ambilingualadj.n.

1870 C. A. Elliott Let. 6 June in Univ. Calcutta Minutes 1870–71 (1871) 137 I should therefore advocate the examination in Mathematics and Geography only being ambilingual for the present.

1899 Amer. Ann. Deaf Feb. 82 Dr. Peet..had the rare ‘ambilingual’ faculty of speaking and signing fluently at the same time.

1957 O. Hubbard Yankee from Llanquihue xix. 172 They are a friendly, chummy, ambilingual lot and love to keep abreast of the news.

1964 M. A. K. Halliday et al. Ling. Sci. iv. 78 True ambilingual speakers are rare.

2005 Mod. Lang. Jrnl. 89 416/1 There are few L1/L2 users who are ambilingual.

1965 Word 21 395 To become an ambilingual may not necessarily be the goal of a bilingual.

1986 H. B. Beardsmore Bilingualism (ed. 2) i. 8 Although he comes very near to being an ambilingual in that he can read, write, understand and speak equally well in French and English, his attempts to translate one of his own books led to failure.

1994 J. Edwards Multilingualism (1995) iii. 57 Those much sought-after individuals whose bilingual capacities are great: are they to be known as ‘balanced bilinguals’, ‘ambilinguals’ or ‘equilinguals’?

1964 M. A. K. Halliday et al. Ling. Sci. iv. 78 Even those who approach or attain true ambilingualism are still usually unable to translate without instruction.

1973 K. A. Sey Ghanaian Eng. ii. 15 I shall adopt the term ambilingualism for the bilingual who has virtually equal command of both L₁ and the second language.

2005 A. Davies Gloss. Appl. Linguistics 16 No system (not even Canadian immersion) appears to provide complete ambilingualism.