Bilingualism briefly: 



    Bilingualism is a phenomenon in which a person can speak more than one language.Sometimes bilingualism is contrasted with multilingualism. The formal one (bilingualism) is used to refer to two languages because (bi) means (two), and it refers to individual while the later (multilingualism) is used to refer to more than two languages and refers to society (societal).
    More recently, the term bilingualism is used to cover all situtaions in which more than one, two, three.. languages are used weather at the individual or at societal level.

    There are somme types of bilingualism, we picked out the following ones: 

    Compound Bilingualism: is involved when two different languges form a "merged system" that is when they are fully integrated as one at the deep and semantic level. In this case the compound bilingual has one sign for one referent. For example, for a compound Arabic-French bilingual the two signals /ktab/ (book) and /livr/ (book) are used at the semantic base onto one sign and refer to the same object (book).

    Coordinate Bilingualism: is involved when two different languages are kept apart in te mind of the individual, here we have two signs or phonemic signals for the same referent.


                                     A.Manzar