Am I A True Triligual?

AquaBlue

AquaBlue

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English and Spanish, my two spoken languages, are in fact lingual since communication is accomplish through the vocal chords. Now ASL is NOT lingual but manual. So, can I say that I am trilingual?

Semantics, semantics....
 
Yes. ASL is a language. I do get your point about the lingual. This has been hotly debated in the past so I hope this thread doesn't erupt into that again.

For you, English, Spanish, and ASL make you trilingual. I have been claiming I am working towards being trilingual myself -- English, ASL and Swedish. I have yet to become even close to being fluent in Swedish, so at the moment I'm still bilingual, IMO.
 
I write English beautifully. I speak it poorly. My ASL kind of sucks.

If I put those together , am I bilingual?
 
"Lingual" refers to Latin word "lingua" which means language. It also means "tongue" but in this case, tongue is interchangeable with language and does not necessary refer to the vocal production of sound.

Being "bilingual" or "trilingual" has nothing to do with the mode of language, but the language itself, and ASL is universally accepted as a language. I don't really see why this is an issue...
 
Just say multilingual if semantics or feather ruffling is a point of concern. Worked for me everytime.
 
AlleyCat said:
Yes. ASL is a language. I do get your point about the lingual. This has been hotly debated in the past so I hope this thread doesn't erupt into that again.

For you, English, Spanish, and ASL make you trilingual. I have been claiming I am working towards being trilingual myself -- English, ASL and Swedish. I have yet to become even close to being fluent in Swedish, so at the moment I'm still bilingual, IMO.
Click to expand...

Right. "lingual" in this context simply means "language". It does not reference the use of the tongue as it does in other contexts. Trilingual = tri (3) lingual (languages).
 
Is the actual number of persons who can interact in the different environments relevant to the discussions? Would knowing say Chinese or French make anyone-"more lingual"?
 
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