Word.ws English Dictionary

semilingualism

semilingualism noun: the phenomenon of people speaking several languages at a low level of development, with evident deficiencies in all languages.

Noun

semilingualism (uncountable)

  1. The phenomenon of people speaking several languages at a low level of development, with evident deficiencies in all languages.

Origin of semilingualism

From semilingual + -ism, introduced by a Swedish researcher Hansegård N. E. in 1975.

Questions about semilingualism

What does semilingualism mean?
Semilingualism means the phenomenon of people speaking several languages at a low level of development, with evident deficiencies in all languages.
What part of speech is semilingualism?
Semilingualism is a noun.

Words near semilingualism in the dictionary

  1. semiliking
  2. semilimited
  3. semilimits
  4. semilinear
  5. semilingual
  6. semilingualism
  7. semilinguals
  8. semiliquid
  9. semiliquidity
  10. semiliquids
  11. semiliteracy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: semilingualism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “semilingualism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/semilingualism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.