. Consider Italy and China:
> 
> So the Friulian and Sardinian communities are bilingual. But what about the community near Rome (or whever the local language is "Italian")?
> 
> In China, the official country language is based on Mandarin (the Beijing dialect of Hanyu). So people in Beijing speak one language. But people near Hong Kong are bilingual, speaking both Cantonese and Mandarin.
> 
> Some countries includes bilingual parts and non-bilingual parts. So what is the country?



This thread that I created is probably older than some of the youngest members of this forum, haha. I'm sure the version of me from 15.5 years ago would be fine with adjusting the topic to mean "bilingual regions" rather than "bilingual countries". For the purposes of the thread, let us use the first definition that you gave, on an individual rather than legal, government-imposed level. By this definition, Canada is not bilingual, but certain regions like Montreal, eastern and northern Ontario, and New Brunswick are. I don't (and didn't) care about which countries are officially bilingual, I can easily get that information from an Internet search.

Diglossic communities are the most interesting and where native speakers are, IMO, clouded by their local sociolinguistic interpretations of what defines that language. This is why some people here are arguing that Letzeburgish (a Franconian language) and Standard German (a High German language) are not distinct languages, or that AAVE and General American English are the same.

For the purposes of this thread, we will count diglossic regions even when there is partial (but not full) mutual intelligibility. Any regions where most of the population speak and can get regular retail, restaurant and other customer service in those languages outside of tourist areas are considered bilingual regions for the purposes of this thread.

Is Rome a bilingual region? I don't speak Roman, or whatever language they speak in Lazio, but if locals speak both Standard Italian and that language, then yes it would be considered a bilingual region for the purposes of this thread. If the local language has died out (as I've heard has happened in Hanover and other parts of northern Germany, and what I believe has happened in a lot of mainland China), then it's not a bilingual region.


----------



## Linnets

I don't know elsewhere, but in Italy we call a "bilingual area" where there is enough difference between two languages codes, i.e. we don't consider Tuscany and Rome to be "bilingual". There are differences (e.g. in Roma the three variants of the same dialect/regional speech are informally called _romano_, _romanesco_, and _romanaccio_, from higher to lower) but not enough to be considered "different languages". Furthermore, a well known peculiarity of Italian studies is that regional varieties that are different form standard Italian but share with it some important features (for example /Cl-/ > /Cj-/ and no plurals in /-s/) are considered "dialects" (_dialetti_) and not regional languages unlike, for example, Ladin and Sardinian.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

TimeHP said:


> In Italy there is a region, Trentino Alto Adige, where people speak both German and Italian.
> Ciao


Very few people from Trentino are actually bilingual: those from Trento are Italian speakers who know some German and those from Bolzano are German speakers who had to learn some Italian.


----------



## Dymn

74% of people in Bolzano/Bozen are Italian native speakers. I would say it's South Tyrol that is bilingual, not Trentino.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Dymn said:


> 74% of people in Bolzano/Bozen are Italian native speakers.


If you mean the city of Bolzano and not the province (which is South Tyrol) then yes.


Dymn said:


> I would say it's South Tyrol that is bilingual, not Trentino.


Not quite.
South Tyrol is a largely predominant German speaking area (also for political reason I'm sure you know very well, being Catalan). Most of them speak some Italian, reluctantly. They couldn't even for a second pass themselves as Italian speakers.
If my native language is German and I learnt some Italian as a second language at school, then I'm NOT bilingual.

Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol - Wikipedia



> In South Tyrol the majority language is German (*62% of the population*), although in the capital city Bolzano 73% of the population speaks Italian as its maternal language[...]
> The Italian language is a majority in *5 of 116* municipalities. Italian is the first language of* 26% of the population*


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Very interesting Paul. Am I correct in saying that they can't speak fluent Italian? (Unlike, say, Catalan-speakers in Spain)


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Very interesting Paul. Am I correct in saying that they can't speak fluent Italian? (Unlike, say, Catalan-speakers in Spain)


Yes.
When I was in Barcelona my feeling (but I might be wrong) was that most people could perfectly speak Spanish but just chose not to do it whereas in South Tyrol people speak Italian like German speakers from Germany, Austria or Switzerland would do if they studied it, that is, with a strong German accent.
I live just a couple of hours from South Tyrol and I've been there countless times. Crossing the border between Trento province and Bolzano province is like crossing the Austrian border. To be fair I must also say that while there are older people who cannot speak Italian at all (or simply refuse to do it) I've never met anyone of my age or younger who couldn't speak Italian to some extent.
Another funny example: while official road signs are bilingual, the wooden ones made by the locals are in German only...


----------



## Dymn

Paulfromitaly said:


> If you mean the city of Bolzano and not the province (which is South Tyrol) then yes.


Okay, I didn't know "Bolzano" could be used for the whole province.



Paulfromitaly said:


> In South Tyrol the majority language is German (*62% of the population*), although in the capital city Bolzano 73% of the population speaks Italian as its maternal language[...]
> The Italian language is a majority in *5 of 116* municipalities. Italian is the first language of* 26% of the population*


Well German may be the predominant language but 26% isn't insignificant either. Both languages are official, both are languages of instruction... This looks pretty bilingual too me. I wonder what is the command of German by Italian native speakers, or in general the sociolinguistical dynamics in South Tyrol.



Paulfromitaly said:


> When I was to Barcelona my feeling (but I might be wrong) was that most people could perfectly speak Spanish but just chose not to do it whereas in South Tyrol people speak Italian like German speakers from Germany, Austria or Switzerland would do if they studied it, that is, with a strong German accent.


Well obviously Catalan is much closer to Spanish than German is to Italian and we don't have 100 million native speakers in other countries to rely on, so no wonder...


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Dymn said:


> I wonder what is the command of German by Italian native speakers


They speak it as a second language, that is, they are not bilingual. By bilingual I mean people who can perfectly speak both languages.


----------



## Dymn

Fair enough, but then it would be hard to find actual bilingual territories, especially if languages are different enough. There's always going to be two communities, and your command will depend on your mother tongue, the language you spoke with friends during childhood, the neighbourhood you live in, etc.

I would say for a territory to be bilingual, the population doesn't need to have a native-like command of both languages. Simply, the two languages should be spoken significantly, with no hard-and-fast territorial boundary to be drawn.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Mauritius, for example, is bilingual in practice. Everyone speaks French/French Creole and English.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Dymn said:


> I would say for a *territory* to be bilingual, the population doesn't need to have a native-like command of both languages.


I see your point and, to a certain extent, I agree with you. I was talking about the people from Trentino whereas you were more focused on the territory itself.


----------



## Dymn

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Mauritius, for example, is bilingual in practice. Everyone speaks French/French Creole and English.


Yes. Probably diglossic too, with Mauritian Creole being the majority mother tongue and French and English being the written, formal languages.


----------



## Penyafort

Paulfromitaly said:


> Yes.
> When I was in Barcelona my feeling (but I might be wrong) was that most people could perfectly speak Spanish but just chose not to do it whereas in South Tyrol people speak Italian like German speakers from Germany, Austria or Switzerland would do if they studied it, that is, with a strong German accent.


Well, aside from the two reasons mentioned by Dymn, there are many more which make both situations not comparable. Barcelona is the second city by population in Spain (so rather the Italian Milan, not Bolzano), kings and politicians have been imposing Spanish there for the last three centuries (I'd say Italianization of Bolzano didn't begin before Mussolini), and there were massive waves of Spanish speakers coming into the city -massive as in more newcomers than inhabitants were there. If you went back to the first half of the 20th century, right before the arrival of newcomers and of the mass media but already with citizens starting to be schooled compulsorily, you would hear all people in Barcelona speaking Spanish with a very strong Catalan accent too.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Dymn said:


> Yes. Probably diglossic too, with Mauritian Creole being the majority mother tongue and French and English being the written, formal languages.



Yes, according to census figures, most people's native language is French (Mauritian) Creole.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Penyafort said:


> Well, aside from the two reasons mentioned by Dymn, there are many more which make both situations not comparable. Barcelona is the second city by population in Spain (so rather the Italian Milan, not Bolzano), kings and politicians have been imposing Spanish there for the last three centuries (I'd say Italianization of Bolzano didn't begin before Mussolini), and there were massive waves of Spanish speakers coming into the city -massive as in more newcomers than inhabitants were there. If you went back to the first half of the 20th century, right before the arrival of newcomers and of the mass media but already with citizens starting to be schooled compulsorily, you would hear all people in Barcelona speaking Spanish with a very strong Catalan accent too.


I have no reason to question what you are saying.
Perhaps in 50 years most people from South Tyrol will be truly bilingual, but at the moment they are not.


----------



## jekoh

Mauritian creole is a language distinct from French, so they would be tri-lingual if they speak English as well. According to Wikipedia, 42 % of the population speak Bhojpuri.


----------



## merquiades

I won't judge accent as it's beyond me, but when I visited South Tyrol a few years ago all the people I met spoke Italian willingly and fluently. I think it would be possible to live there not speaking German. 
It was also linguistically enriching seeing everything written in two languages.


----------



## Linnets

What about Aosta Valley (Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste)? People there are really fluent in Italian, though I'm not sure about their French.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

According to Wikipedia, ''the Italian language was spoken as a mother tongue by 77.29% of respondents, Franco-Provençal by 17.91%, while French by 1.25%.''

South Tyrol was Austrian until relatively recently (1919) and the German-speakers there appear to still see themselves as Austrians rather than Italians. The Aosta Valley has never been part of France and Italian appears to be dominant without any countervailing attachment across the border to keep French dominant such as exists in South Tyrol vis-a-vis German.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Pedro y La Torre said:


> According to Wikipedia, ''the Italian language was spoken as a mother tongue by 77.29% of respondents, Franco-Provençal by 17.91%, while French by 1.25%.''
> 
> South Tyrol was Austrian until relatively recently (1919) and the German-speakers there appear to still see themselves as Austrians rather than Italians. The Aosta Valley has never been part of France and Italian appears to be dominant without any countervailing attachment across the border to keep French dominant such as exists in South Tyrol vis-a-vis German.


