Bilinguals aren’t impressive at all. I think most people are bilinguals. Apparently, according to Journal of Neurolinguistics, we have more bilinguals (43 percent of the world population) rather than monolinguals (40 percent).
I met a couple in Vanuatu - one of the world’s most language dense nations - whose mother tongues were mutually unintelligible, so they communicated using the country’s official language, Bislama. A lot of bilingual people don’t speak English. Plenty of Eastern Europeans don’t speak English (unpopular during communist rule) but speak say German or Russian as well as Serbocroatian or whatever.
They say being bilingual is only impressive if your first language is English. Since you are expected to know English anyways. Is it true?
Bilinguals aren’t impressive at all. I think most people are bilinguals. Apparently, according to Journal of Neurolinguistics, we have more bilinguals (43 percent of the world population) rather than monolinguals (40 percent).
There are trilingual regions in my country. And one neighbouring country is mostly trilingual too(2 official languages + 1 foreign)
I met a couple in Vanuatu - one of the world’s most language dense nations - whose mother tongues were mutually unintelligible, so they communicated using the country’s official language, Bislama. A lot of bilingual people don’t speak English. Plenty of Eastern Europeans don’t speak English (unpopular during communist rule) but speak say German or Russian as well as Serbocroatian or whatever.