Diglossia and Bilingualism

[cawatawa]

Hello everybody;
What is the difference between Diglossia and Bilingualism?

I appreciate your help.

 

[Tdol]

Diglossia is used for a speech community where two languages or dialects are spoken. An individual who speaks two languages, usually with equal ease, is bilingual.

 

[cawatawa]

Thank you Tdol

 

[mermaid24]

bilingualism, is when someone speaks more than two languages we call a bilingual person,,and diglossia is the dialect of someone that belong to him\her own community

 

[Mohamed Mohsen]

diglossia a situation in which two languages (or two varieties of the same language) are used under different conditions within a community, often by the same speakers.

bilingual speaking two languages fluently. expressed in or using two languages.

 

[Mohamed Mohsen]

Can anyone give us an example of Diglossia

 

[mermaid24]

Ex: in the Arab world the classical arabic in Holly QUR'AN and also it is used for mass-media, in official discourses, academic fileds and so one, however each country or region has each own dialect for example the Algerians do not have the same dialect as the Egyptian or the Tunisian !!!

 

[Hedwig]

Would Canadians qualify as a diglossia?

By the way, I'm not sure I'm using the word correctly. Does diglossia apply to a community, a country, a wassisname?

 

[pffrau]

a friend once made reference to his speaking "low German" and not "high German" could this be an example of diglossia?
could another example of diglossia be urban English - BAE?
thanks
peter

 

[spindoctorjimbo]

Re: Diglossia and Bilingualism--Social Class & Conquest

The classic instance of diglossia in English may have occurred in the period following the Norman conquest of England, during which time a ruling class that increasingly spoke a mixture of French and English among themselves also communicated with "commoners," who discoursed in Old English/Middle English in their millieu and often never learned French. This former 'diglossic' condition has contributed to the richness of English, in terms of words, so that mutton is the Frankish form of sheep, the first emanating from the tables that served it, the second resulting from the usage of those who tended and killed the animals. Similarly, beef is the food form of cattle.

Robert Graves, in his "The Reader Over Your Shoulder," suggests that almost all imperial languages--such as Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Turkish, Arabic, and English, not to mention Latin and Greek--have developed in this dialectical way. Conquest leads to a bifurcation from which diglossia inevitably results.

 

[konungursvia]

Would Canadians qualify as a diglossia?

By the way, I'm not sure I'm using the word correctly. Does diglossia apply to a community, a country, a wassisname?

No, but Montrealers would, as everyone there can answer you in either, and they do so frequently. (Most parts of Canada are unilingual regions).