Precisely.


----------



## Linnets

The same source says 96.01% of Valdostani speak Italian and 75.41% speak (Aostan) French. Is it enough to be considered bilingual?


----------



## merquiades

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Yes, according to census figures, most people's native language is French (Mauritian) Creole.


So the linguistic situation in Mauritius is close to that in La Reunion Island. The native populations can speak to one another in French Creole.


----------



## Penyafort

Linnets said:


> What about Aosta Valley (Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste)? People there are really fluent in Italian, though I'm not sure about their French.


Since French has never been native to Aosta, why should it be considered as rooted there?


----------



## Sepia

Paulfromitaly said:


> Yes.
> When I was in Barcelona my feeling (but I might be wrong) was that most people could perfectly speak Spanish but just chose not to do it whereas in South Tyrol people speak Italian like German speakers from Germany, Austria or Switzerland would do if they studied it, that is, with a strong German accent.
> I live just a couple of hours from South Tyrol and I've been there countless times. Crossing the border between Trento province and Bolzano province is like crossing the Austrian border. To be fair I must also say that while there are older people who cannot speak Italian at all (or simply refuse to do it) I've never met anyone of my age or younger who couldn't speak Italian to some extent.
> Another funny example: while official road signs are bilingual, the wooden ones made by the locals are in German only...




I am more surprised that I meet so many people in Catalunya who CAN'T speak Catalunyan. I have never met any who refused to speak "Spanish" (Castellano).


----------



## merquiades

French is considered the formal language in the areas where Franco-Provençal is/was historically spoken. For example, standard French has never been native to Switzerland either. Nowadays, French has been replacing Franco-Provençal everywhere.
Not saying this rationale is correct but it is what it is.


----------



## Sepia

Paulfromitaly said:


> If you mean the city of Bolzano and not the province (which is South Tyrol) then yes.
> 
> Not quite.
> South Tyrol is a largely predominant German speaking area (also for political reason I'm sure you know very well, being Catalan). Most of them speak some Italian, reluctantly. They couldn't even for a second pass themselves as Italian speakers.
> If my native language is German and I learnt some Italian as a second language at school, then I'm NOT bilingual.
> 
> Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol - Wikipedia



Nevertheless it is obviously a bilingual region. The official website of the is city of Bolzano/Bozen is in both languages.


----------



## Linnets

Sepia said:


> Nevertheless it is obviously a bilingual region.


Trilingual: also Ladin is spoken in certain areas.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Sepia said:


> I am more surprised that I meet so many people in Catalunya who CAN'T speak Catalunyan. I have never met any who refused to speak "Spanish" (Castellano).


Absolutely. 
Everyone living in a bilingual region should speak both languages, even if with different levels of proficiency. 
I've met people in South Tyrol (admittedly, older people) who would understand what I said in Italian (I don't speak any German) and still refuse to reply to my in Italian and do it in German.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

And how do other Italians see people (ethinc Germans) from South Tyrol? As foreigners albeit with Italian citizenship?


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Pedro y La Torre said:


> And how do other Italians see people (ethinc Germans) from South Tyrol? As foreigners albeit with Italian citizenship?


Well, it's a little complicated...
Some/Most of them don't consider themselves Italian but South Tyrolean and that's the first problem. They benefit from very favourable tax concessions and administrative autonomy and yet they'd still prefer to be re-annexed to Austria..
I've been there countless times also because my parents used to spend a couple of weeks near Merano every summer. The owners of the Hof we stayed in were always very nice and friendly and still ask us, every bloody year, "How are things in Italy?" 
Some Italians (like me) find it just marginally annoying, others very annoying or even unacceptable. 

This BBC report portrays the situation very well

South Tyrol's identity crisis: Italian, German, Austrian...?


----------



## apmoy70

The Republic of Cyprus is officially and de jure bilingual (Greek & Turkish), in fact because it's an EU member, the Republic in 2016 asked the commission to make Turkish an official EU language, but the answer is still pending. De facto though, the RoC is monolingual (Greek), because of the partition of the island since 1974


----------



## Penyafort

merquiades said:


> French is considered the formal language in the areas where Franco-Provençal is/was historically spoken. For example, standard French has never been native to Switzerland either. Nowadays, French has been replacing Franco-Provençal everywhere.
> Not saying thus rationale is correct but it is what it is.


Rather than the formal language, the formal variety. Because Franco-Provençal was just regarded as a patois, as usual.
Otherwise it's just as native as it is in Kinshasa.

What I wonder is, had Savoy remained an independent country, what language or languages would the official ones be today.



Paulfromitaly said:


> Absolutely.
> Everyone living in a bilingual region should speak both languages, even if with different levels of proficiency.


Everyone raised in Catalonia can speak Catalan. Whether they decide to do it or not, it's a different story.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Penyafort said:


> Rather than the formal language, the formal variety. Because Franco-Provençal was just regarded as a patois, as usual.
> Otherwise it's just as native as it is in Kinshasa.
> 
> What I wonder is, had Savoy remained an independent country, what language or languages would the official ones be today.


Presumably French. French became the official language in the Valley of Aosta before (the then Kingdom of) France itself.


----------



## Sepia

Paulfromitaly said:


> Absolutely.
> Everyone living in a bilingual region should speak both languages, even if with different levels of proficiency.
> I've met people in South Tyrol (admittedly, older people) who would understand what I said in Italian (I don't speak any German) and still refuse to reply to my in Italian and do it in German.



That is indeed rather odd - is that the normal way of going about things there? Speak your primary language and expect that the other person understands and does the same. I only know that habit when people from Scandinavian countries meet. But it certainly is more practical when Swedes living or working in Denmark actually speak Danish and vice versa. I have never experienced anything similar in the region where I grew up which is widely German-Danish bi-lingual. Either you speak Danish or you speak German. Or you switch languages in the middle of the conversation. But both speak the same language at the same time.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Sepia said:


> That is indeed rather odd - is that the normal way of going about things there?


I've always perceived it a passive aggressive reaction - I'm in south Tyrol, my language is German and you can't force me to speak Italian..
I believe it's more of an elderly thing, people who have always refused to speak the language of the "invader".
To some extent I've notice the same attitude in Ukrainian people who do understand Russian but refuse to speak it.


----------



## merquiades

I wouldn't necessarily take it as an aggression? Did you ask them if they spoke Italian before speaking to them?
They may not have known you wanted  or needed them to speak only Italian. In bilingual worlds they could assume everyone around them is more or less bilingual and that you were from Merano or Bolzano...


----------



## Paulfromitaly

merquiades said:


> They may not have known you wanted or needed them to speak only Italian.


It wasn't hard to guess since I'm Italian and I spoke to them in Italian and they knew I was a tourist, not someone from Trento.


----------



## Dymn

Sometimes you hear bilingual conversations in Catalonia, probably increasingly so. Each one speaks their native language and they get along just fine. It's true though that most frequently one adapts to the other.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

merquiades said:


> I wouldn't necessarily take it as an aggression? Did you ask them if they spoke Italian before speaking to them?
> They may not have known you wanted  or needed them to speak only Italian. In bilingual worlds they could assume everyone around them is more or less bilingual and that you were from Merano or Bolzano...


I'd say that's unlikely. I took a quick look and the Austrian state broadcaster ORF has news programmes dedicated to South Tyrol, which are relayed by the local Rundfunk Anstalt Südtirol. Essentially these speakers can live as Austrians in Italy. They get their news from Germany and Austria, they speak and are educated in their own language and have their own extensive autonomy statute which Austria helped negotiate for them.

If someone speaks to you in Italian and you respond in German, either you don't know any Italian (unlikely given that ST is part of Italy) or you just don't want to speak it. It'd probably be easier to just hand the territory back to Austria and make some arrangement for the native Italian speakers in Bolzano but for reasons of national prestige that surely won't happen.


----------



## vince

apmoy70 said:


> The Republic of Cyprus is officially and de jure bilingual (Greek & Turkish), in fact because it's an EU member, the Republic in 2016 asked the commission to make Turkish an official EU language, but the answer is still pending. De facto though, the RoC is monolingual (Greek), because of the partition of the island since 1974


If the majority of people in the Republic of Cyprus can't speak BOTH Greek and Turkish fluently then for the purposes of this thread, it is NOT a bilingual region / country. For the purposes of this thread, a bilingual region is one where I can go into any neighborhood cafe or corner store and pick one of the two languages and start talking to the person working there, or to a random person on the street, and expect to be understood. They may however, as some people have pointed out, be inconvenienced and want to reply back in the other language, but if they speak both languages fluently, even with an accent, it counts as bilingual.


----------



## Perseas

76% of people of Cyprus speak English as L2, according to Eurobarometer. So in that way these people might be considered bilingual.
Source: Languages of Cyprus - Wikipedia

Some information from the source above:


> Proficiency in English is high (higher than in many other European countries), and Cypriots that receive education in English might code-switch between Cypriot Greek and English. English features on road signs, public notices, and in advertisements, etc. English was the sole official language during British colonial rule and lingua franca (until 1960) and continued to be used (_de facto_) in courts of law until 1989 and in legislature until 1963.


----------



## Red Arrow

vince said:


> For the purposes of this thread, a bilingual region is one where I can go into any neighborhood cafe or corner store and pick one of the two languages and start talking to the person working there, or to a random person on the street, and expect to be understood.


In that case many parts of Europe are bilingual English/local language.


----------



## merquiades

Bilingual is not being able to go into a café and saying "I want a coffee", being understood and getting the answer "large or small, with milk?" That is just getting by in a given situation. In this case Greece and Sweden are bilingual in English. This is of course fantastic.

