Re: THEORY: Long-term bilingualism

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Wayne Chevrier <wayne.chevrier@...> wrote:
> Check out Paraguay, almost universally bilingual in Spanish and
> Guarani. The languages are used by everyone, but in different parts
> of life. Guarani for close friends, family, and to show closeness and
> informality; Spanish for outsiders and formal occassions.
I've learned that especially in the cities, people don't speak pure
Guarani, but Jopara, a Guarani heavily influenced by Spanish.

Other instances of two concurrent languages may be Arab or
German-speaking Switzerland where the spoken language differs a lot
from the written language, though both are related. The Swiss
situation has been called "medial diglossy". The Wikipedia entry on
diglossy seems quite useful and includes some bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diglossy

---
grüess
mach