multilingualism

thumb|right|The frontage of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, with text written in eleven of South Africa's twelve official languages thumb|A multilingual sign outside the mayor's office in Novi Sad, Serbia, written in the four official languages of the city: Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, and Pannonian Rusyn thumb|A stenciled danger sign in Singapore written in English, Chinese, Tamil, and Malay (the four official languages of Singapore) thumb|The logo and name of the Federal administration of Switzerland|Swiss federal administration in the four national languages of Switzerland (German, French, Italian, and Romansh)

Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue, but many read and write in one language. Being multilingual is advantageous for people wanting to participate in trade, globalization and cultural openness. Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages has become increasingly possible. People who speak several languages are also called polyglots.