What Is the Distinction between "Diglossia" and Bilingualism"?
It is important to note from the outset that "diglossia" and "bilingualism/multilingualism" refer to different, although similar, sociolinguistic situations. Diglossia is the term usually applied to the sociolinguistic situation in much of the Arabic-speaking world. In these countries, there are two FORMS OF THE SAME LANGUAGE (conventionally called "High" and "Low") that are used in different situations. The "High" form (called "Modern Standard Arabic") is normally used in FORMAL situations, such as writing, political speeches, university lectures, television news, etc. The "Low" form (referred to as "dialects," such as Cairene, Levantine, etc.) is used in INFORMAL situations, such as conversations, etc. It is useful to think of the language situation as it applies to Arabic as being on a continuum. At one end of this continuum is the "High" form, i.e., Modern Standard Arabic, and at the other lies the "Low" form, i.e., the various dialects. A person's place on this continuum would most likely be somewhere between these two poles, for it is unlikely that they would use pure Modern Standard or a colloquial in a given setting. The choice on which form, or code, to use would depend on many factors, including speaker, conversation topic, and setting.

On the other hand, bilingualism is the term more conventionally used to describe the sociolinguistic situation in Belgium and Switzerland (multilingualism for Switzerland's 4 languages). The key difference is that in a bilingual situation certain INDIVIDUALS (communities, etc.) will use Language A, while other INDIVIDUALS (communities, etc.) will use Language B, but EVERYONE will use the SAME LANGUAGE for all situations -- writing, job interviews, dinner table chats, etc. That's the IDEAL. In practice, it gets much messier, and it is best to think of these terms as representing ends of a continuum--actual societies fit somewhere along connecting these two poles. In the American Southwest, for instance, Spanish and English coexist in a situation of bilingualism, but there are some important diglossic elements: in many cases English is used for high-prestige, formal contexts of speech, while Spanish is used primarily in the home, in conversations among good friends, etc. Spanish thus becomes the "Low" form and English the "High" form.

For more information, see Chapter Four, "Choosing a Code," (pp. 86-115) in Ronald Wardhaugh's An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. 3ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.

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I would like to thank all of the linguists who have volunteered their time to answer queries posted to the Linguist List. These pages represent a compilation of frequently asked questions about the Arabic language. The HTML of these pages was created by Carmen Cross, a Ph.D. student in Arabic Linguistics at Georgetown University. Please e-mail Carmen or the panel of linguists if you have any further questions about linguistics in general or Arabic in particular.