Kjellquist Blog

Ok, It’s just my native tongue but listening to the BBC this morning coming to work I was struck by people using these terms (and the noun forms for the participants) seemingly interchangeably!

So what is the difference? Webster’s New World Dictionary (2nd College Ed.) says of migration ” to move from one place to another; esp., to leave one’s country and to settle in another ”
Webster goes on to say emigrate and immigrate are used ONLY of people, emigrate specifically denoting the leaving of a country to settle in another, and immigrate, the coming into the new country” So people, migrate, emigrate and immigrate but animals only migrate.

Wikipedia defines migration as occurring “….when living things move from one biome
to another. In most cases organisms migrate to avoid local shortages of
food, usually caused by winter. Animals may also migrate to a certain
location to breed, as is the case with some fish. (BTW, a biome is a major regional group of distinctive plant and animal communities best adapted to the region’s physical natural environment, latitude, elevation, and terrain.)

For Immigration, “immigration in the modern sense refers to movement of people from one nation-state to another, where they are not citizens. Immigration implies long-term permanent residence by the immigrants: tourists
and short-term visitors are not considered immigrants. However,
seasonal labour migration (typically for periods of less than a year)
is often treated as a form of immigration.”

And on emigration, it says “Emigration is the act and the phenomenon of leaving one’s native country to settle abroad. It is the same as immigration but from the perspective of the country of origin. Human movement before the establishment of state boundaries or within one state, is termed migration.”

Still confused maybe the Franklin Covey Style Guide can help. Under word problems it says ” Emigrate (verb) means “to leave one’s home or residence – to go out.” Immigrate (verb) is the opposite:”to come into a town or country.” It goes on to say a “… similar distinction holds for the two parallel nouns. The only difference is point of view.”

Now that’s clear. You emigrate from somewhere and immigrate to somewhere else. And, I guess you can migrate either from or to.

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