One Voice? Many Languages! The value of multilingualism in our modern world (part 2)

Deconstructing the term multilingualism, we have a further conundrum to solve in how our education and political systems describe the different languages we speak. We encounter various terms: home languages, heritage languages, community languages, second languages, migrant languages, minority languages, additional languages, and, of course, modern and ancient ‘foreign’ languages. 

All of these terms can be confusing and unhelpful, and can carry with them perceptions of status, or lack of status. Languages that are majority languages may be seen as more powerful, more influential, and in the eyes of our young learners, more important. This can result in young people who speak more than one language in the home rejecting their ‘home languages’ and seeking to assimilate into the dominant language and culture by losing their bi- or multilingualism and opting for elective monolingualism. This is a loss for individuals, for families, for communities and for society as a whole. It also encourages those young people who speak the dominant language, in our case, English, to retreat into a false perception that everyone speaks their language, ergo, there is no need to learn other languages, as they are irrelevant.