Lingua franca

Lingua franca; also referred by Chirikba (2008, p.31) as; “The Working Language” or “Unifying Language”. It is a language used by people who do not share the same primary language. It’s a way to make it possible for these people to communicate between each other, as they do not share a common “mother tongue”(Chirikba 2008 p.31). Most commonly a third language learnt by all parties. So how in the long term will lingua franca factor into our global economy? Firstly we have to consider the history of its origins.

During the age of exploration, lingua franca played an extensive role in allowing European explorers to trade and communicate, in countries to which they travelled. In places like coastal Africa, parts of India and even Japan, Portuguese was the “lingua franca of diplomacy and trade” (Briney, 2013). This was due to the similarities in words, which meant it was easier for the majority of countries to learn.

Briney (2013) noted that the term lingua franca was first noted in use, in the middle ages. It described a language that European crusaders and traders in the Mediterranean created, mixing French and Italian. Although the use of lingua franca can be found much further back in history. For example due to the size of the Islamic Empire in the 7th Century, Arabic developed into a lingua franca. As the empire spread into China, India and Central Asia, the native tongue of the Arabian Peninsula became each country’s lingua franca. This is because the sheer size of the empire created a demand for one. The empire needed to be able to communicate with the territories it gained for trade and commerce (Briney, 2013).

In history most lingua franca were created by empires. It was the way for them to communicate with the cou...

... middle of paper ...

...rld has there been a language more widespread than that of English. No one can know what path it will continue to take. As discussed scholars have made predictions in history which were proved wrong by time ; Webster and Sweet.

With the world learning more languages than that of its cultural mother tongue – children now being taught English alongside their native tongue at school – It is inevitable that more and more languages will lose their significance and slowly die away. We will see English become more diverse and develop pidgins of the language within countries. Ultimately the term lingua franca will be obsolete as the world will be speaking a dialect of English from birth. David Crystal (1997p.140) has a similar view and adds, English, if it is the only language left to be learned will be the “greatest intellectual disaster that this planet has ever known”.