Cesar Neri wrote:

I don't think you can just make a sweeping generalization like that. Even in
Europe, it all depends on what country and what region we are talking about.
For example, on a trip to Bavaria many years ago, I took the Brenner pass
from Austria and ended up in a town in Italy near the border with
Austra/Germany. In this town, all the signs were in 2 languages and everyone
was bilingual. This town was Bolzano/Bozen and in this town bilingual
definitely meant being able to speak Italian and German/Austrian. So, this
is at least one example in Europe where, similar to the US, the word
bilingual referred to 2 specific languages.

I think that would be the case in most places with more than one official
or "default" language. I guess in Brussels "bilingual" would mostly refer
to Dutch/French, for example. I'd expect that it refers to English/French
in at least some parts of Canada.

.... Martin