drietalige

Drietalige is a Dutch adjective meaning three-lingual, used to describe persons, texts, organizations, or technologies that actively use or support three languages. It implies a fixed triadic language repertoire or capability, distinguishing it from bilingual (two languages) and broader multilingual terms that do not specify a number.

Usage and scope: In education, media, and software, drietalige is used to describe content or systems that function in three languages. Examples include a drietalige classroom program supporting Dutch, English, and German; a drietalige website with Dutch, English, and French; or a drietalige dataset annotated in three languages. In formal writing, the hyphenated form drie-talige is more standard, while the concatenated form drietalige can appear in branding or informal contexts.

Etymology and orthography: The term derives from drie ('three') and talige ('lingual'), following Dutch word-formation patterns such as meertalige ('multilingual'). The common, standard form is drie-talige; the concatenated variant drietalige is encountered occasionally, especially in titles, branding, or less formal text.

See also: meertalig, meertaligheid, plurilingual, bilingual.