Language Mixing in Infant Bilingualism

The presence or absence of language mixing in young bilingual children has been a central interest for a couple of decades. A major part of the debate has centered around the question whether language mixing is indicative of children not differentiating between the two language systems in their environment. Alternatively it has been proposed that language mixing is communicatively functional, even in young children. Little attention has been paid to the role of language input as a cause for language mixing although parents have often been observed to mix and switch between languages themselves.