Bilingualism is a stable and natural phenomenon in India. This paper makes an attempt to understand bilingualism with help of definitions developed by linguistic experts of international and national stature. It also discusses different types of bilingualism and examines the nature of bilingualism of the Nyishi Tribes of Arunachal Pradesh in the light of the types of bilingualism identified by the researchers in linguistics. The study has found the existence of the characteristics of Elite Bilingualism, Folk Bilingualism, Compound Bilingualism, Simultaneous Bilingualism and Sequential Bilingualism among the Nyishi Tribes of Arunachal Pradesh.
Bilingualism is the ability of an individual to speak two or more languages. In the usage of some writers, bilingualism refers only to individuals who have native command of more than one language. Other writers use the term to refer to any speaker who has a reasonable degree of competence in a language other than their mother tongue. Sociolinguists are agreed that bilingualism is so widespread in the world that there are probably more people in the world who are bilingual, at least in the second sense, than there are monolinguals. (Trudgill, 2003)