Everything about Lingua-franca totally explained
A
lingua franca (Italian literally meaning
Frankish language, see etymology under
Sabir and Italian below) is any
language widely used beyond the population of its native speakers. The
de facto status of
lingua franca is usually "awarded" by the masses to the language of the most influential nation(s) of the time. Any given language normally becomes a
lingua franca primarily by being used for international commerce, but can be accepted in other cultural exchanges, especially
diplomacy.
Lingua franca may also refer to the
de facto language within a more or less specialized field.
A lingua franca is a language used by people whose mother tongues are different in order to communicate.
Any language could conceivably serve as a lingua franca between two groups, no matter what sort of language it is. Lingua franca is thus a purely
functionally-defined term, for example, linguistic structure of the language involved plays no role
(External Link
).
A synonym for
lingua franca is “
vehicular language.” Whereas a
vernacular language is used as a native language in a single speaker community, a
vehicular language goes beyond the boundaries of its original community, and is used as a second language for communication between communities. For example, English is a vernacular in England, but is used as a vehicular language (that is, a
lingua franca) in the Philippines.
The term
lingua franca is also applied to
international auxiliary languages meant specifically for communication between speakers of different native languages. Examples include
Esperanto,
Ido,
Interlingua,
Latino Sine Flexione, and
Novial.
English
English is the current
lingua franca of international business, science, technology and aviation, and has partially displaced
French as the lingua franca of diplomacy since
World War I, although the use of
French continues to play a large role in diplomatic protocol. The wide-spread use of
English was advanced by the prominent international role played by English-speaking nations (for example, the
United States along with the
Commonwealth of Nations) in the aftermath of
World War II, particularly in the establishment and organization of the
United Nations. English is one of the six official languages of the
U.N., and, along with
French, one of the two
working languages; the other official ones are
Arabic,
Russian,
Mandarin Chinese, and
Spanish.
English is the dominant language of the United Kingdom, and therefore, as the UK became a colonial power, English served — and, to some extent, continues to serve — as the
lingua franca of the
Republic of Ireland, former colonies of the
British Empire (including
Australia,
Belize,
Canada,
Malaysia,
India,
New Zealand,
Nigeria,
Pakistan,
Barbados,
The Bahamas,
Singapore,
South Africa,
Sri Lanka, the
United States, and
Vanuatu), present British territories (like
Bermuda,
Falkland Islands, and
Saint Helena), former British territories (such as
Hong Kong), U.S. territories (like
Guam,
Northern Marianas,
Puerto Rico),
Virgin Islands (both
British and
American), and the
Philippines. In many of these nations the use of English is seen as a means of avoiding the political difficulties inherent in promoting any individual indigenous language as the lingua franca.
The modern trend to use English outside of English-speaking countries has a number of sources. Ultimately, the use of English in a variety of locations across the globe is a consequence of the reach of the British Empire. But the establishment of English as an international lingua franca after World War II was mostly a result of the spread of English via cultural and technological exports from the United States as well as its embedding in international institutions; for instance, the seating and roll-call order in sessions of the
United Nations and its organs is determined by English alphabetical order, and, while there are six
official languages of the United Nations, only two (English and French) are
working languages, and, in practice, English is the sole working language of most UN bodies. This is contributed to by the fact that UN headquarters, and the majority of UN bodies, are based in the United States.
English is also regarded by some as an unofficial global
lingua franca owing to the economic, cultural, and geopolitical power of most of the developed Western nations in world financial and business institutions. The de facto status of English as the
lingua franca in these countries has carried over globally as a result. English is also overwhelmingly dominant in scientific and technological communications, and all of the world's major
scientific journals are published in English.
A landmark recognition of the dominance of English in Europe came in 1995 when, on the accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden, English joined French and German as one of the working languages of the
European Commission. Many Europeans outside of the EU have also adopted English as their current lingua franca. For example, English serves as a somewhat lingua franca in
Switzerland, which has four
official languages (German, French, Italian and
Romansh, spoken by a relatively small minority). German is also spoken by many Swiss citizens, but the relatively high foreign-born population (21 percent of residents) ensures a relatively wide use of English.
