Bilingualism

C.P and I both discussed bilingualism in the United States, myself I was born in Iran, I left Iran at the age of two to live in Canada. I speak Farsi and English fluently. C.P. was born in Orange County, California, and she speaks Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi, Spanish and English all fluently. Neither of us was able to find any disadvantages in being bilingual or multilingual. On the contrary, we both agree that knowing several languages is a source of mental and social enrichment. It is unequivocally an advantage over those who only speak one language. However, we both recognize that this is due to the fact that we both learned English around the same time as the other languages we speak. Because of this, we did not develop any accents (although C.P. does have a distinctly “Valley girl“ accent). An individual that does have a non English accent of some kind- especially if it is not a European accent- would experience some disadvantages. The type and severity of disadvantages would obviously depend on the thickness of the accent, which country or ethnicity it represents, and on linguistic competence in English.
A person with an accent could be bright, intelligent, and outgoing but if they do not have good linguistic competence in English, they will seem uneducated and unintelligent to member’s of all out-groups. In a learning environment, a bilingual person may face discrimination. They may be placed in ESL classes, or may score lower on standardized tests than monolingual American students. They may also be subject to unconscious biases of teachers; who, despite good intentions, unconsciously give less attention to students who they perceive as less capable.
Neither myself, nor C.P. faced any prejudices regarding our linguistic abilities. This is due to the very early age at which we began to speak English, and also because we grew up in English speaking countries; our linguistic competence in English is excellent, and we do not speak with any foreign accent. C.P. and I both feel that it is an invaluable asset to fluently speak more then one language. I have some knowledge in psychology and biology and I know that before a child has learned to speak, he is capable of discerning every possible phoneme in any language- this is independent of experience. However, as a child learns to speak, they largely lose the ability to properly discern or speak phonemes which are not exercised in the language(s) they learn. Children who learn more than one language are at a distinct advantage as through their school years, and as adults (especially those who are fluent in very different languages). Due to synaptic pruning, those children who actively learned two or more different languages have more space (more synaptic connections) in the cortex devoted to language as adults than children who grew up learning only one language (this is not true for anyone who learned another language after the age of about five). Those who learned multiple languages early in life are more adept at comprehension, have better vocabularies, and tend to have better writing skills- in any of the languages learned- than individuals who learned only one early in life (holding all other variables constant). They are just better with words, since they have more neural connections devoted to words and how they relate. C.P. feels that a good comprehension of language is the key that unlocks higher intellect.
An equally important, advantage to knowing another language is that it can give you access to another culture. You are be able to read the literature, watch the movies, and above all, gain a complex and meaningful understanding of the people and the subtleties of their view of the world. Overall C.P. and I both feel that the advantages far out weigh the disadvantages. A more pragmatic advantage of knowing more than one language, as C.P. mentioned jokingly, is that you tell secrets aloud and keep them secrets, even when everyone is listening.
C.P. says that being multilingual was an asset during school- both academically and socially. She has been able to gain access to school clubs, has received many accolades throughout her academic career, and has been a part of various social circles- who tend be more accepting of those people who are exposed to different cultures. We both feel that more opportunities are available to bilinguals then monolinguals.
Being a student in the united states, C.P. believes that everyone should learn more then one language, and as early in life as possible. She feels that pervasive monolingualism in any country is restrictive, and renders the population more narrow-minded than they could otherwise be.