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Lingua franca
Sep. 20th, 2012 11:50 pmBy the arrival of the Franks during the Migration Period (5th century), the Gaulish language had been replaced by Vulgar Latin ( "Vulgar" in this usage comes from the Latin for "common," as Vulgar Latin was the spoken language).
A lingua franca (or working language, bridge language, vehicular language) is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue.
The original Lingua Franca was a mixed language composed mostly (80%) of Italian with a broad vocabulary drawn from Turkish, French, Greek, Arabic, Portuguese and Spanish. It was in use throughout the eastern Mediterranean as the language of commerce and diplomacy in and around the Renaissance era. At that time, Italian speakers dominated seaborne commerce in the port cities of the Ottoman empire. Franca was the Italian word for Frankish. Its usage in the term lingua franca originated from its meaning in Arabic and Greek, dating from before the Crusades and during the Middle Ages, whereby all Western Europeans were called "Franks" or Faranji in Arabic and Phrankoi in Greek during the times of the late Eastern Roman Empire.[3] The term lingua franca is first recorded in English in 1678.
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The main theory concerning the generation of Old French is that the Franks imposed much of their vocabulary and other mainly phonetic features on Gallo-Roman. The language of the Franks assimilated to Gallo-Roman: the extent to which Gallo-Roman was influenced by Frankish and what Frankish features were adopted have long been questions of scholarly debate.[31]
A lingua franca (or working language, bridge language, vehicular language) is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue.
The original Lingua Franca was a mixed language composed mostly (80%) of Italian with a broad vocabulary drawn from Turkish, French, Greek, Arabic, Portuguese and Spanish. It was in use throughout the eastern Mediterranean as the language of commerce and diplomacy in and around the Renaissance era. At that time, Italian speakers dominated seaborne commerce in the port cities of the Ottoman empire. Franca was the Italian word for Frankish. Its usage in the term lingua franca originated from its meaning in Arabic and Greek, dating from before the Crusades and during the Middle Ages, whereby all Western Europeans were called "Franks" or Faranji in Arabic and Phrankoi in Greek during the times of the late Eastern Roman Empire.[3] The term lingua franca is first recorded in English in 1678.
....
The main theory concerning the generation of Old French is that the Franks imposed much of their vocabulary and other mainly phonetic features on Gallo-Roman. The language of the Franks assimilated to Gallo-Roman: the extent to which Gallo-Roman was influenced by Frankish and what Frankish features were adopted have long been questions of scholarly debate.[31]
