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sesquilingualism. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
sesquilingualism, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
sesquilingualism in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
From sesquilingual + -ism.
Noun
sesquilingualism (usually uncountable, plural sesquilingualisms)
- The condition of being sesquilingual; the ability to speak one language fluently, and a second language only to a limited extent.
- 1972 R. David Zorc, "The Western Subgroup of Bisayan," Oceanic Linguistics Vol. 11, No. 2 (Winter, 1972), pp. 110-139
- The transitional zone can be regarded as the dialect boundary, where the two different dialects meet but there is no significant gap in mutual intelligibility due to the sesquilingualism of the native speakers.
- 1978 Clyde Thogmartin, "Some 'English' Words in French," The French Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Mar., 1984), pp. 447-455
- In Pilch's terminology, sesquilingualism ("mastery of one-and-a-half languages") occurs when "all members of a given society speak the inferior language, but only some of its members speak the prestige language, usually in a more or less imperfect manner as a 'foreign language.'"
Translations
the condition of being sesquilingual; the ability to speak one language fluently, and a second language only to a limited extent