Bilingual is being capable of abstract thought in a language without translating, speaking on most common subjects, listening to radio, being understood and expressing oneself effortlessly, not making serious non-native grammar mistakes, reading articles written for native speakers, using a rich vocabulary...  A bilingual place is where most people living there are able  to do this in two given languages.

Luxembourg yes, Brussels no


----------



## Paulfromitaly

merquiades said:


> Bilingual is being capable of abstract thought in a language without translating, speaking on most common subjects, listening to radio, being understood and expressing oneself effortless, not making serious non-native mistakes, reading articles written for native speakers. *A bilingual place is where most people living there are able to do this in two given languages.*


So, according to your definition of "bilingual", which countries/regions are bilingual?
Definitely NOT South Tyrol.
Can I order a coffee in Italian in South Tyrol and be served what I actually ordered? Of course, but I'm also likely to get a "Bitte" in response to my "Grazie".


----------



## merquiades

Singapore, Aruba, Luxembourg, Andorra, Barcelona, Fribourg, Gibraltar...
Maybe not South Tyrol as a whole but Bolzano.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

merquiades said:


> Maybe not South Tyrol as a whole but Bolzano.


Not really.
In Bolzano most people can speak Italian well enough to have casual conversation, but cannot "express themselves effortlessly, not making serious non-native grammar mistakes" and I'm not even taking into account the accent otherwise it'd be no contest.


----------



## Terio

merquiades said:


> Bilingual is being capable of abstract thought in a language without translating, speaking on most common subjects, listening to radio, being understood and expressing oneself effortlessly, not making serious non-native grammar mistakes, reading articles written for native speakers, using a rich vocabulary...  A bilingual place is where most people living there are able  to do this in two given languages.


To do so, a person needs a very high degree of education in both languages. So that could happen only in a very educated society.

Here, in Quebec, if you come from a French speaking family, chances are that you will go to a French school. They will teach you English as a foreign language.  If you come from an English family, it will be the opposite. Unless you seriously study the other language in college or univesity, you will probably not reach the level you are speaking about. Most people will learn only what they really need. Actually, the communities live parallel lives.

If you come from a bilingual family, chances are you will choose one of the languages as yours. I've worked with some French speaking Quebecers who had attended English schools from the beginning. I realized that the had a basic knowlege of French from their parents, but it's English they had studied day after day at school. To them, French was no for "abstract thought" or to write articles.

Even our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (his father was French Canadian, but not his mother), chief of government of an officially bilingual country, don't really master French. As he speaks, you can notice that he thinks in English and tries to translate into French.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

I agree that Justin Trudeau speaks (really) bad French. For a native speaker, he often makes horrendous mistakes or translates literally from English. That said, in Montreal, plenty of people are perfectly bilingual. You can walk into any café in French-speaking Outremont and be served in perfect English. Outside Montreal, this isn't the case. In Quebec City I once had to translate for Americans who tried to order in English but weren't being understood by the waitress.


----------



## Terio

Pedro y La Torre said:


> I agree that Justin Trudeau speaks (really) bad French. For a native speaker, he often makes horrendous mistakes or translates literally from English. That said, in Montreal, plenty of people are perfectly bilingual. You can walk into any café in French-speaking Outremont and be served in perfect English. Outside Montreal, this isn't the case. In Quebec City I once had to translate for Americans who tried to order in English but weren't being understood by the waitress.


Plenty of people are *perfectly* bilingual, for sure, but it is on an individual basis and it remains a privilege of intellectutals, not most people. (Outremont is a rather rich neighbourhood.) Most people learn a second language because they need if to get a job or because it is useful for them.

On the other hand, not so long ago (the sixties, the early seventies), few English Quebecers spoke French. They were the boss and did not condescended to learn it.

A few weeks ago, the president of Air Canada, a former federal public company privatized but obligated by law to provide services in both languages, made a speech in the Montreal Trade Board in English only. It was a scandal. People felt humiliated. He was said to act "as in the fifties". He apologized saying that he was to busy to learn and said he had lived in the Montreal region for fourteen years and never felt necessary to learn it, which only added fuel to the fire.

Maybe there are places where bilingalism is viewed as « the normal way to be » (Luxembourg ? Macao ?), but you must not forget that in many other places the need to speak more than one's own native language is due to a long history of political, cultural, economical oppression or domination not as a personnal cultural enrichment.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Terio said:


> you must not forget that in many other places the need to speak more than one's own native language is due to a long history of political, cultural, economical oppression or domination not as a personnal cultural enrichment.


That's very true.
In all those places there are two official languages but people still learn one of them as a second language just because they have to or it is convenient.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Paulfromitaly said:


> Not really.
> In Bolzano most people can speak Italian well enough to have casual conversation, but cannot "express themselves effortlessly, not making serious non-native grammar mistakes" and I'm not even taking into account the accent otherwise it'd be no contest.


Isn't Bolzano majority Italian-speaking?


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Isn't Bolzano majority Italian-speaking?


In the city of Bolzano the majority of people are Italian native speakers (roughly 3 out of 4) but in the province, which is South Tyrol, is the other way around. In general, the larger the town, the more people who can speak both languages you will find, being German their first language. In small villages up the mountains is where I met older folks who'd barely understand or speak any Italian.


----------



## apmoy70

vince said:


> If the majority of people in the Republic of Cyprus can't speak BOTH Greek and Turkish fluently then for the purposes of this thread, it is NOT a bilingual region / country. For the purposes of this thread, a bilingual region is one where I can go into any neighborhood cafe or corner store and pick one of the two languages and start talking to the person working there, or to a random person on the street, and expect to be understood. They may however, as some people have pointed out, be inconvenienced and want to reply back in the other language, but if they speak both languages fluently, even with an accent, it counts as bilingual.


Well there are Turkish-Cypriots who chose to live in the Republic of Cyprus and are bilingual, they speak Greek and Turkish fluently. As there are Greek-Cypriot villages in the north (at the Karpas Peninsula mostly) with bilingual residents.


----------



## Linnets

Paulfromitaly said:


> In Bolzano most people can speak Italian well enough to have casual conversation, but cannot "express themselves effortlessly, not making serious non-native grammar mistakes"





Paulfromitaly said:


> In the city of Bolzano the majority of people are Italian native speakers (roughly 3 out of 4)


Isn't this a contradiction? I've met some Italian-speakes from Bolzano and they all could speak a decent Italian and were able to "express themselves effortlessly, not making serious non-native grammar mistakes"; they had a rather strong accent, but, to my Tuscan ears, it was not stronger than most Northerners. Of course it is not the case of rural South Tyrol.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Linnets said:


> Isn't this a contradiction?


No.
In the first sentence I clearly meant the province of Bolzano not just the city, that's why I said "can speak Italian well enough". In the city of Bolzano 75% of the people are Italian native speakers, so that comment wouldn't make any sense.


----------



## Thersites

Brioche said:


> Switzerland has four languages, German, French, Italian and Rhaeto-Romansch - but not much bi- or multi-lingualism.


Right - or at least not in the way that the OP stated.


Brioche said:


> 22 of the 26 cantons are officially monolingual.


And even in the others the towns or regions are belonging to one side of the language border. There are a few exceptions. Towns like Biel/Bienne and Freiburg/Fribourg are bilingual to a high degree. If you watch their local TV stations you will see the journalist asking a question in French and getting his response in German.

Many people will still master one or more of the other languages out of patriotism. And even if they don't, there is still a sense of togetherness. Per example, when our health minister speaks on Covid,  I'd rather hear him speak in French than have him overdubbed with a German translation, even if that means that I will only understand about three quarters of what he's saying.

Any serious politician will speak two languages, with accents that are easy to imitate and lovingly made fun of on both sides of the language border.


Brioche said:


> Each canton in Switzerland behaves pretty much like a separate country.


It is actually not that bad. Inter-cantonal political relationships have been surprisingly sane. It is still widely acknowledged that it was federalism that made our country.


----------



## raamez

In Syria the Kurds, Turkmans and Syriacs who majorly live in the north are for the most part bilingual or sometimes trilingual as some also speak Arabic and Turkish beside their mother tongue. Those who live in northwest of Syria speak also a different dialect than those in the northeast. They usually adapt the native Arabic dialect to that specific area.


----------



## merquiades

Luxembourg never ceases to intrigue me.
Two waiters were chatting away in Lëtzebuergesch when I went into a restaurant.  They said Moïen and then we talked in French, nothing unusual there.  But then after I took my seat and ordered they went on with their conversation in French.  It had nothing to do with me. Do they see Lëtzebuergesch as a private language to be used when no one else is around?  In many other (fairly) bilingual areas people will talk to you in your favorite language but they don't feel the need or want to change when they are talking to one another.

Later in the restaurant a middle aged man and a millenial were talking.  They did about three minutes in Lëtzebuergesch followed by three minutes in French and went on back and forth with no rhyme or reason non-stop.  They spoke to the waiters in French, one of the waiters served them in Lëtzebuergesch.

Another group of four young people had a more integrated bilingual conversation.  I don't know if they were speaking Lëtzebuergesch laced heavily with French words in every sentence or French with Lëtzeburgesch words.  They spoke Lëtzebuergesch to the waiters who only answered in French.

There were also some other people in the restaurant who just spoke French, and some northern Europeans who spoke English. They could handle the English but a lady came out of the kitchen and served them in French.

The people in the kitchen were speaking Lëtzebuergesch.
The faint radio show in the background was in German with French songs.  The menu was in translated French-German-English. There were some mistakes in the English part:  wrapp, burgerbread.

This society is bilingual/multilingual because several languages are used at any given time by most people, and they find that normal.


----------



## Red Arrow

merquiades said:


> Luxembourg never ceases to intrigue me.
> Two waiters were chatting away in Lëtzebuergesch when I went into a restaurant.  They said Moïen and then we talked in French, nothing unusual there.  But then after I took my seat and ordered they went on with their conversation in French.  It had nothing to do with me. Do they see Lëtzebuergesch as a language to be used when no one else was around?  In many other (fairly) bilingual areas people will talk to you in your favorite language but they don't feel the need or want to change when they are talking to one another.