English is also the dominant language of the Internet, because it was first developed in the United States and because English was dominant in academics, science, and technology (especially computer technology), some of the original uses of the Internet.
Other European languages
Greek and Latin
During the time of the
Hellenistic civilization and
Roman Empire, the
linguae francae were
Koine Greek and
Latin. During the
Middle Ages, the
lingua franca was Greek in the parts of Europe, Middle East and Northern
Africa where the
Byzantine Empire held hegemony, and Latin was primarily used in the rest of Europe. Latin, for a significant portion of the expansion of the
Roman Catholic Church, was used as the basis of the Church. This was later changed to local languages, although it's still the official language of the
Vatican.
Sabir and Italian
Originally
lingua Franca (or Sabir) referred to a
mixed language composed mostly of
Italian with a broad vocabulary drawn from
Persian,
French,
Greek and
Arabic.
Lingua Franca literally means "
Frankish language". This originated from the Arabic custom of referring to all Europeans as Franks. This mixed language was used for communication throughout the medieval and early modern
Middle East as a diplomatic language; the generic description
lingua franca has since become common for any language used by speakers of different languages to communicate with one another. Some samples of Sabir have been preserved in
Molière's
comedy,
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.
Italian dialects were spoken in medieval times as a
lingua franca in the European commercial empires of Italian cities (
Genoa,
Venice,
Florence,
Milan,
Pisa,
Siena,
Amalfi) and in their colonies located in the Middle East and in the Mediterranean sea. During the
Renaissance,
Italian was also spoken as language of culture in the main royal courts of Europe and among intellectuals. The Italian language is still used as a lingua franca in some environments. For example, in the Catholic ecclesiastic hierarchy, Italian is known by a large part of members and is used in substitution of Latin in some official documents as well. The presence of Italian as the second official language in
Vatican City indicates its use not only in the seat in
Rome, but also anywhere in the world where an episcopal seat is present.
Spanish
Spanish replaced
Latin as the language of diplomacy and (in some aspects) culture during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, until it was replaced by French (from de Discovery of the Americas in 1492 till 1648). It was taken to Africa, the Americas, and Asia Pacific when the Spanish Empire was established between the 15th and 19th centuries.
Spanish was used as lingua franca throughout the former
Spanish Empire, particularly in
Central and
South America, and became the lingua franca of the
Philippines in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, it's a lingua franca in most of the countries of
The Americas.
It is spoken in the Americas from Canada to Argentina by some 400 million people as first of second language. It is spoken as lingua franca in North America, South America, European Union, North Africa, Equatorial Guinea, Philippines, etc. Today, between 400 and 500 million people natively speak Spanish, making it the world's second most-spoken language by native speakers (after Mandarin Chinese).
French
French was the language of
diplomacy in
Europe from the
17th century until its recent replacement by English, and as a result is still a working language of international institutions and is seen on documents ranging from passports to airmail letters. For many years, until the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark joined in
1973, French and German were the only official working languages of the
European Economic Community. French was also the lingua franca of European
literature in the
18th century.
French was also the language used among the educated in many cosmopolitan cities across the
Middle East and
North Africa. This was true in cities such as Cairo, around the turn of the 20th century until
World War II, and especially in the French colonies of the
Maghreb. French is particularly important in
Algeria and its capital,
Algiers. Until the outbreak of the
civil war in Lebanon, French was the language that the Christian members of the upper class of Lebanese society used. French is still a lingua franca in most
Western and
Central African countries (where it often enjoys official status), a remnant of the colonial rule of France and
Belgium. These African countries, together with several other countries throughout the world, are members of
La Francophonie. French is the sole official language of the
Universal Postal Union, and English was only added as a working language as late as 1994.
