Lingua franca

The term is composed of the Latin ‚lingua‘ for ‚tongue‘ or ‚language‘ as well as ‚franca‘, which can either be understood as ‚free‘ or ‚open‘ or, tracing back to the first verifiable lingua franca, can be translated as ‚Franconian‘ (cf. Bußmann 2008, 408). Literally, then, lingua franca is to be understood as a ‚free language‘ used as a „mediating language in multilingual speech communities“ (ibid.), with the term merely describing its linguistic function (Cf. Meierkord u. Knapp 2002, 10). Lingua francas thus function as bridging or colloquial languages between two or more speakers* who do not share a common first language (Cf. Mauranen 2018, 7).

English

English is probably the most prominent and most widely spoken lingua franca of our time, but Russian as the overarching lingua franca in former Soviet states and Arabic as the common lingua franca of Islam are also examples of widespread natural languages in the function of a lingua franca (cf. Bußmann 2008, 408). But not only so-called world languages, i.e. languages that are spoken by a large number of people in the world as a first, second or foreign language, can be used as a lingua franca; there are no restrictions whatsoever on which languages or dialects can be used as lingua francas. These can also be dead languages such as Latin or ancient Greek (cf. Mauranen 2018, 7f.) or pidgin languages emerge as lingua francas in „linguistic emergencies“ when there is no common language knowledge between the speakers involved (Bußmann 2008, 532). There have also been attempts to develop special artificial languages for global international understanding, such as Esperanto as the best known of this kind, which was already conceived in the 19th century as a „world aid language“ with greatly simplified pronunciation and grammar (Bußmann 2008, 157f.). In the function of the lingua franca, a distinction is made between two definitions: On the one hand, a „real lingua franca“ is defined as a bridging/communication language, when none*of the speakers speak this language as a first language. The other lingua franca term also includes language situations between native speakers and non-native speakers, in which case this is understood as „asymmetrical use“ (Ammon 2001, 34).

Critique

Here also follows a criticism of the use of lingua francas, since some linguists postulate that the cultural heritage of natural languages would be lost, because lingua francas would always represent a strongly deduced form of the original language (cf. Meierkord 2002, 109). It is also criticized that speakers often have different competences in the respective lingua franca and that this can lead to discrepancies in the encoding and decoding of messages (cf. ibid., 112).

Historical development

As mentioned at the beginning, however, Lingua Franca can also be translated as ‚Frankish language‘, which can be traced back to the „language of the ‚Franks‘ [as] the oldest provable […] lingua franca“, spoken in the Middle Ages at the time of the Crusades and resulting from „contact between Western European Christians with Turkish and Arab Muslims“ (Bußmann 2008, 408; Cf. Meierkord u. Knapp 2002, 9). Elsewhere, Latin is already named as the first cross-continental lingua franca at the time of the Roman Empire, which, in terms of time, continued into the Middle Ages (Cf. Schendl 2016, 124). It follows that lingua francas historically emerged and were used where there was a desire to trade between different tribes or ethnic groups (Meikerkord u. Knapp 2002, 10). Furthermore, colonialism from the 15th century onward contributed significantly to the language spread and development of numerous pidgin languages (Cf. ibid.). Thus, German also spread out as a lingua franca through both colonial and „regional expansion of native speakers of German“ in and outside Europe (Ammon 2001, 32). Especially in science, German was considered the most common language of exchange and for publications in the 19th and 20th centuries (Cf. ibid., 34). After the World Wars, German lost its prestigious status on a global level and the need for a general lingua franca grew due to increasing numbers of international organizations as well as increased international trade, tourism, migration and mass media (Cf. Meierkord u. Knapp 2002, 12). This led to the global growth of English as the most spoken international lingua franca (Cf. Jenkins 2018, 595).

Literature

Ammon, U. (2001): German as a lingua franca in Europe. In: Sociolinguistica 15, 32-41.

Bußmann, H. (ed.) (2008): Lexicon of linguistics. 4th ed. Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner.

Jenkins, J. (2018). The future of English as a lingua franca. In J. Jenkins, W. Baker, and M. Dewey (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of English as a Lingua Franca. Oxon, New York, Routledge, 594-605.

Mauranen, A. (2018): Conceptualizing ELF. In J. Jenkins, W. Baker, and M. Dewey (Eds.): The Routledge Handbook of English as a Lingua Franca. Oxon, New York, Routledge, 7-24.

Meierkord, C. u. K. Knapp (2002): Approaching lingua franca communication. In: eds. (Eds.): Lingua Franca Communicaiton. Frankfurt a. M.: Lang, 9-28.

Meierkord, C. (2002): ‚Language stripped bare‘ or ‚linguistic masala‘? Culture in lingua franca conversation. In: ders. u. K. Knapp (eds.): Lingua Franca Communication. Frankfurt a. M.: Lang, 109-134.

Schendl, H. (2016): Historical linguistics and ELF. In: M. Pitzl and R. Osimk-Teasdale (Eds.): English as a lingua franca: Prospectives and prospects. Boston, Berlin: De Gruyter, 123, 128.