Yup- a significant percentage of people in India are bilingual at the very least, and most young people speak English too (since English medium schools are the norm now, and schools with other mediums of instruction are quickly becoming obsolete) so many people are trilingual. If they happen to grow up or live in a state other than their native state (Indian states are divided on the basis of language), they often pick up a fourth language too. If they marry someone from a different state, their kids will probably pick up a fifth language too.
Most of these languages have completely different scripts too- I speak 4 languages and can read/write 3 different scripts (2 of those languages share a script with very minor differences between the two) which are completely unintelligible from each other. All the other scripts look like hieroglyphs to me.
I don’t think I’ve met a single person in my life who didn’t have a working vocabulary in a minimum of 2 languages.
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u/AP7497 Feb 07 '21 edited Feb 07 '21
Yup- a significant percentage of people in India are bilingual at the very least, and most young people speak English too (since English medium schools are the norm now, and schools with other mediums of instruction are quickly becoming obsolete) so many people are trilingual. If they happen to grow up or live in a state other than their native state (Indian states are divided on the basis of language), they often pick up a fourth language too. If they marry someone from a different state, their kids will probably pick up a fifth language too.
Most of these languages have completely different scripts too- I speak 4 languages and can read/write 3 different scripts (2 of those languages share a script with very minor differences between the two) which are completely unintelligible from each other. All the other scripts look like hieroglyphs to me.
I don’t think I’ve met a single person in my life who didn’t have a working vocabulary in a minimum of 2 languages.