Current Developments in Multilingualism

Multilingualism is a very common phenomenon that has received much scholarly attention in recent years.This article examines the meaningful changes that have occurred in multilingualism over the years. This article studies multilingualism as it was in the past as historical multilingualism and the today’s unfolding multilingualism as contemporary or current multilingualism. This article pays attention to the factors that motivate the current developments in multilingualism and the properties or main features of current multilingualism. Historical and contemporary multilingualism are distinguished based on the origin, geographical location, class, profesion, religious rituals etc. Nigeria is a language diversified country of over 400 languages, the increase on the attention given to multilingualism in Nigeria today is motivated by academic, economic, political and social factors. Multilingualism is been practised today in most countries of the world