The term "multilingualism" can refe

The term "multilingualism" can refer to either the language use or the com-
petence of an individual or to the language situation in an entire nation or
society. However, at the individual level it is generally subsumed under
"bilingualism." This may be because, while there are probably more biling-
uals in the world than monolinguals, there are not perceived to be so many
people who use more than two languages habitually. There are, of course,
many rich multilingual situations in the world (see, e.g., Khubchandani, 1988,
on India and S0ndergaard, 1991, on the Dano-German border, to cite only two
researched areas). For individuals, "normative" definitions (Van Overbeke,
1972) requiring those termed bi- or multilinguals to have equal competence in
the languages, to have acquired them simultaneously, or to use them in the
same contexts have proved unrealistic (cf. Haugen, 1973). Thus definitions
now tend to be general ("methodological" in Van Overbeke's sense). A com-
mon definition of "multilingualism" would then be - "the use of more than
one language" or "competence in more than one language." This allows for
further refinement in the actual description to cover different levels of com-
mand or use of the various languages.
At the societal or national level, we have to distinguish between "official"
and "de facto" multilingualism. For instance, Switzerland is an officially
multilingual nation in that it has been declared such, but there, multilingual-
ism is based on a territorial principle. While public documents for the entire
nation are in French, German, and Italian, most people grow up monolin-
gually in a canton which typically has one official language. Canada is offi-
cially a bilingual nation because English and French are enshrined in the
Canadian Constitution as the official languages, but most Canadians still have
regular (nonschool) contact with only one of these. Moreover, there are many
other languages used in Canada today - over a hundred heritage languages
brought to Canada by immigrant groups, some of them maintained for several