This happens regularly to me as well. I am speaking in Dutch to someone, someone else joins the room that doesn't understand Dutch well, so we switch to English. Then when she is gone, we continue talking in English for a while until we realize there is no need for that, and then switch back to Dutch.

This wouldn't happen to me in French, because speaking French requires an effort. I also never daydream in French.


----------



## merquiades

@Red Arrow But the question is, would you speak to your friend in Dutch or English if she were present in the room but not taking part in your conversation at all or not even really paying attention?

You mean English is never an effort for you?


----------



## Red Arrow

merquiades said:


> @Red Arrow But the question is, would you speak to your friend in Dutch or English if she were present in the room but not taking part in your conversation at all or not even really paying attention?


It depends on whether it could be of interest to her.


merquiades said:


> You mean English is never an effort for you?


Fictional books are somewhat of an effort, as are topics that I am not interested in. On this forum, I rarely use a dictionary, not even a spell checker. 

I am somewhat "privileged" as a Dutch speaker because it is very easy to retain English vocabulary for me. I recently had to use the word "sole" and I am not sure I ever even encountered that word in this meaning (the thing your foot rests on inside your shoe), yet I got it right. I simply made an estimated guess based on Dutch "zool".


----------



## elroy

Red Arrow said:


> an estimated guess


an educated* guess


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Red Arrow said:


> It depends on whether it could be of interest to her.
> 
> Fictional books are somewhat of an effort, as are topics that I am not interested in. On this forum, I rarely use a dictionary, not even a spell checker.
> 
> I am somewhat "privileged" as a Dutch speaker because it is very easy to retain English vocabulary for me. I recently had to use the word "sole" and I am not sure I ever even encountered that word in this meaning (the thing your foot rests on inside your shoe), yet I got it right. I simply made an estimated guess based on Dutch "zool".


While Dutch-speakers usually possess an excellent grasp of English, I don't think it can really be compared to Luxembourg. Luxembourgers change language on a sixpence and often in mid-conversation. I'd be astonished to find native Dutch-speakers conversing in English among themselves. Even in South Africa where Afrikaners almost all speak English, this wouldn't really occur.


----------



## Penyafort

merquiades said:


> Do they see Lëtzebuergesch as a private language to be used when no one else is around?


I've only seen that happening with some Aragonese speakers: them changing into Spanish as soon as 'foreigners' got into the village bar. So I'm surprised to hear about it in a better positioned language like Luxembourgish.


----------



## AndrasBP

merquiades said:


> chatting away in Lëtzebuergesch





merquiades said:


> Do they see Lëtzebuergesch as a private language





merquiades said:


> The people in the kitchen were speaking Lëtzebuergesch.


Isn't it "Luxembourgish" in English?


----------



## merquiades

Penyafort said:


> I've only seen that happening with some Aragonese speakers: them changing into Spanish as soon as 'foreigners' got into the village bar. So I'm surprised to hear about it in a better positioned language like Luxembourgish.


Lëtzebuergesch is in a good position in that people know it and use it. Not like Aragonese which seems to be fading away. It's informal though, the national but not official language. So you wouldn't find much of anything written in it. All street names are only in French, for instance. I guess people switch languages because they feel that the languages belong to them and they can use them as they see fit. The ease and coolness with which they change in and out of French and Lëtzebuergesch and sometimes others shows deep knowledge and lack of concern about the issue.


----------



## merquiades

AndrasBP said:


> Isn't it "Luxembourgish" in English?


Well according to Wikipedia it can be both but I do not anglicize it because in Luxembourg the nationals don't.  It's also pronounced something like Lutsanboyiss.  (About like the u as in luck, the a as a schwa and the i as in miss).  Sorry for no phonetic symbols or links as I'm on a mobile. Honestly people talk so little about this language in English it sounds weird to me to anglicize it but some people would probably do so, I suppose.

They also talk about Luxembourgian too in this article which sounds like a classy option to me.

Edit:  IPA  [ˈlətsəbuəjəʃ]


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

merquiades said:


> Luxembourgish - Wikipedia
> They also talk about Luxembourgian too in this article which sounds like a classy option to me.


By the by, I hate how we use the French-inspired spelling in English. It should be Luxemburg and Luxemburgish.


----------



## merquiades

Pedro y La Torre said:


> By the by, I hate how we use the French-inspired spelling in English. It should be Luxemburg and Luxemburgish.


So you pronounce Luxembourg as burg and not bourg?
If we were to write Luxemburg, then we'd have to write Luxemburger and that would seem like some weird kind of sandwich.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

merquiades said:


> So you pronounce Luxembourg as burg and not bourg?


In fact, I pronounce it as "Luxemberg". I certainly don't say "bourg", which is reflective of the French _ou _sound. Do you?


merquiades said:


> If we were to write Luxemburg, then we'd have to write Luxemburger and that would seem like some weird excuse for a sandwich.


I actually thought we spelled it as Luxemburger until I looked up the dictionary and found that French has penetrated even here. Then again, we hardly ever talk about Luxembourg's citizens; the country is too small.


----------



## merquiades

@Pedro y La Torre Yes, I say Luxembourg like bourg, but not with a French accent, with English r and hard g, and an or-like vowel as in "or".  First syllable with a "u" as in luxury.

Yes, I agree. We are so unsure about things because we hardly ever talk about Luxembourg, its people and language.
In French, Luxembourg and Luxembourgeois flow better because people are more likely to talk about the duchy.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

I'm having some trouble imagining that. I pronounce it like the American lady here. Do you say it differently?


----------



## merquiades

Pedro y La Torre said:


> I'm having some trouble imagining that. I pronounce it like the American lady here. Do you say it differently?


I pronounce it like this "dude" here.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Wow, interesting. That's exotic.


----------



## Penyafort

merquiades said:


> Lëtzebuergesch is in a good position in that people know it and use it. Not like Aragonese which seems to be fading away. It's informal though, the national *but not official language*.


Really? Now you made me curious, because I was convinced that the three were official in the country, as Luxembourgish, just like Irish or Maltese, could become official languages of the EU if required.

After reading several sources, even if many mention that the three are official, what seems to happen -correct if I'm wrong- is that there is no actual official language of the country, at least _de jure_. Luxembourgish is regarded as the national one as you say (somewhere I've read it's even required for naturalisation), although most legislation is done in French, and the three seem to be working or admitted languages in administration. So maybe the most accurate thing would be to say that the three are _de facto_ official languages, I guess. But I can see why it is regarded as an informal local one in comparison to the two most spoken ones in the EU.


----------



## Doraemon-

It would be faster if we asked it backwards: which (few) countries are not at least bilingual?
(I mean in reality, not for official issues)


----------



## dojibear

Doraemon- said:


> It would be faster if we asked it backwards: which (few) countries are not at least bilingual?
> (I mean in reality, not for official issues)


By "not for official" you mean the people, not the government. Then how do you define a country? 

For example, 75-80% of Americans are monolingual. That is high, but it means 20-25% of the people are at least bilingual.
So what is "the country"?


----------



## Penyafort

dojibear said:


> For example, 75-80% of Americans are monolingual. That is high, but it means 20-25% of the people are at least bilingual.


To me, high would mean over 90%. Countries like Portugal, Poland or Iceland look that high to me, where native speakers of other languages are fewer than 10%.

Usually, when 20-25% -and often less- of the people in a country speak another language, that language tends to be an official language of the country too. Spain being the only exception that naturally comes to my mind, though I guess there must be some other countries too.


----------



## Circunflejo

Penyafort said:


> Usually, when 20-25% -and often less- of the people in a country speak another language, that language tends to be an official language of the country too. Spain being the only exception that naturally comes to my mind, though I guess there must be some other countries too.


 If we exclude Spanish, there's no language in Spain natively spoken by 20% (or more) of the population of Spain. By the way, you don't have to go too far away to find a country with more than 20% of the population natively speaking an unofficial language because in Andorra the only official language is Catalan and 43.2% of the population has Spanish as their mother tongue.


----------



## merquiades

Portugal high?  Portuguese living in Portugal proper? I don't have that impression. Knowing 30 key words is not bilingual. However The diaspora does speak several languages.

I don't know about Poland but maybe @zaffy does? Are Pôles bilingual or multilingual?

I have definitely had reports from acquaintances that Iceland is pretty much trilingual.

Andorra also speaks 2,3, or 4 languages.


----------



## AndrasBP

Penyafort said:


> Usually, when 20-25% -and often less- of the people in a country speak another language, that language tends to be an official language of the country too. Spain being the only exception that naturally comes to my mind, though I guess there must be some other countries too.


Latvia is another exception, where Russian is spoken by 37% of the population but it isn't an official language in the country.



merquiades said:


> I have definitely had reports from acquaintances that Iceland is pretty much trilingual.


Trilingual? Icelandic, English, and...?


----------



## merquiades

AndrasBP said:


> Trilingual? Icelandic, English, and...?


Danish is mandatory in the country.  Many spend some time in Denmark for their studies or work.


----------



## Circunflejo

merquiades said:


> Danish is mandatory in the country.


They were part of Denmark not so long ago. There must be yet people born before they were recognized by Denmark as a sovereign state and even more people born before they became a republic (in-between they were a sovereign state but shared with Denmark the same king).


----------



## Penyafort

Circunflejo said:


> If we exclude Spanish, there's no language in Spain natively spoken by 20% (or more) of the population of Spain.


What does _natively _mean? Are you saying that you don't consider those Catalan speakers out of the 10 million who may have another initial language as native speakers? Because first-language speakers of Catalan, Galician or Basque are always counted as native speakers of Spanish too. Otherwise Spanish in Spain should only be considered native to some 76% of the population.



Circunflejo said:


> By the way, you don't have to go too far away to find a country with more than 20% of the population natively speaking an unofficial language because in Andorra the only official language is Catalan and 43.2% of the population has Spanish as their mother tongue.


