Multilingualism

Multilingualism is the ability or practice of using more than one language within an individual or community. It varies by proficiency, context, and patterns of use.

Bilingualism: The ability or practice of using two languages. A common form of multilingualism involving exactly two languages.
Language activation: The cognitive availability of linguistic knowledge during language processing. Multiple languages may remain active even when a speaker intends to use one.
Multilingual education: Education that uses or develops more than one language as a medium or learning goal. It turns multilingual ability into an explicit design choice in schools.
Heritage language: A language associated with a person's family or community that differs from the dominant societal language. Maintaining it can connect multilingual speakers with family history and community life.
Language repertoire: The set of linguistic resources a person or community can use across situations. It captures multilingual ability beyond a count of named languages.
Inhibitory control: The ability to suppress competing responses or information. It can help speakers limit interference from a language not currently in use.
Translanguaging: The flexible use of a person's linguistic resources to make meaning and communicate. It informs teaching that treats multilingual resources as connected rather than sealed systems.
Language maintenance: The continued use of a language across generations or within a community. Multilingualism can sustain a language, but maintenance depends on social conditions.
Language proficiency: A person's degree of skill in understanding or using a language. Multilingual people can have different proficiency levels across their languages.
Lexical access: The retrieval of words from mental memory during language comprehension or production. Managing words across languages is a central part of multilingual speech.

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