sesquilingualism
sesquilingualism noun: the condition of being sesquilingual; the ability to speak one language fluently, and a second language only to a limited extent.
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.
- 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.1972 R. David Zorc, "The Western Subgroup of Bisayan," Oceanic Linguistics Vol. 11, No. 2 (Winter, 1972), pp. 110-139
- In Pilch's terminology, sesquilingualism ("mastery of one-and-a-half languages") occurs when "all members of a given society speak the inferior [sic] language, but only some of its members speak the prestige language, usually in a more or less imperfect manner as a 'foreign language.'"1978 Clyde Thogmartin, "Some 'English' Words in French," The French Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Mar., 1984), pp. 447-455
Forms of sesquilingualism
| plural | sesquilingualisms |
|---|
Origin of sesquilingualism
From sesquilingual + -ism.
Questions about sesquilingualism
- What does sesquilingualism mean?
- Sesquilingualism means the condition of being sesquilingual; the ability to speak one language fluently, and a second language only to a limited extent.
- What part of speech is sesquilingualism?
- Sesquilingualism is a noun.
- What is the plural of sesquilingualism?
- The plural of sesquilingualism is sesquilingualisms.
Words near sesquilingualism in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sesquilingualism (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “sesquilingualism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sesquilingualism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.