Yes, I admit I didn't have it in mind. But I don't think microstates are playing in the same league, to be honest. In such small populations, any sudden rise of newcomers can easily alter the landscape. Not only for Spanish, also for Portuguese in Andorra.



merquiades said:


> Portugal high?  Portuguese living in Portugal proper? I don't have that impression.


My impression is that Portugal is one of the most linguistically homogeneous countries, at least in Europe.



merquiades said:


> I have definitely had reports from acquaintances that Iceland is pretty much trilingual.


But are we seriously counting foreign languages taught at school? I'd say Iceland is pretty homogeneous too, regardless of how good their command of English may be. I presume there must be some sort of divide too between those who are younger and better at English and those who're older and better at Danish.



AndrasBP said:


> Latvia is another exception, where Russian is spoken by 37% of the population but it isn't an official language in the country.


Oh, great, that could indeed be another good exponent.  

I can imagine the reason behind it, though.


----------



## Red Arrow

Penyafort said:


> But are we seriously counting foreign languages taught at school? I'd say Iceland is pretty homogeneous too, regardless of how good their command of English may be. I presume there must be some sort of divide too between those who are younger and better at English and those who're older and better at Danish.


From my (biased) experience as a tourist, even older Icelandic people are very good at speaking English. Definitely better than older Flemings.


----------



## Circunflejo

Penyafort said:


> What does _natively _mean?


One of the mother tongues.


Penyafort said:


> Are you saying that you don't consider those Catalan speakers out of the 10 million who may have another initial language as native speakers?


Right. Their proficiency in Spanish may be equal to that of a native but they aren't native speakers of Spanish.


Penyafort said:


> Because first-language speakers of Catalan, Galician or Basque are always counted as native speakers of Spanish too.


Not always. See, for example, Spain - The World Factbook


Penyafort said:


> Usually, when 20-25% -and often less- of the people in a country speak another language, that language tends to be an official language of the country too. Spain being the only exception that naturally comes to my mind, though I guess there must be some other countries too.





Penyafort said:


> Yes, I admit I didn't have it in mind. But I don't think microstates are playing in the same league, to be honest.


Some examples from bigger countries:
Umbundu is spoken by something like one third of the Angolan population but the only official language is Portuguese.
I don't have data about Fon in Benin -where French is the only official language- but the ethnic group makes 38.4% of the population of the country and it's sure the number of speakers will be over 20%.
Punjabi in Pakistan lacks official status and it's natively spoken by 38.48% of the population of the country.
Wolof is the native language of roughly 40% of the Senegalese and lacks official status. In Gambia roughly 20-25%, and it lacks official status too.
Estonia has something like 25% of ethnic Russians and I think Estonian is the only official language...

As there are regional co-official languages in Spain, I guess similar cases around the globe could be quoted here. For example, Javanese in Indonesia has co-official status in part of the country but Indonesian is the only official language in all the country. Surely some Zambian co-official regional languages would meet the 20% threasold of native speakers nation-wide...


----------



## merquiades

Penyafort said:


> sudden rise of newcomers can easily alter the But are we seriously counting foreign languages taught at school? I'd say Iceland is pretty homogeneous too, regardless of how good their command of English may be. I presume there must be some sort of divide too between those who are younger and better at English and those who're older and better at Danish.


Yes, seriously. In some countries like Iceland the study of foreign languages is so effective they can go live and study abroad. 
But in other countries of course people can study 10 years a language and retain nothing.


----------



## Youngfun

I think it's more useful talking about specific areas rather than whole countries.
Since the recent facts are happening, what about Ukraine (at least the capital and the Eastern part)?


----------



## berndf

merquiades said:


> It's informal though, the national but not official language.


Yes, it is one of the three _official _(=administrative) languages of the country. It has a somehow lesser status though, as it is not an official language of the EU although in theory any official language of a member state should also be an official language of the union.


----------



## berndf

Pivra said:


> These are the countries that I think really are bilingual:
> Switzerland (3- 4 I forgot how many)


Only few areas of the country can in any meaningful way be described as bi- or multilingual. In most parts of the country people only speak the language of their canton or town (in cantons with more than one official language). Knowledge of other national languages (4 but only 3 of them are official on federal level) is often no better than the (usually poor) knowledge of foreign languages taught in school elsewhere in the world. If I tried to get around in Geneva with German only (by far the most widely spoken of the four national languages) I would be lost.


----------



## Penyafort

berndf said:


> Yes, it is one of the three _official _(=administrative) languages of the country. It has a somehow lesser status though, as it is not an official language of the EU although* in theory any official language of a member state *should also be an official language of the union.


Any statewide official language. Regarding Spain, only one official language counts.

(In theory, a Spaniard can write in Catalan to European institutions and receive the reply in Catalan too, but that's nothing but a leg-pull because it goes first into a Spanish institution which translates it into Spanish and then translates the European reply from Spanish into Catalan too, not liable to any delays or possible mistakes in the translations)

For Catalan to be an official language of the Union, sad as it sounds, Andorra would have to become a member. That is, 0,7% of the number of speakers of the language. The fact that it's the 14th language with more speakers in the Union is irrelevant. That's how much important statehood is, regardless of what some people think.


----------



## berndf

Yes, this is because Catalan has official status only in one region. This is similar the 4th national language of Switzerland: Rumantsch. It is one of three official languages of the canton of Graubünden but not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. But all these considerations do not apply to Luxembourg. Since the remaining francophone part was ceded to Belgium when the latter became an independent country, there are no linguistic regions any more.


----------



## Penyafort

berndf said:


> Yes, this is because Catalan has official status only in one region. This is similar the 4th national language of Switzerland: Rumantsch. It is one of three official languages of the canton of Graubünden but not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. But all these considerations do not apply to Luxembourg. Since the remaining francophone part was ceased to Belgium when the latter became an independent country, there are no linguistic regions any more.


Well, it's not just one, but three/four (= the former Crown of Aragon). So rather like the French side of Switzerland (20%).

But yes, Luxembourg is a whole different thing. Although I would have sworn they were offered to have Luxembourgish as an official language of the Union too.


----------



## berndf

Penyafort said:


> But yes, Luxembourg is a whole different thing. Although I would have sworn they were offered to have Luxembourgish as an official language of the Union too.


They probably just haven't insisted.


----------



## merquiades

berndf said:


> They probably just haven't insisted.


No, it is not needed to ask for this.  They all can read, write and speak in French on a native level and probably German too.
It would be impractical to have everything in the EU translated into Lëtzebuergesch.


----------



## berndf

merquiades said:


> They all can read, write and speak in French on a native level...


I am not sure if you call a language you pupils get educated in from the age of about 10 really "native" but probably very close to that.


merquiades said:


> ... and probably German too.


Their German is about as "native" as that of a German having grown up in a dialect speaking family on the other side of the border. Except for the many French loans, Luxembourgish is about as distant from standard German as any close by dialect in Germany.


----------



## merquiades

berndf said:


> I am not sure if you call a language you pupils get educated in from the age of about 10 really "native" but probably very close to that.


There is so much French there, they pick it up much earlier than that, unless they come from a 100% Lëtzebuergesch environment from a small town.


berndf said:


> Their German is about as "native" as that of a German having grown up in a dialect speaking family on the other side of the border. Except for the many French, Luxembourgish is about as distant from standard German as any close by dialect in Germany.


It sounds different to me.  The announcements at the station for trains going to Germany sounds basically like they make no effort in German, just pronouncing it like Lëtzebuergesch but cleaning up the grammar to match Hochdeutsch.  They routinely pronounce i like è, ch like sch, au like o.  For example, Bet nescht roche in der gare (my phonetic spelling).


----------



## Penyafort

According to the Wikipedia article about the subject, Luxembourgish and Turkish are the only two nationwide official languages which are not benefited from their status, for different reasons.


----------



## berndf

merquiades said:


> There is so much French there, they pick it up much earlier than that, unless they come from a 100% Lëtzebuergesch environment from a small town.


True.


merquiades said:


> *It *sounds different to me. The announcements at the station for trains going to Germany sounds basically like they make no effort in German, just pronouncing it like Lëtzebuergesch but cleaning up the grammar to match Hochdeutsch. They routinely pronounce i like è, ch like sch, au like o. For example, Bet nescht roche in der gare (my phonetic spelling).


I am not quite sure what you mean by "it". You seem to be comparing Luxembourgers speaking Luxembourgish or German. I compared Luxembourgish to dialects spoken by Germans on the other side of the border. They are closer to each other than they all are to standard German (safe for the French loans in Luxembourgish).


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

merquiades said:


> There is so much French there, they pick it up much earlier than that, unless they come from a 100% Lëtzebuergesch environment from a small town.


They sound like native French-speakers to me. Jean-Claude Juncker has a slight accent in French but nothing major. French-speaking TV in Luxembourg sounds totally native.


----------



## merquiades

berndf said:


> True.
> 
> I am not quite sure what you mean by "it". You seem to be comparing Luxembourgers speaking Luxembourgish or German. I compared Luxembourgish to dialects spoken by Germans on the other side of the border. They are closer to each other than they all are to standard German (safe for the French loans in Luxembourgish).


"It" means "German".  I only understand something when they speak German in a formal setting, hence the reference to the station context, announcing the departure of trains to Germany, etc.  When they speak Lëtzebuergesch I understand absolutely nothing. When I have looked at manuals to learn it, it seems as different from standard German as Dutch is, but in a different way. You see the family resemblance but almost every word- verb conjugation is slightly different. Fortunately they use so many French words and code switch so frequently I can follow conversations that way.

What I meant is they do not make an effort to speak like Germans when they speak German.  Imagine an American like John Kerry or Jane Fonda speaking French.  It's fluent but the phonetics are totally English.  I know Lëtzebuergesch is close to the German dialects spoken along the Moselle River in Germany so it is a different case.  But when these people in Trier speak standard German, which is pretty much always, it is flawless.

