What countries are multilingual?

Multilingual Countries

What countries speak more than one language?

If you have grown up in western Europe, there is a good chance you have at some point had the impression that there is one country per language.  For instance, in Germany they speak German, in Sweden they speak Swedish, in France, they speak French.  So far, so simple, right?

Multilingual, multicultural

In most countries nowadays, you will hear a variety of langauges spoken as people have migrated to the country.  However, even discounting minority languages that have recently arrived, things are a lot more interesting than one language per country, one country per language.  To take the three countries mentioned at the start:

Germany has always had minority language communities, for instance Frisian, Danish and Sorbian.  German is also spoken in other countries, not least Austria, Liechtenstein and parts of Belgium.

Sweden hosts minority languages such as Sami and Gutnish and localised languages which could be argued to be separate enough from Swedish not to be a dialect but a distinct language.  Swedish is also spoken in parts of Finland.

France has minority languages in Breton, Basque, Flemish and Catalan; historically, many people outside of Paris have spoken local languages.  Parisian French was incomprehensible to them before standardised schooling.  French is also a world language which, like English but no other language, is spoken on all inhabited continents.

Belgium or India?

Belgium and India are both multilingual countries, but in very different situations.  In Belgium, French is spoken in the south, Flemish (Dutch) is spoken in the north, and Brussels is a French island in the northern area.  German is spoken in some eastern parts.  However, there are minorities of the other language in each area.  In general, it’s probably fair to say that most Belgians much prefer to stick to their own speech community and aren’t hugely keen on speaking the other languages.  In India, by contast, there are several hundred different languages and it’s by no means uncommon to find people who can converse in half a dozen different languages – often wildly different ones.  Just because a country is multilingual, it does not mean that everybody in it can converse in all the local languages.

Are you bilingual?

Estimates of the proportion of the world’s population that speaks more than one language range from about 45% to 75%.  It depends on how you count, of course.  Do you count having some facility in the language as bilingual – for instance, the school Irish many Irish people have learnt with much effort but not really used?  Or does simply living in a bilingual country qualify you?  At any rate, if you don’t speak more than one language, you are a step behind the substantial number that does.

How hard can it be?

Learning a language as an academic exercise requires some effort; however, with the right tuition and environment, learning a new languages is possible for almost anyone.  Our friends in India, South Africa and Nigeria show us that being multilingual is no more a special superpower skill than, say, being able to cook a family meal or have a driving licence.  It’s just something that most people do.  We have also most of us seen children growing up in multilingual families effortlessly able to switch between languages.

Your next steps

To learn a language online, check out www.lingua-learn.co.uk with courses for learning French, learning German, learning Mandarin and a dozen other languages.