German
German served as a
lingua franca in large portions of Europe for centuries, mainly the
Holy Roman Empire (of the German Nation). From about 1200 to 1600,
Middle Low German was the language of the
Hanseatic League which was present in most Northern European seaports, even London. Later, variants of German were (or are) also used in the Americas and small parts of Asia, (Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan). During the 19th and 20th centuries, Germany was leading in the sciences — particularly in
physics,
chemistry and
sociology, winning
many Nobel Prizes — and the language was also used in international business and politics. Since 1933, the politics of Nazi Germany caused the emigration of many scientists like
Albert Einstein, or artists like
Marlene Dietrich, mainly to the US, thus American English took over in these fields after 1945. German was also spoken in much of Eastern Europe long after the end of
World War II. In some academic disciplines, most notably
philosophy and
theology, a reading knowledge of German is still considered essential and required of doctoral candidates by some universities all over the world, not just those in
Europe. During the construction of the
Snowy Mountains Scheme in Australia, German was the lingua franca for workers from central and east Europe.
Polish
Polish was a kind of
lingua franca in large areas of Central and Eastern Europe, especially regions that belonged to the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; this influence extend beyond the borders of the Commonwealth because of the state's considerable political and military power in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Polish was for several centuries the main language spoken by the ruling classes in
Lithuania and
Ukraine, and the modern state of
Belarus, but was also understood further south-east, for example in the Tatar Khanate, the Romanian lands and the Slav parts of Hungary. After the partitioning of Poland in the 1790s, the
Russian language almost completely substituted Polish by the 20th century. Even so, Polish is today still sometimes spoken or at least understood in the western border areas of
Ukraine,
Belarus,
Lithuania and parts of northern Slovakia.
Portuguese
Portuguese served as
lingua franca in
Africa,
South America and
Asia in the
15th and
16th centuries. When the Portuguese started exploring the seas of Africa, America, Asia and Oceania, they tried to communicate with the natives by mixing a Portuguese-influenced version of Lingua Franca with the local languages. When English or French ships came to compete with the Portuguese, the crew tried to learn this "broken Portuguese". Through a process of change the Lingua Franca and Portuguese lexicon was replaced with the languages of the people in contact.
Portuguese remains an important
lingua franca in Africa (
PALOP),
Macau,
East Timor, and to a certain extent in
South America because
Brazil is the largest and most populous country in Latin America.
Russian
Russian is in use and widely understood in areas of
Central and
Eastern Europe and Northern and Central
Asia formerly part of the
Soviet Union, or of the former
Soviet bloc. Its use in Central and Eastern Europe has declined dramatically since the
fall of communism, but it remains the lingua franca in the
Commonwealth of Independent States. Recent migrations from the former Soviet Union made Russian one of the most spoken languages in Israel.
Asian languages
Arabic
Arabic, the native language of the
Arabs, who originally came from the
Arabian Peninsula, became the "lingua franca" of the
Islamic Empire (
Arab Empire) (from AD 700 - AD 1492), which at a certain point spread from the borders of
China and
Northern India through
Central Asia,
Persia,
Asia Minor,
Middle East,
North Africa all the way to
Spain and
Portugal in the west.
Arabic was also used by people neighboring the Islamic Empire. During the
Islamic Golden Age, Arabic was the language of science and diplomacy (around 1200 AD), when more books were written in Arabic than in any other language in the world at that time period. It influenced African sub-Saharan languages, east African languages, such as
Swahili and loaned many words to
Persian,
Turkish,
Urdu and to significant extent on European languages such as
Spanish and
Portuguese, countries it ruled for 700 years (see Al-
Andalus). It also had some
influence over the English language.
Arabic script was adopted by many other languages such as
Urdu,
Persian,
Swahili (changed to Latin in the late 19th century) and
Turkish which switched to Latin script in 1928. Arabic became the lingua franca of these regions mainly because it's the language of the
Qur’an,
Islam's holy book. Arabic remains as the
lingua franca for 22 countries (24 if one was to include occupied Palestine and Western Sahara), in the
Middle East and
North Africain addition to
Chad. Despite a few language script conversions from Arabic to Latin as just described, Arabic still is the second most widely used alphabetic system in the world after Latin. Arabic script is/has been used in languages including
Hausa,
Kashmiri,
Kazak,
Kurdish,
Kyrghyz,
Malay,
Morisco,
Pashto,
Persian/Farsi,
Punjabi,
Sindhi,
Tatar,
Turkish,
Uyghur.
