What is Code Switching?

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Thomas Guest/Flickr--Erm, not that kind of code[/caption]
Are you multilingual? Then you probably know what code switching is.
Code switching occurs when a speaker goes back and forth between two or more languages or language varieties within a single conversation. It is quite common amongst multilingual people. During code switching, the uses of both or all languages become syntactically and phonologically appropriate.
Can’t picture it? Watch a toddler code switch between Indonesian, French, and English with his mom and dad:
The difference between code switching and pidgin or creole is that code switching happens when a person is fluent in all languages spoken. A Pidgin or creole language is a third intermediate dialect created when speakers do not share a common language.
Flickr/Jerzy Kociatkiewicz[/caption]
Though code switching is informal and unsystematic, there are some forms of it that have been popularized. Spanglish, the synthesis of Spanish and English, is spoken mostly in Latino communities in the U.S. and increasingly in Latin American countries. Portuñol is a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish, spoken on the border of Brazil and its Spanish-speaking neighbors as well as on the border of Spain and Portugal.
Other less popular – but equally interesting – linguistic interactions include Belgrano-Deutsch and Llanito. Belgrano-Deutsch (Spanish and German) is spoken in a Buenos Aires neighborhood where huge numbers of Germans settled. In Gibraltar, British English and Andalusian Spanish have combined to form Llanito.

Not a Language Gap but Language Precision
According to All Things Linguistic, many people are under the notion that code switching occurs when a speaker is not able to express a thought in one language and thus switches to another, but analysis has shown that code switchers are usually speakers with a high degree of fluency in both of the languages, who simply wish to find the best word that reflects their meaning. Different forms of code switching have been created to designate where they may occur. Here are some of them: Inter-sentential switching denotes a switch outside the clause. This means saying one sentence in one language, and the next in another language, like the young boy in the video. Next is intra-sentential switching, which occurs within one sentence. Tag-switching, which is a form of intra-sentential switching, is when only a tag phrase or word is switched.An example is kuenjoy (the English word enjoy with the Swahili prefix ku, which means ‘to’). Spanish + ___________ [caption id="attachment_3667" align="aligncenter" width="640"]