Bilingvismul

Bilingvismul is a neologism used in sociolinguistics to describe a pattern of bilingual language use in which speakers weave elements from two languages into a single utterance or span across a short stretch of discourse, rather than maintaining strict language boundaries or performing discrete code-switching. The term is not yet standardized.

Origins and status: The word is a coined term with varied usage across studies. It is primarily discussed in discussions of highly bilingual communities and in exploratory case studies; there is no single agreed definition, and scholarly consensus remains unsettled.

Characteristics: Proponents describe bilingvismul as sustained intra-sentential mixing, where vocabulary, morphemes, and syntactic constructions from both languages appear within phrases. It can involve partial grammar integration and rapid alternation, and may be facilitated by social context, topic, and audience.

Relation to related concepts: Bilingvismul overlaps with code-switching and translanguaging but is often framed as a more continuous blending of linguistic resources, rather than switching at clause boundaries. Critics argue that the term risks conflating different phenomena under a single label.

Examples: An illustrative sentence might mix Spanish and English within a clause: I forgot my libro in la mochila before the meeting. In heavy bilingvismul, such mixing becomes routine rather than occasional.

See also: bilingualism, code-switching, translanguaging.