According to
Encarta, which classified Chinese as a single language, Arabic is perceived to be the second largest language among first-time speakers. Used by more than a billion Muslims around the world, it's also one of the six official languages of the
United Nations.
Aramaic
Aramaic, the native language of the
Arameans, became the
lingua franca of the
Assyrian Empire and the western provinces of the
Persian Empire, mainly because of its simple,
alphabetic writing system (of which the modern
Hebrew alphabet is little more than a stylized form), more useful in administration than
cuneiform.
Azeri
According to the Russian historian
Nikolai Trubetzkoy,
Azeri served as a
lingua franca throughout most parts of
Transcaucasia (except the
Black Sea coast), in
Eastern Anatolia,
Iranian Azerbaijan, and Southern
Dagestan.
Bengali
Bengali or Bangla, is commonly spoken in Bangladesh and India (especially in the states of West Bengal and Tripura). It is the official language and lingua franca of
Bangladesh. In India, Bengali is the official language of West Bengal state; an official language of Tripura (along with Khokborok) and
Assam (along with Assamese) states. The language is also one of several official languages of the Republic of India, being the second most spoken language (as mother tongue) among Indians, after Hindi.
It has been derived from Sanskrit.
Cebuano
In the
Philippines, Cebuano is spoken natively by the inhabitants of
Cebu,
Bohol,
Negros Oriental and some parts of
Leyte and the
Samar islands and throughout
Mindanao. It is also spoken in a few towns and islands in Samar. Until 1975, Cebuano surpassed
Tagalog in terms of number of native speakers. Some dialects of Cebuano give different names to the language. Residents of Bohol may refer to Cebuano as "Bol-anon" while Cebuano-speakers in Leyte may call their dialect "Kana". It is also spoken by
Warays in Samar and Leyte,
Porohanon in Poro,
Ilonggos in Negros Oriental,
Eskaya in Bohol, and by native (like
Atas,
Bagobos, and
Butuanons) and migrant
Filipino ethnic groups (like
Ilocanos and Ilonggos), and foreign ethnic groups (like Spaniards, Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans),and other people in Mindanao as second language.
Chinese
Classical Chinese previously served as both a written
lingua franca and diplomatic language in
Far East Asia, used by
China,
Taiwan,
Korea,
Japan, the
Ryukyus, and
Vietnam in interstate communications. In the early 20th century Classical Chinese in China was replaced by
modern written Standard Chinese. Currently, among most Chinese-speaking communities,
Standard Mandarin serves the function of providing a common spoken language between speakers of different and
mutually unintelligible Chinese spoken languages - not to mention between the
Han Chinese and other ethnic groups in
China.
Written Chinese has also been used as a way of communication through these character-using countries. Chinese is also a
lingua franca of
Hong Kong,
Macau, the ethnic Chinese population in
Singapore and to a lesser extent the ethnic Chinese population in
Malaysia.
Filipino
Filipino, a standardized variety of
Tagalog, serves as a
lingua franca throughout the
Philippines archipelago together with some
Spanish words and
English language. In the southern regions though, the
Cebuano language and
English Language is more used as a
lingua franca than Filipino.
Hindi - Urdu
Hindustani or
Hindi-
Urdu, is commonly spoken in India and Pakistan. It encompasses two
standardized registers in the form of the official languages of
Hindi and
Urdu, as well as several
nonstandard dialects.
Hindi is one of the official languages of
India, and
Urdu is the official language and lingua franca of
Pakistan.
Urdu is also an official language in
India.
However, whilst the words and much of the speaking may sound similar, the writing styles are completely different, both using different charactersets altogether.
Ilokano
Ilokano is natively spoken in
Ilocos Region, northwest Philippines.
Ilokanos migrated to
Batanes, Cordillera,
Cagayan Valley, and
Pangasinan until it's now the lingua franca of northern Philippines.
Malay
In the
14th century, during the
Malacca Sultanate,
Malay was used as a
lingua franca in the
Malay archipelago, by the locals as much as by the traders and artisans that stopped at
Malacca via the
Straits of Malacca.
