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The term lingua franca derives from Mediterranean Lingua Franca (also known as Sabir), the pidgin language that people around the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean Sea used as the main language of commerce and diplomacy from the late Middle Ages to the 18th century, most notably during the Renaissance era.
Mar 28, 2024 · Lingua franca, language used as a means of communication between populations speaking vernaculars that are not mutually intelligible. The term was first used during the Middle Ages to describe a French- and Italian-based jargon, or pidgin, that was developed by Crusaders and traders in the eastern.
It wasn’t until the dissolution of the USSR, and the end of the Cold War, that English would secure itself as the bona fide international lingua franca. The English Language Today English is unique in that it is the first truly global lingua franca.
Jun 20, 2017 · Step 1: French conquers Europe and the world. Old Norman French became the language of the English aristocracy after William the Conqueror led the Norman conquest of England in 1066. It’s not quite the French we know today, but its staying power in the British Isles has been considerable.
Jan 1, 2020 · References to Lingua Franca are widespread in terms of history and geography. The earliest record of Lingua Franca dates from the fourteenth century on an island, Djerba, off the coast of Tunisia (Kahane and Kahane 1976: 33). Three thousand kilometres east of Djerba, an Italian diplomat and traveller, Ambrogio Contarini, recalled meeting a ...
- Joanna Nolan
- jn24@soas.ac.uk
- 2020
In more modern times French is the western world's first lingua franca, owing to the prestige of France in the age of Louis XIV. During the 20th century its position is gradually usurped by English, as a result of the global spread of the British empire and the commercial dominance of the United States. English has by now penetrated more deeply ...
Dec 20, 2023 · Today, lingua franca is a term that can indicate many different languages—but it started as the name of an actual language spoken in the Mediterranean basin from the 11th to 18th centuries. Lingua comes from the Italian (and Latin) word for "tongue" or "language," and franca referred to Western Europeans.
