What is a lingua franca

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A. Literally it means 'Frankish language' in Italian, and it referred originally to a common language consisting of Italian mixed with French or Occitan, Spanish, Greek and Arabic that was spoken in Mediterranean ports from the Middle Ages until relatively recently. It was also known as Sabir. In a more general sense it now means any auxiliary language, generally of a hybrid and simplified nature, that is used by people of different and mutually unintelligible native languages to communicate with each other. Such hybrids often develop as a result of the needs of traders. However, any language can be used as a lingua franca if enough people learn it. This is often the case with languages of former colonists, such as English in India and Nigeria.

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Q. How did the Mediterranean Lingua Franca develop and when did it die out
A. Essentially a mix of a number of Romance languages, it was a much-simplified pan-Romance dialect with an emphasis on Italian, which developed at a time when all these languages were closer to each other than they are today. The small vocabulary included many Greek and Arabic words. It was extinct by the end of the 19th century, having been replaced in the main by French as French colonial expansion took in much of North Africa. There are few written examples of it and it had died out without any studies being undertaken. However, for the many centuries that it flourished it was an essential means of communication throughout the whole region.

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Q. Why 'Frankish language' if it was based on Italian
A. During the Middle Ages the Arabs and other Levantines referred to all Western Europeans as Franks, after the Germanic tribe who over-ran Gaul in the 6th century.

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Q. What other examples are there
A. Perhaps the most famous is Swahili, which developed as a means of communication between Arab traders and slavers and Bantu-speaking peoples along the east coast of Africa. Essentially Bantu-based Swahili has a large number of Arabic words in its vocabulary. The earliest written examples date from the 18th century and are in the Arabic script. Its influence spread and became one of the languages of administration under European colonial regimes. It is now the first language of millions of people in several countries.

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Others include Chinook Jargon - a mixture of Chinook, other Native American languages, English and French - Bazaar Malay formerly used in both British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, Indo-Portuguese in Ceylon, Annamite-French in Indochina and various types of Pidgin English.

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Q. What about Esperanto
A. Esperanto was constructed in 1887 and intended for use as an international lingua franca. Based largely on Romance languages it features completely regular and simplified grammar and phonetic spelling. Other artificial languages are Ido - a refinement of Esperanto - and Novial, which uses more Germanic elements than Esperanto and Ido.

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For a fuller treatment of the rise and fall of Lingua Franca, go to http://www.uwm.edu/~corre/franca/edition2/lingua.2.html

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See also the article on dialects and accents here

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Find out more about Phrases & Sayings here

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By Simon Smith