Nowadays,
Malay is used mostly in
Malaysia (officially called
Bahasa Malaysia) and
Brunei, as well as - but to a lesser extent in -
Singapore (one of their four official languages; a "street" version of Malay -
Baba Malay was the
lingua franca in Singapore prior to the introduction of English as a working and instructional language, and remains so for the elder generation).
However,
Indonesian, a standardized variety of
Malay, serves as a
lingua franca throughout
Indonesia and
East Timor. While Indonesia counts several hundred different languages,
Indonesian, the official language of Indonesia, is their vehicular language.
Persian
Persian served as the lingua franca of the eastern Islamic world and became the second lingua franca of the Islamic World. Besides serving as the state and administrative language in many Islamic dynasties, some of which included
Samanids,
Ghurids,
Ghaznavids,
Ilkhanids,
Seljuqids,
Moguls and early
Ottomans, Persian cultural and political forms, and often the Persian language were used by the cultural elites from the Balkans to India.
Arnold Joseph Toynbee's assessment of the role of the Persian language is worth quoting in more detail:
In the Iranic world, before it began to succumb to the process of Westernization, the New Persian language, which had been fashioned into literary form in mighty works of art. . . gained a currency as a lingua franca; and at its widest, about the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of the Christian Era, its range in this role extended, without a break, across the face of South-Eastern Europe and South-Western Asia.
Persian remains the lingua franca in its native homelands of
Iran,
Afghanistan and
Tajikistan and was the lingua franca of India before the British conquest. It is still understood by many intellectuals of
India and
Pakistan.
Persian has also exerted some
influence on the English language.
Sanskrit
Sanskrit was widely used across
South Asia,
Southeast Asia,
East Asia and
Central Asia at various times in
ancient and
medieval history; it has religious significance for all those religious traditions that arose from the
Vedic religion.
African languages
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is considered to be the most learned language native to the African continent. The vast majority of scholarly works and publications that are written in a native
African language are done in
Afrikaans.
Afrikaans has several million native speakers, particularly in the country of
South Africa. Aside from being a native language for many millions in the
Boer and
Coloured communities in South Africa, it's also spoken as a second language by many millions of people, securing its place as an African lingua franca. Among the finest universities in Africa teach courses in
Afrikaans and several also use it as an official language with
English. Among these are
Stellenbosch and
University of Witwatersrand.
Hausa
Hausa is widely spoken through Nigeria and Niger and recognised in neighbouring states (
Ghana,
Benin,
Cameroon etc). The reason for this is that Hausa people used to be traders who led caravans with goods (cotton, leather, slaves, food crops etc.) through the whole West African region, from the Niger Delta to the Atlantic shores at the very west edge of Africa. They also reached North African states through Trans-Saharan routes. Thus trade deals in
Timbuktu in modern Mali,
Agadez,
Ghat,
Fez in Northern Africa, and other trade centers were often concluded in Hausa.
Swahili
Swahili is used throughout large parts of
East Africa as a lingua franca, despite being the mother tongue of a relatively small ethnic group on the East African coast and nearby islands in the
Indian Ocean. At least as early as the late eighteenth century, Swahili was used along trading and slave routes that extended west across Lake Tanganyika and into the present-day
Democratic Republic of Congo. Swahili rose in prominence throughout the colonial era, and has become the predominant African language of
Tanzania and
Kenya. Some contemporary members of non-Swahili ethnic groups speak Swahili more often than their mother tongues, and many choose to raise their children with Swahili as their first language, leading to the possibility that several smaller East African languages will fade as Swahili transitions from being a regional lingua franca to a regional
first language.
Zulu
South Africa has eleven
official languages, however the mutual intelligibility of many
Nguni languages (Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi and Ndebele) has meant that
Zulu is increasingly becoming a lingua franca throughout Eastern South Africa, including the major cities of Durban and Johannesburg. Zulu is the first language of ten million people, but is spoken as a second language by over 25 million in the region and is now the most commonly understood language in the country.