I only met one German from Trier who was working in Luxembourg city, in an insurance firm.  She said she felt weird hearing them speak "dialect" to her. They understood her speaking in standard German but answered in Lëtzebuergesch/German mix.  Apparently it is considered uneducated to do this in formal contexts in Germany.  She was taking French lessons because they use so much French vocabulary in German that she got lost.  Plus everything written had to be in French.  In Trier English is studied in school, contrary to Saarland where it's French, so it's a handicap for some people from that region.  

I'm interested in knowing what happens in towns like Remich or Troisvierges which are much closer to the German border


----------



## berndf

merquiades said:


> What I meant is they do not make an effort to speak like Germans when they speak German.


Why would they if the German they are talking to essentially speak the same language. Northern Moselfrankish dialects in Germany and Luxemburgish all but the same thing, except for the French loans in Luxemburgish and that Luxemburgish has a standard register, which German Northern Moselfrankish does not have.

When a Luxembourger and a German from the Northern Eifel region speak German with their respective accents, I would probably be hard pressed to identify who is who.


----------



## Red Arrow

Pedro y La Torre said:


> French-speaking TV in Luxembourg sounds totally native.


Do you mean Club RTL, Plug RTL and RTL-TVI? Those channels are Luxembourgish but they mostly focus on Belgium and nearly all presenters are Walloon.


----------



## gato radioso

berndf said:


> Yes, this is because Catalan has official status only in one region. This is similar the 4th national language of Switzerland: Rumantsch. It is one of three official languages of the canton of Graubünden but not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. But all these considerations do not apply to Luxembourg. Since the remaining francophone part was ceased to Belgium when the latter became an independent country, there are no linguistic regions any more.


In Spain, the point is that non-Spanish speakers aren't scattered across the territory. Those non-Spanish languages can be used more or less widely in their homelands (Galician the most commonly known/used, Basque almost ignored  by most part of the population despite the efforts of local politicians), but in the most part of Spain you can live for years and years, greater cities included, and you never hear a word in those languages, only in Spanish, which is, so to speak, our innate language. For someone from Salamanca or Málaga there wouldn't be any point in learning those languages, incongruous with their local background. So, the geographical factor is crucial.


----------



## Olaszinhok

gato radioso said:


> Basque almost ignored by most part of the population despite the efforts of local politicians


Basque is spoken by about 28% of the population in the Basque country, mainly in smaller towns and villages. Nevertheless, Basque ought to be preserved and promoted due to its unique and fascinating origins.
Particularly in the Northern Basque region of France, where Basque is ‘severely endangered’.


----------



## merquiades

Olaszinhok said:


> Basque is spoken by about 28% of the population in the Basque country, mainly in smaller towns and villages. Nevertheless, Basque ought to be preserved and promoted due to its unique and fascinating origins.


It is being promoted and learned vigorously, O. The problem is it's a tough language for Romance language speakers. So lots of people have some knowledge of it but don't use it practically in daily life.
Another issue is there are actually numerous dialects of Basque with important differences amongst them. The new standard that blends them all sounds wrong to native speakers who don't identify with it.


Olaszinhok said:


> Particularly in the Northern Basque region of France, where Basque is ‘severely endangered’.


This is not so much a problem with Basque.  Every single regional language is speeding towards death in France, even Corsican.  There's no desire to save them.  That is pretty much the opposite spirit of this thread, as the goal is to create monolingual people.  It could be a good subject for a new thread.  "Creating monolingualism" or something like that.


----------



## gato radioso

Olaszinhok said:


> Basque is spoken by about 28% of the population in the Basque country, mainly in smaller towns and villages. Nevertheless, Basque ought to be preserved and promoted due to its unique and fascinating origins.
> Particularly in the Northern Basque region of France, where Basque is ‘severely endangered’.


Many people knows, but a few speak it on a daily basis, I don´t know the reason.
You virtually don´t hear it in big or medium-sized cities, despite the official efforts to write in Basque all traffic signs and the like.
When I´ve asked a friend of mine, who´s a genuine basque from San Sebastian, she´s always answers that she remember certain things form school of course, can understand the radio more or less, but don´t ask her write something complicated or about many words, in fact she doesn´t use it in her daily life, not even when answering their mobile or this sort of thing.


----------



## Circunflejo

gato radioso said:


> When I´ve asked a friend of mine, who´s a genuine basque from San Sebastian, she´s always answers that she remember certain things form school of course, can understand the radio more or less, but don´t ask her write something complicated or about many words, in fact she doesn´t use it in her daily life, not even when answering their mobile and this sort of thing.


She's not a native Basque speaker, is she?


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

merquiades said:


> This is not so much a problem with Basque.  Every single regional language is speeding towards death in France, even Corsican.  There's no desire to save them.  That is pretty much the opposite spirit of this thread, as the goal is to create monolingual people.  It could be a good subject for a new thread.  "Creating monolingualism" or something like that.


There is a vigorous nationalist movement in Corsica that will save the language. Most of the local political parties' names are Corsican etc. and lots of political banners at recent protests on the island were in Corsican.

Elsewhere in France, though, you're right. Regional languages have been killed off.


----------



## gato radioso

Circunflejo said:


> She's not a native Basque speaker, is she?


As far as I know, she isn´t, although her parents and family are genuine Basques, I mean, she´s not an immigrant from any Spanish province. I don´t know her grandparents and all that, but I imagine that some of them might be Basque speakers as well. In fact, it isn´t so unusual: my grandmother parents were born in rural Navarre and she used to tell me that their parents spoke some Basque and remember some things, although they lived most of their lives in Southern Spain.


----------



## gato radioso

merquiades said:


> This is not so much a problem with Basque.  Every single regional language is speeding towards death in France, even Corsican.  There's no desire to save them.  That is pretty much the opposite spirit of this thread, as the goal is to create monolingual people.  It could be a good subject for a new thread.  "Creating monolingualism" or something like that.


I think that it all boils down to the fact that some languages are apt to survive in a modern world and others aren´t.
The advantages that speaking languages like Spanish or English or French offer can´t be surpassed by small languages. I understand that some people can feel sad about this, but it always happened and it will continue. Perhaps, in a century or two, our grandchildren will speak Chinese, who knows?


----------



## Red Arrow

gato radioso said:


> Perhaps, in a century or two, our grandchildren will speak Chinese, who knows?


I hear this so often. I must be living on another planet. On my planet, Chinese speakers are learning English, but not vice versa, and there is a total disinterest for Mandarin Chinese except for people with Chinese ancestors. In fact, in America, Europe and Australia, even Japanese and Korean are more popular languages and cultures than Chinese. China's GDP increases much more than that of Western countries, relatively speaking, but when looking at absolute numbers, the GDP gap remains the same.


----------



## gato radioso

Red Arrow said:


> I hear this so often. I must be living on another planet. On my planet, Chinese speakers are learning English, but not vice versa, and there is a total disinterest for Mandarin Chinese except for people with Chinese ancestors. In fact, in America, Europe and Australia, even Japanese and Korean are more popular languages and cultures than Chinese. China's GDP increases much more than that of Western countries, relatively speaking, but when looking at absolute numbers, the GDP gap remains the same.


Don´t take it so seriously, it´s just a way of speaking , the idea I was trying to get at is that things change continously. In our world English is the prevalent language, at least in the Western World, followed at a great distance by Spanish and others, but nobody knows what might happen in the future. In fact, nowadays we don´t speak Latin anymore, do we?


----------



## merquiades

Pedro y La Torre said:


> There is a vigorous nationalist movement in Corsica that will save the language. Most of the local political parties' names are Corsican etc. and lots of political banners at recent protests on the island were in Corsican.
> 
> Elsewhere in France, though, you're right. Regional languages have been killed off.



I don't like Wikipedia, but this time guess I can't do any better.



> French is the official and most widely spoken language on the island. Italian was the official language of Corsica until 9 May 1859, when it was replaced by French. Corsican, a minority language that is closely related to medieval Tuscan, has a better prospect of survival than most other French regional languages: Corsican is the second most widely spoken language, after French and ahead of standard Italian. However, since the annexation of the island by France in the 18th century, Corsican has been under heavy pressure from French, and today it is estimated that only 10% of Corsica's population speak the language natively, with only 50% having some sort of proficiency in it.


Hands down, this is, of course, better than any other minority language in France but the fact that the only common language on the island is French, the usage is decreasing, and what you hear nowadays sounds like a translation from French word for word with French phonetics, including rhythm, nasal vowels and guttural r, doesn't make me want to rejoice for Corsican just yet.


----------



## Penyafort

The problem with Basque -and one important difference with regard to the Catalan system- is that there are several school systems there, and only in one of them Basque is the _vehicular _language, that is, the one used as the means of communication. So that means that a family can decide to bring their children to the Spanish system and they may grow up without any means or need to practice Basque in their lives, completely unable to speak one of the official languages of the country.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Pedro y La Torre said:


> and lots of political banners at recent protests on the island were in Corsican.


Example from earlier this afternoon.


----------



## Circunflejo

Penyafort said:


> The problem with Basque -and one important difference with regard to the Catalan system- is that there are several school systems there, and only in one of them Basque is the _vehicular _language, that is, the one used as the means of communication.


Yes but that model (model D, with Basque as vehicular language) is the preferred one. Overall, 68.4% of the students are schooled in that model (and 18.2% in the mixed model 50% Basque-50% Spanish). And the younger the students the higher the %. In students under 6 years, 81.2% of them are in that model (and only 3.2% in the model with Spanish as the only vehicular language). The data are from school year 2020-2021.


----------



## Penyafort

Circunflejo said:


> Yes but that model (model D, with Basque as vehicular language) is the preferred one. Overall, 68.4% of the students are schooled in that model (and 18.2% in the mixed model 50% Basque-50% Spanish). And the younger the students the higher the %. In students under 6 years, 81.2% of them are in that model (and only 3.2% in the model with Spanish as the only vehicular language). The data are from school year 2020-2021.


