Meaning of sesquilingualism | Babel Free

Definitions

The condition of being sesquilingual; the ability to speak one language fluently, and a second language only to a limited extent.

uncountable, usually

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“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.'"”

CEFR level