Lengua Franca
Lengua Franca
Lengua Franca
O
A Potential Use of English as the
Official Lingua Franca
In the European Union
Lingua Franca
lingua
franca
is
language
systematically
used
to
make
communication between expatriate aliens and local people who are not
proficient in standard Italian, but were superficially exposed to it through the
radio or TV, at church or school (Alexandria, Cairo, Beirut, Bethlehem): the
contents are plainly intelligible to anybody with a minimum knowledge of
formal Italian, but the typical idiomatic expressions, stress and intonation are
lost to the occasional listener. Despite the relative isolation and time lapse
between instances, the language shows a remarkable level of consistency. As
a creole it is lesser used, basically by a few people of Italian origin from the
Aegean Islands, who, as with many dialects, think of it as mainstream Italian.
It is only a spoken language, but the rare cases of transcription (short
quotes) usually follow the French or Spanish orthography; as a creole it is
more elaborate, but basic grammar rules for the pidgin medium include:
but to define what exactly must be understood by the lingua franca of the
Mediterranean.
Towards the end of 1951, the lingua franca was defined as what was
normally used by speakers of different mother tongues in order to be able to
establish communication between them. When using a lingua franca, the
speakers of different linguistic systems pursue one objective or a variety of
ends: trade, political, military, cultural, administrative or religious relations.
These ends are those that justify some of the synonymous, or almost
synonymous, terms of the lingua franca that form part of the bibliography of
the subject: trade language, contact language or international language.
Specifically, the lingua franca which is the object of this study was born
at the end of the Middle Ages with the political and, above all, economic
expansion of the main maritime cities of the Mediterranean, which would
leave so many marks throughout their area of influence. A language of
international communication was constructed, which developed a more or
less uniform lexicon. It seems that the base of this lingua was configured
fundamentally by the presence of the Romance languages but also by
Arabic, vulgar Greek and Turkish, all languages that contributed not only to
the lexicon or the morphosyntax but also to the phonetics.
Actually the first Lingua Franca, born during the Crusades had probably
no direct link to the second one, which spanned the Lepanto to Gallipoli
period. Its emergence was again primed by political contingencies which
adapted an Arabic grammar to a Romance vocabulary that are still the same.
True, we are nowadays unlikely to hear exotic tales about a visit to the
Palazzo of the Gran Signor to witness a sentence of Bastinado (Falanjca) in
front of the Serraglio, but basic catch-phrases as 'gu fatu' (what's up) 'Iu
sdai qua' (I'll be waiting here) or indeed 'Vadu dal Bosta' (= Go from [I am
going to get] the mail -- an example that is close to what Rossi reported in
Libya 70 years ago) are often to be heard now all over the Middle East,
coming straight out from a distant past. Tomato, for instance, is a loan from
Nahuatl, shared by most western languages. Yet in Italy, where it grows
Bibliography:
VILCEANU
Titela, Intercultural
Communication
Prerequisites
for
HLMBAUER
Cornelia,
BHRINGER
Heike,
SEIDLHOFER
Barbara,