Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-2003

Publication Title

medium

Volume

1

Issue

10

First Page

80

Last Page

80

Abstract

In last month's column, I wrote about the presence of Spanish in Omaha, attested by its occasional appearances in the broader English-speaking market. I also mentioned the phenomenon of people speaking two or more languages, called bilingualism. When a person has command of two languages, then that person is considered bilingual.

Considering that one language (like Swahili) might be called a code, and another language (Arabic) is another code, and a third language (like English) is another code, then conceivably a person who lives in Tanzania might carry on a conversation with another speaker from Tanzania in three different languages all in one conversation. This is called codeswitching. Often, people who can communicate with others who arc multilingual in the same languages will blend those languages together in a single sentence; this is called intrasentential codeswitching, where the language change occurs inside the sentence.

Comments

From the column, Frankly Speaking: A Discussion of the English Language.

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