Indigenous Bilingualism in Colombia

Abstract

Native languages are many but minority in Colombia because of the different policies developed during the Conquest and Colony and lately the Republic. Some sociolinguistic concepts as the communicative competence, communicative situation, domain, diglossia, speech community, simple or dual competence among others can be used to understand the present native bilingualism and bilinguality. The importance of these languages is found in the cultural knowledge that they transmit. However, not all ethnic groups promote in their schools the use of their languages because of the different difficulties they have.