Good to know. I hope it shows in a few years then.


----------



## Circunflejo

Penyafort said:


> I hope it shows in a few years then.


It's already showing but in knowledge. Usage among youth in daily life is even going down lately.


----------



## Dymn

Only if they are passed down from generation to generation do languages survive. How is Irish faring in the Gaeltacht? If we only took into account public signage we would get the impression it's alive and kicking, but this doesn't seem to be the case.


----------



## Penyafort

Circunflejo said:


> It's already showing but in knowledge. Usage among youth in daily life is even going down lately.


Usage can be reversed with that knowledge. I know teens here who never spoke much in Catalan until they started working. But if one has never learned it in his youth, specially with a language as hard as Basque, then things could eventually reach a point of no return.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Catalan is surely advantaged by the fact that it's quite intelligible for a Spanish-speaker. Basque isn't. Neither is Irish (for an English-speaker). One cannot pick these languages up passively because they are from radically different language families. I can read a good percentage of Catalan newspapers thanks to French and schoolboy Spanish. Despite 10 years of Irish classes at school, I struggle to read anything that goes beyond the basics.


----------



## merquiades

Yes, learning everyday Catalan is a piece of cake for Spanish speakers (and vice versa) but the flipside in such situations of proximity is the regional language might slowly dilute under strong pressure from the national language.

Irish cannot melt into English. It can only be replaced by it.


----------



## gato radioso

merquiades said:


> Irish cannot melt into English. It can only be replaced by it.


But is Irish widely spoken among by the average citizens? I friend of mine, from Wales, once told me that everybody spoke English there, despite the insistence from institutions or the public sector in favour of Welsh.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

gato radioso said:


> But is Irish widely spoken among by the average citizens?


No, it's only spoken in Irish-speaking areas (called Gaeltachts). Everyone learns it at school but it isn't like Ulster Scots (a dialect/language that is easily understandable even with no study), it's a Celtic language that has nothing whatsoever in common with English.


----------



## merquiades

gato radioso said:


> But is Irish widely spoken among by the average citizens? I friend of mine, from Wales, once told me that everybody spoke English there, despite the insistence from institutions or the public sector in favour of Welsh.


I will let @Pedro y La Torre answer this one, but I believe Irish is widely studied but not used.  An Irish friend from Galway told me the goal was to keep it alive, learn it, treasure it, cultivate it but not replace English in daily life.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

I have only met one native Irish-speaker in my entire life who couldn't also speak native-level English (in fact, he spoke very little English at all) and he was a 90 year old man in a rural area of County Galway who had probably never left his village. That should tell you all you need to know. If Irish had the same relationship to English as Catalan has to Spanish, there's a good chance we'd all be able to speak it to some degree.


----------



## gato radioso

merquiades said:


> I will let @Pedro y La Torre answer this one, but I believe Irish is widely studied but not used.  An Irish friend from Galway told me the goal was to keep it alive, learn it, treasure it, cultivate it but not replace English in daily life.


I guess that´s a different point of view. On the other hand, in some other places, in the Spanish State, there is some kind of beligerance: the Spanish language tends to be marginalised in the daily life in favour of other languages which are officially promoted to compete in identical terms with Spanish, as if they were comparable in size or practicality. The average citizen doesn´t seem to think that languages can be an issue of any kind or take extreme positons either, but we all know that, many times, the public sector: civil servants, politicians, etc... live in their own world.


----------



## Red Arrow

Pedro y La Torre said:


> If Irish had the same relationship to English as Catalan has to Spanish, there's a good chance we'd all be able to speak it to some degree.


Then it would be like Scots in Scotland, which is not doing particularly well.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Yes but no-one cares about Scots or Ulster Scots. It's seen as a debased dialect (except by its advocates, obviously). If it had the cachet that Catalan has in Catalonia, Lowland Scots would all speak it. The uniquely Scottish tongue in Scotland is usually considered to be Gaelic not Scots. And Gaelic in Scotland suffers from the same problem as Gaelic in Ireland.


----------



## Penyafort

Red Arrow said:


> Then it would be like Scots in Scotland, which is not doing particularly well.


Scots and English spring from the same Anglic cluster. That'd rather be like Spanish with regard ti Asturian or to Galician at most.


----------



## Penyafort

Circunflejo said:


> The aim is to establish the degree of lexical similarity; not to put labels to the languages.


The parallelism was because English might look like a Romance language for some people instead of Germanic if we decided to overlook the _essential _fact that the Germanic words are those which more clearly belong to the core of the language.

Lexical similarity is one of many approaches linguists can use to classify and label languages, after all.



Circunflejo said:


> Anyway, we went too out of topic so it's about time to stop this discussion and go back to the thread's question.


I agree. Maybe these latter posts should better be merged with the thread on lexical similarity measuring.


----------



## Sepia

Penyafort said:


> The parallelism was because English might look like a Romance language for some people instead of Germanic if we decided to overlook the _essential _fact that the Germanic words are those which more clearly belong to the core of the language.
> 
> Lexical similarity is one of many approaches linguists can use to classify and label languages, after all.
> 
> 
> I agree. Maybe these latter posts should better be merged with the thread on lexical similarity measuring.




If we look at it like that, Danish would also be a Romance language because it added a lot of originally Latin words via English, or the words were in both languages all along.
That of course is complete nonsense. A language does not shift from being a Germanic language to Romance language.
The structure of the language is obviously still Germanic.


----------



## pimlicodude

The Ukraine is fully, 100%, bilingual. There are people in the East who won't speak Ukrainian and if you speak Ukrainian to them, they will understand, but reply in Russian. There are people in the West who refuse to speak Russian, but can understand it, but reply in Ukrainian. And then there are the millions of people in that country who speak in a mixture of both languages in the same sentence. This is called Surzhyk, and is the true national language of the Ukraine.


----------



## AndrasBP

pimlicodude said:


> The Ukraine is fully, 100%, bilingual.


I'm not so sure about the young, post-Soviet generation in western Ukraine. 
Why would those who grew up in a place like Lviv, surrounded by and schooled in Ukrainian, be bilingual in Russian?


----------



## pimlicodude

AndrasBP said:


> I'm not so sure about the young, post-Soviet generation in western Ukraine.
> Why would those who grew up in a place like Lviv, surrounded by and schooled in Ukrainian, be bilingual in Russian?


Well, in Lviv - which is quite distinctive linguistically - they don't actually speak Russian, but they understand it. But they can understand it - before 2014 nearly all the TV was in Russian. Wikipedia states that 60% of newspapers were in Russian in 2012. 83% of journals were in Russian then. 87% of books were in Russian. And only 28% of TV programmes were in Ukrainian. So even if you're from Lviv, you will have watched mainly Russian-language TV. If you watch programmes like X Factor on Youtube and Голос Дети and Голос Украины, you will see some shows where the hosts (who select the talented people for their competitions) speak Russian to the contestants, and some of them, whether from Lviv or some villages elsewhere, insist on replying in Ukrainian (if you search for Любомир Лотоцкий. Синяя вечность – Муслим Магомаев. Х-фактор 7. Седьмой кастинг on Youtube, you will find an example of this; this young man was from Odessa, a Russian-speaking city, but spoke Ukrainian on the programme while the hosts all spoke Russian back to him; he then goes on to sing a Russian-language song....). A new law in 2016 requires at least 35% of radio broadcasts  to be in Ukrainian, and 60% for news and analysis programmes. A law in 2017 now imposes a 75% Ukrainian-language quote on TV programmes. A law in January 2022 allows newspapers to be  published in Russian only if a Ukrainian-language edition exists too--which makes it financially unviable. So you see, even in the Ukrainian-language part of the Ukraine, they were saturated with Russian via the media. But typically if you speak Russian to someone in the street in Lviv, they reply in Ukrainian.

On the issue of the "young, post-Soviet educated" - well most popular culture was in Russian mainly. VK (a Russian-language social media site) is mainly in Russian. Pop music, other forms of culture typically expose the young to Russian. But VK is now banned and blocked in the Ukraine for that reason, to avoid the young from inexorably sliding into Russian-language culture.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

I've no idea if it's indicative of a general trend but a lot of the social media videos coming out of Lviv feature people speaking in Russian. I guess it could be people who have relocated there from Eastern Ukraine but the language is obviously known there to some extent.


----------



## Red Arrow

pimlicodude said:


> If you watch programmes like X Factor on Youtube and Голос Дети and Голос Украины, you will see some shows where the hosts (who select the talented people for their competitions) speak Russian to the contestants, and some of them, whether from Lviv or some villages elsewhere, insist on replying in Ukrainian (if you search for Любомир Лотоцкий. Синяя вечность – Муслим Магомаев. Х-фактор 7. Седьмой кастинг on Youtube, you will find an example of this; this young man was from Odessa, a Russian-speaking city, but spoke Ukrainian on the programme while the hosts all spoke Russian back to him; he then goes on to sing a Russian-language song....).


I hate the word "insist" here, it's unnecessarily negative. The fact that he sings a Russian song means he doesn't hate the language.

I also notice a double standard that I see often online: speakers of major language "*speak*" in their own language, speakers of a smaller language "*insist to speak*" in their own language.


----------



## pimlicodude

Red Arrow said:


> I hate the word "insist" here, it's unnecessarily negative. The fact that he sings a Russian song means he doesn't hate the language.
> 
> I also notice a double standard that I see often online: speakers of major language "*speak*" in their own language, speakers of a smaller language "*insist to speak*" in their own language.


Yes, neither side was being "insistent". They were probably just speaking in a way natural to them - but it shows just how bilingual the Ukraine is that a conversation can proceed totally normally with each interlocutor speaking a different language. Please don't take offence if I mention that "insist to speak" is not correct English. It is "insist on speaking".