Fula
Fula, also known as
Pulaar or
Fulfulde depending on the region, is the language of the
Fula people – who in turn are known under the various names of Fula or Fulani or Peuls or Fulbe or
Fulɓe or
Toucouleur. Fula is spoken in all countries directly south of the Sahara (north of
Cameroon,
Chad,
Nigeria,
Niger,
Mali…). It is spoken mainly by Fula people, but is also used as a lingua franca by several populations of various origin, throughout Western Africa.
Manding
The largely interintelligible
Manding languages of West Africa serve as lingua francas in various places. For instance
Bambara is the most widely spoken language in
Mali, and
Jula (almost the same as Bambara) is commonly used in western
Burkina Faso and northern
Cote d'Ivoire. Manding languages have long been used in regional commerce, so much so that the word for trader,
jula, was applied to the language currently known by the same name. Other varieties of Manding are used in several other countries, such as
Guinea,
The Gambia, and
Senegal.
Sango
The
Sango language is a lingua franca developed for intertribal trading in the
Central African Republic. It is based on the Northern
Ngbandi language spoken by the Sango people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo but with a large vocabulary of French loan words.
Wolof
Wolof is a more widely spoken lingua franca of The Gambia and Senegal, although English and French, the official languages of The Gambia and Senegal, are the lingua francas of the urban areas of the 2 countries.
Amerindian languages
Mobilian Jargon
The
Mobilian Trade Language was developed and used along the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas. It was a creole named for the
Mabila (Mobile) tribe, which spoke
Alibamu (Alabama), but it was more based on
Choctaw.
Tupi
The
Tupi language served as the
lingua franca of Brazil among speakers of the various indigenous languages, mainly in the coastal regions. Tupi as a lingua franca, and as recorded in colonial books, was in fact a creation of the Portuguese, who assembled it from the similarities between the coastal indigenous Tupi-guarani languages. The language served the Jesuit priests as a way to teach natives, and it was widely spoken by Europeans. It was the predominant language spoken in Brazil until 1758, when the Jesuits were expelled from Brazil by the Portuguese government and the use and teaching of Tupi was banned. Since then, Tupi as Lingua Franca was quickly replaced by Portuguese, although Tupi-guarani family languages are still spoken by small native groups in Brazil.
Quechua
As the
Inca empire rose to prominence in
South America, the imperial language
Quechua became the most widely spoken language in the western regions of the continent. Even among tribes that were not absorbed by the empire Quechua still became an important language for trade because of the empire's influence. Even after the
Spanish conquest of
Peru Quechua for a long time was the most common language. Today it's still widely spoken although it has given way to Spanish as the more common lingua franca. It is spoken by some 10 million people through much of South America (mostly in Peru, south-western and central Bolivia, southern Colombia and Ecuador, north-western Argentina and northern Chile).
Pidgins and creoles
Various
pidgin languages have been used in many locations and times as a common trade speech. They can be based on English, French, Chinese, or indeed any other language. A pidgin is defined by its use as a lingua franca, between populations speaking other mother tongues. When a pidgin becomes a population's first language, then it's called a
creole language.
Tok Pisin
Tok Pisin is largely spoken in
Papua New Guinea as a
lingua franca. It developed as an English-based creole with influences from local languages and to a smaller extent
German or
Unserdeutsch and
Portuguese. Tok Pisin originated as a
pidgin in the 19th century, hence the name 'Tok Pisin' from 'Talk Pidgin', but has now evolved into a modern language.
Also called Pidgin English, this Lingua Franca is also spoken in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The versions of Pidgin vary between PNG, the Solomons and Vanuatu, but all Pidgin speakers from these countries are able to communicate and often understand each others language variations.
Pidgin English is derived from Australian English and its idioms, so an understanding of vernacular Australian English is often helpful in understanding the origins and application of Pidgin English.
Guinea-Bissau Creole
Guinea-Bissau Creole is a
Portuguese Creole used as a
lingua franca of
Guinea-Bissau and
Casamance,
Senegal among people of different ethnic groups. It is also the mother tongue of many people in Guinea-Bissau.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Lingua-franca'.
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