Multilingualism

Multilingualism is the use of two or more languages, either by an individual speaker or a community of speakers. Multilingualism is a social phenomenon governed by the needs of globalization and cultural openness. It is becoming consistently easier for people to learn new languages. Most people in the world are multilingual because many countries, such as Singapore, have more than one official language. About 75% of Americans are monolingual, which means they are only fluent in one language, English. Being multilingual has many benefits. For one it can increase cognitive abilities such as problem-solving, creativity, and memory. Another benefit of an individual being multilingual is that they have more employment opportunities because one-third of all corporations in the U.S. are based abroad. The most important reason, however, is that it helps bring people together and helps them interact and form relationships with people of other nationalities. It helps unite people all around the world.

Works Cited

http://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/multilingualism