----------



## Welsh_Sion

I also notice a double standard that I see often online: speakers of major language "*speak*" in their own language, speakers of a smaller language "*insist to speak*" in their own language.

____________

Agreed @Penyafort. I would just add the following clause which sometimes (still) applies:

"speakers of major language "*speak*" in their own language, speakers of a smaller language "*insist to speak*" in their own language and the major language speakers often insist the speakers of the smaller language speak their, major, language."

And a note to @pimlicodude, the form today is not to call the country 'The Ukraine' but 'Ukraine'.


----------



## pimlicodude

Welsh_Sion said:


> And a note to @pimlicodude, the form today is not to call the country 'The Ukraine' but 'Ukraine'.


I use the form "the Ukraine". This is what is shown in the Oxford English Dictionary on CD-Rom (2nd edition, version 4, 2009) under "Ukrainian". I am aware the Ukrainian government has "informed" the world that the article should be dropped - but the English version of a foreign country's name is for English speakers to determine. But I don't insist that other speakers say "the Ukraine". I'm happy for you, Welsh_Sion, to say "Ukraine", and would never try to tell you what you should say.


----------



## Welsh_Sion

Ok, peace, pimlicodude. (Which is something to be wished for in that part of the world, too.)

In passing, Welsh translators have been informed by the Welsh Government to drop the definite article in the form of the country, so we now write Wcráin and not yr Wcráin.


----------



## pimlicodude

Welsh_Sion said:


> Ok, peace, pimlicodude. (Which is something to be wished for in that part of the world, too.)
> 
> In passing, Welsh translators have been informed by the Welsh Government to drop the definite article in the form of the country, so we now write Wcráin and not yr Wcráin.


That's interesting to know.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Welsh_Sion said:


> Ok, peace, pimlicodude. (Which is something to be wished for in that part of the world, too.)
> 
> In passing, Welsh translators have been informed by the Welsh Government to drop the definite article in the form of the country, so we now write Wcráin and not yr Wcráin.


That must be rather jarring. In Irish, the Ukraine remains "An Úcráin".


----------



## Linnets

pimlicodude said:


> Well, in Lviv - which is quite distinctive linguistically - they don't actually speak Russian, but they understand it.


Ukrainian and Russian are very closely related just like Czech and Slovak or (North) Macedonian and Bulgarian. It's not a big effort to switch from one language to another.


----------



## se16teddy

Pedro y La Torre said:


> No, it's only spoken in Irish-speaking areas (called Gaeltachts).


But Gaeltachtaí pop up all over the place, including in London. 
Pop-Up Gaeltacht - Wikipedia
Gaeltacht Chois Tamaise Gaeltacht by the Thames


----------



## se16teddy

Pedro y La Torre said:


> That must be rather jarring. In Irish, the Ukraine remains "An Úcráin".


In Irish, sovereign states have the definite article, except for a handful of the most familiar ones (notably Canada, Éire and Meiriceá). It seems perverse to change this just to express solidarity! I don’t know if it is the same in Welsh.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

se16teddy said:


> It seems perverse to change this just to express solidarity! I don’t know if it is the same in Welsh.


I presume it is (Welsh is after all a fellow Celtic language, albeit a distant one). You're quite right in general, of course. One can find articles in the Irish media using the definite article in English as late as early 2022. The idea that this implied some sympathy with Putin or a refusal to recognize Ukrainian statehood is fatuous.


----------



## Welsh_Sion

Some Welsh country names have always had the article: Yr Eidal (italy), Yr Almaen (Germany), Yr Alban (Scotland), Y Ffindir (Finland), y Deyrnas Unedig/Gyfunol (the United Kingdom), yr Iseldiroedd (the Netherlands), for example.

Others have developed over time to use both: yr India, India and yr Ariannin, Ariannin (Argentina).

Others again mistakenly have been used with the def. art.: yr Iwerddon is probably based on folk etymology instead of Iwerddon (Ireland).

And of course some countries don't have the article at all: Lloegr (England), Ffrainc (France), Portiwgal (Portugal), Canada, for example.


----------



## pimlicodude

se16teddy said:


> But Gaeltachtaí pop up all over the place, including in London.
> Pop-Up Gaeltacht - Wikipedia
> Gaeltacht Chois Tamaise Gaeltacht by the Thames


But those are Gaeltachtaí of second-language (L2) speakers. Strictly speaking a group of people can set up a French-speaking area for L2 speakers in Dublin or London, but it won't be the same as being in France.


----------



## pimlicodude

Welsh_Sion said:


> Some Welsh country names have always had the article: Yr Eidal (italy), Yr Almaen (Germany), Yr Alban (Scotland), Y Ffindir (Finland), y Deyrnas Unedig/Gyfunol (the United Kingdom), yr Iseldiroedd (the Netherlands), for example.
> 
> Others have developed over time to use both: yr India, India and yr Ariannin, Ariannin (Argentina).
> 
> Others again mistakenly have been used with the def. art.: yr Iwerddon is probably based on folk etymology instead of Iwerddon (Ireland).
> 
> And of course some countries don't have the article at all: Lloegr (England), Ffrainc (France), Portiwgal (Portugal), Canada, for example.


In Irish, Ireland has no article in the nominative: Éire. But the genitive usually does: "na hÉireann". But then there are some phrases where the genitive has no article. "Fir Éireann" (a set phrase for many centuries), meaning "the men of Ireland", doesn't use the article. Muintir na hÉireann, "the people of Ireland", does.


----------



## merquiades

I just spent a month touring Morocco and I think I can profile this country which proved to be more multilingual than I had previously thought.  Officially, standard Arabic and Amazigh are the official languages.  As for written information, signs are often trilingual Arabic/Amazigh/ French, bilingual Arabic/ French and sometimes Amazigh/ French.  I never saw a monolingual sign anywhere.
The most spoken language, Darija, is the national language.  It apparently is quite distant from standard Arabic which most people don't understand or master at all.  Most people use French with someone who cannot understand Darija.  Most Berbers can speak Darija and French in addition to Amazigh.  There is a real blossoming in Berber culture and Amazigh language nowadays.  There is a pride in everything Berber and people are learning and using Amazigh more and more.
Darija is Moroccan Arabic mixed in different degrees with Amazigh and French.  Actually a professor told me Darija is heavily influenced by Amazigh because its speakers were all originally native Berbers trying to speak Arabic and the accent stuck. It's amazing that such a national language remain unstandard and unofficial.  I heard young people constantly codeswitching Darija and French, maybe with Amazigh too but I couldn't tell.

My first great surprise in Morocco was just how Francophone this country is.  Absolutely every sign has a French version.  It is not for foreigners either.  I saw signs written in French directed at Moroccans too.  Everything from cellphone plans, to employment proposals, to how to breastfeed properly are in French.  Halal supermarkets in small villages are also in French.  This is not to say they are not in Amazigh or Arabic too.  On TV and radio all languages are present as well with their own stations/channels... there are newspapers and magazines stocked in all languages.  So there are Morrocan tv stations in French for a domestic audience. In shops and in the streets everyone spoke French at a high level, the young even more so.  I emphasize this because I had read the opposite in a few places, and it's definitely not true.  It's common to hear people speak Darija sprinkled with French expressions like _Bien sûr, c'est correct, je savais pas, comme tu veux mon vieux_.  Their French is with _Tu_ always. French chains like Totale, Carrefour, Auchan, Leroy Merlin, write directly in French and skip the other languages.  I think it could be possible to live in Morocco in French only. Of course you could live only in Darija too but you are cut off from a certain social/cultural/modern milieu.  People in towns might only speak Amazigh but they are seriously cut off.

If Luxembourg can be considered a Francophone country, then so can Morocco.  Easily.
It resembles Luxembourg in quite a few ways.  No control on language.  People speak what they want whatever it is. People don't care much about languages. There is a local code for speaking one or another or mixing and remixing.  The Amazigh language seems trying to recapture its natural native Moroccan position.  I was often told that Berber is what the soul of Morocco is.  I enjoyed seeing it written. The alphabet is Greek looking.  Darija is the mixed identity of centuries of rules of different foreigners and is localized or deformed Arabic, mixed it with Amazigh, French, even Portuguese and Spanish, and other African languages.  Then there is high standard Arabic looming high, official, cherished but not so much used, or difficultly mastered by the population.  French is the commercial and social lingua franca 66 years after independence.

This is 90% based on conversations with males.  It's very hard to find women out and about to talk to in this Islamic country.  That was my other big surprise, and could be a topic for a different thread.  The country is much more religious than I imagined.  If you do see any by chance they are fully covered and won't talk to men.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

That was very informative merquiades,  thank you.


----------



## merquiades

merquiades said:


> My first great surprise in Morocco was just how Francophone this country is.  Absolutely every sign has a French version.  It is not for foreigners either.  I saw signs written in French directed at Moroccans too.  Everything from cellphone plans, to employment proposals, to how to breastfeed properly are in French.  Halal supermarkets in small villages are also in French.  This is not to say they are not in Amazigh or Arabic too.  On TV and radio all languages are present as well with their own stations/channels... there are newspapers and magazines stocked in all languages.  So there are Morrocan tv stations in French for a domestic audience. In shops and in the streets everyone spoke French at a high level, the young even more so.  I emphasize this because I had read the opposite in a few places, and it's definitely not true.  It's common to hear people speak Darija sprinkled with French expressions like _Bien sûr, c'est correct, je savais pas, comme tu veux mon vieux_.  Their French is with _Tu_ always. French chains like Totale, Carrefour, Auchan, Leroy Merlin, write directly in French and skip the other languages.  I think it could be possible to live in Morocco in French only. Of course you could live only in Darija too but you are cut off from a certain social/cultural/modern milieu.  People in towns might only speak Amazigh but they are seriously cut off.





Pedro y La Torre said:


> That was very informative merquiades,  thank you.


Here is an interesting article written by Reuters about four years ago that complements what I commented on in #331.  Moroccans look to French as language of economic success.


----------

