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1839 – Trilingual Chinese–Malay–English text – Malay was the lingua franca across the Strait of Malacca, including the coasts of the Malay Peninsula (now in Malaysia) and the eastern coast of Sumatra (now in Indonesia), and has been established as a native language of part of western coastal Sarawak and West Kalimantan in Borneo.

A lingua franca (/ˌlɪŋɡwə ˈfræŋkə/ (listen); lit. Frankish tongue),^[1] also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language is a language or dialect systematically used to make communication possible between people who do not share a native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers' native languages.^[2]

Lingua francas have developed around the world throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons (so-called "trade languages" facilitated trade) but also for cultural, religious, diplomatic and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities.^[3][4] The term is taken from the medieval Mediterranean Lingua Franca, a Romance-based pidgin language used by European merchants and sailors during the 2nd millennium. A world language – a language spoken internationally and learned and spoken by a large number of people – is a language that may function as a global lingua franca.

Characteristics

Lingua Franca refers to any language used for communication between people who do not share a native language.^[5] It can refer to hybrid languages such as pidgins and creoles used for communication between language groups. It can also refer to languages which are native to one nation (often a colonial power) but used as a second language for communication between groups.^[6] Lingua Franca is a functional term, independent of any linguistic history or language structure.^[7]

Whereas a vernacular language is the native language of a specific geographical community, a lingua franca is used beyond the boundaries of its original community, for trade, religious, political or academic reasons. For example, English is a vernacular in the United Kingdom but is used as a lingua franca in the Philippines. Arabic, French, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian, serve a similar purpose as industrial/educational lingua francas, across regional and national boundaries.

International auxiliary languages created with the purpose of being lingua francas such as Esperanto and Lingua Franca Nova have not had a great degree of adoption globally so they cannot be described as global lingua francas.^[8]

Etymology

The term lingua franca derives from Mediterranean Lingua Franca, the language that people around the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean Sea used as the main language of commerce and diplomacy from late medieval times, especially during the Renaissance era, to the 18th century.^[9][6] At that time, Italian-speakers dominated seaborne commerce in the port cities of the Ottoman Empire and a simplified version of Italian, including many loan words from Greek, Old French, Portuguese, Occitan, and Spanish as well as Arabic and Turkish came to be widely used as the "lingua franca" (in the generic sense used) of the region.

In Lingua Franca (the specific language), lingua means a language, as in Portuguese and Italian, and franca is related to phrankoi in Greek and faranji in Arabic as well as the equivalent Italian. In all three cases, the literal sense is "Frankish", but the name actually applied to all Western Europeans during the late Byzantine Empire.^[10][11][12]

The Douglas Harper Etymology Dictionary states that the term Lingua Franca (as the name of the particular language) was first recorded in English during the 1670s,^[13] although an even earlier example of the use of Lingua Franca in English is attested from 1632, where it is also referred to as "Bastard Spanish".^[14]

As recently as the late 20th century, some restricted the use of the generic term to mean only hybrid languages that are used as vehicular languages, its original meaning, but it now refers to any vehicular language.^[15]

The term is well established in its naturalization to English, which is why major dictionaries do not italicize it as a "foreign" term.^[16][17][18] Its plurals in English are lingua francas and linguae francae,^[17][18] with the first of those being first-listed^[17][18] or only-listed^[16] in major dictionaries.

Examples

Koine Greek

The use of lingua francas has existed since antiquity. Latin and Koine Greek were the lingua francas of the Roman Empire and the Hellenistic culture. Akkadian (died out during Classical antiquity) and then Aramaic remained the common languages of a large part of Western Asia from several earlier empires.^{[19][20][full citation needed]}

In certain countries, the lingua franca is also the national language. Indonesian – which originated from a Malay language variant spoken in Riau – has the same function in Indonesia, although Javanese has more native speakers. Still, Indonesian is the sole official language and is spoken throughout the country. Also Persian is both the lingua franca of Iran and its national language.

The Hindustani language (Hindi-Urdu) is the lingua franca of Pakistan and Northern India.^{[21][self-published source?][22][page needed]} Many Indian states have adopted the Three-language formula in which students in Hindi speaking states are taught: "(a) Hindi (with Sanskrit as part of the composite course); (b) Urdu or any other modern Indian language and (c) English or any other modern European language." The order in non-Hindi speaking states is: "(a) the regional language; (b) Hindi; (c) Urdu or any other modern Indian language excluding (a) and (b); and (d) English or any other modern European language."^[23] Hindi has also emerged as a lingua franca for the locals of Arunachal Pradesh, a linguistically diverse state in Northeast India.^{[24][better source needed]}It is estimated that 90 percent of the state's population knows Hindi.^[25]

The only documented sign language used as a lingua franca is Plains Indian Sign Language, used across much of North America. It was used as a second language across many indigenous peoples. Alongside or a derivation of Plains Indian Sign Language was Plateau Sign Language, now extinct. Inuit Sign Language could be a similar case in the Arctic among the Inuit for communication across oral language boundaries, but little research exists.

In the European Union, the use of English as a lingua franca has led to the emergence of a new dialect called Euro English.^[26]

In Qatar, the medical community is primarily made up of workers from countries without English as a native language. In medical practices and hospitals, nurses typically communicate with other professionals in English as a lingua franca ^[27]. This occurrence has led to interest in researching the consequences and affordances of the medical community communicating in a lingua franca ^[28].

Further reading

• 
  Hall, R.A. Jr. (1966). Pidgin and Creole Languages. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-0173-9..mw-parser-output cite.citationfont-style:inherit.mw-parser-output qquotes:"""""""'""'".mw-parser-output code.cs1-codecolor:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registrationcolor:#555.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration spanborder-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-errordisplay:none;font-size:100%.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-errorfont-size:100%.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-formatfont-size:95%.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-leftpadding-left:0.2em.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-rightpadding-right:0.2em
  


• 
  Heine, Bernd (1970). Status and Use of African Lingua Francas. ISBN 3-8039-0033-6.
  


• 
  Kahane, Henry Romanos (1958). The Lingua Franca in the Levant.
  


• 
  Melatti, Julio Cezar (1983). Índios do Brasil (48 ed.). São Paulo: Hucitec Press.
  


• 
  Ostler, Nicholas (2005). Empires of the Word. London: Harper. ISBN 978-0-00-711871-7.
  


• 
  Ostler, Nicholas (2010). The Last Lingua Franca. New York: Walker. ISBN 978-0-8027-1771-9.
  

See also

• Rosetta Stone


• Global language system


• International auxiliary language


• Koiné language


• Language contact


• List of languages by number of native speakers


• List of languages by total number of speakers


• Mediterranean Lingua Franca


• Mixed language


• Mutual intelligibility


• Pidgin


• Interlinguistics


• Universal language


• Working language


• World language

References

External links

• 
  "English – the universal language on the Internet?".
  


• 
  "Lingua franca del Mediterraneo o Sabir of professor Francesco Bruni (in Italian)".
  


• 
  "Sample texts". from Juan del Encina, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Carlo Goldoni's L'Impresario da Smyrna, Diego de Haedo and other sources


• 
  "An introduction to the original Mediterranean Lingua Franca".