Jump to content

Lingua franca

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Vehicular language)

A lingua franca (/ˌlɪŋɡwə ˈfræŋkə/; lit.'Frankish tongue'; for plurals see § Usage notes),[1] also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers' native languages.[2]

Linguae francae have developed around the world throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons (so-called "trade languages" facilitated trade), but also for cultural, religious, diplomatic and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities.[3][4] The term is taken from the medieval Mediterranean Lingua Franca, a Romance-based pidgin language used especially by traders in the Mediterranean Basin from the 11th to the 19th centuries.[5] A world language—a language spoken internationally and by many people—is a language that may function as a global lingua franca. [citation needed]

Characteristics

[edit]
Trade languages of the world in 1908 from The Harmsworth Atlas and Gazetteer

Any language regularly used for communication between people who do not share a native language is a lingua franca.[6] Lingua franca is a functional term, independent of any linguistic history or language structure.[7]

Pidgins are therefore lingua francas; creoles and arguably mixed languages may similarly be used for communication between language groups. But lingua franca is equally applicable to a non-creole language native to one nation (often a colonial power) learned as a second language and used for communication between diverse language communities in a colony or former colony.[8]

Lingua francas are often pre-existing languages with native speakers, but they can also be pidgins or creoles developed for that specific region or context. Pidgins are rapidly developed and simplified combinations of two or more established languages, while creoles are generally viewed as pidgins that have evolved into fully complex languages in the course of adaptation by subsequent generations.[9] Pre-existing lingua francas such as French are used to facilitate intercommunication in large-scale trade or political matters, while pidgins and creoles often arise out of colonial situations and a specific need for communication between colonists and indigenous peoples.[10] Pre-existing lingua francas are generally widespread, highly developed languages with many native speakers.[citation needed] Conversely, pidgins are very simplified means of communication, containing loose structuring, few grammatical rules, and possessing few or no native speakers. Creole languages are more developed than their ancestral pidgins, utilizing more complex structure, grammar, and vocabulary, as well as having substantial communities of native speakers.[11]

Whereas a vernacular language is the native language of a specific geographical community,[12] a lingua franca is used beyond the boundaries of its original community, for trade, religious, political, or academic reasons.[13] For example, English is a vernacular in the United Kingdom but it is used as a lingua franca in the Philippines, alongside Filipino. Likewise, Arabic, French, Standard Chinese, Russian and Spanish serve similar purposes as industrial and educational lingua francas across regional and national boundaries.

Even though they are used as bridge languages, international auxiliary languages such as Esperanto have not had a great degree of adoption, so they are not described as lingua francas.[14]

Etymology

[edit]

The term lingua franca derives from Mediterranean Lingua Franca (also known as Sabir), the pidgin language that people around the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean Sea used as the main language of commerce and diplomacy from the late Middle Ages to the 18th century, most notably during the Renaissance era.[15][8] During that period, a simplified version of mainly Italian in the eastern Mediterranean and Spanish in the western Mediterranean that incorporated many loanwords from Greek, Slavic languages, Arabic, and Turkish came to be widely used as the "lingua franca" of the region, although some scholars claim that the Mediterranean Lingua Franca was just poorly used Italian.[13]

In Lingua Franca (the specific language), lingua is from the Italian for 'a language'. Franca is related to Greek Φρᾰ́γκοι (Phránkoi) and Arabic إِفْرَنْجِي (ʾifranjiyy) as well as the equivalent Italian—in all three cases, the literal sense is 'Frankish', leading to the direct translation: 'language of the Franks'. During the late Byzantine Empire, Franks was a term that applied to all Western Europeans.[16][17][18][19]

Through changes of the term in literature, lingua franca has come to be interpreted as a general term for pidgins, creoles, and some or all forms of vehicular languages. This transition in meaning has been attributed to the idea that pidgin languages only became widely known from the 16th century on due to European colonization of continents such as The Americas, Africa, and Asia. During this time, the need for a term to address these pidgin languages arose, hence the shift in the meaning of Lingua Franca from a single proper noun to a common noun encompassing a large class of pidgin languages.[20]

As recently as the late 20th century, some restricted the use of the generic term to mean only mixed languages that are used as vehicular languages, its original meaning.[21]

Douglas Harper's Online Etymology Dictionary states that the term Lingua Franca (as the name of the particular language) was first recorded in English during the 1670s,[22] although an even earlier example of the use of it in English is attested from 1632, where it is also referred to as "Bastard Spanish".[23]

Usage notes

[edit]

The term is well established in its naturalization to English and so major dictionaries do not italicize it as a "foreign" term.[24][25][26]

Its plurals in English are lingua francas and linguae francae,[25][26] with the former being first-listed[25][26] or only-listed[24] in major dictionaries.

Examples

[edit]

Historical lingua francas

[edit]
Koine Greek

The use of lingua francas has existed since antiquity.

Akkadian remained the common language of a large part of Western Asia from several earlier empires, until it was supplanted in this role by Aramaic.[27][28]

Sanskrit historically served as a lingua franca throughout the majority of South Asia.[29][30][31] The Sanskrit language's historic presence is attested across a wide geography beyond South Asia. Inscriptions and literary evidence suggest that Sanskrit was already being adopted in Southeast Asia and Central Asia in the 1st millennium CE, through monks, religious pilgrims and merchants.[32][33][34]

Until the early 20th century, Literary Chinese served as both the written lingua franca and the diplomatic language in East Asia, including China, Korea, Japan, Ryūkyū, and Vietnam.[35] In the early 20th century, vernacular written Chinese replaced Classical Chinese within China as both the written and spoken lingua franca for speakers of different Chinese dialects, and because of the declining power and cultural influence of China in East Asia, English has since replaced Classical Chinese as the lingua franca in East Asia.

Koine Greek was the lingua franca of the Hellenistic culture. Koine Greek[36][37][38] (Modern Greek: Ελληνιστική Κοινή, romanizedEllinistikí Kiní, lit.'Common Greek'; Greek: [elinistiˈci ciˈni]), also known as Alexandrian dialect, common Attic, Hellenistic, or Biblical Greek, was the common supra-regional form of Greek spoken and written during the Hellenistic period, the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire. It evolved from the spread of Greek following the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, and served as the lingua franca of much of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East during the following centuries.[39]

Old Tamil was once the lingua franca for most of ancient Tamilakam and Sri Lanka. John Guy states that Tamil was also the lingua franca for early maritime traders from India.[40] The language and its dialects were used widely in the state of Kerala as the major language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century AD. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in the southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century AD.[41] Tamil was used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar, Mysore, Mandya and Bangalore.[42]

Latin, through the power of the Roman Republic became the dominant language in Italy and subsequently throughout the realms of the Roman Empire. Even after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, Latin was the common language of communication, science, and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition.

Classical Māori is the retrospective name for the language (formed out of many dialects, albeit all mutually intelligible)[43] of both the North Island and the South Island for the 800 years before the European settlement of New Zealand.[44][45][46][47][48] Māori shared a common language that was used for trade, inter-iwi dialogue on marae, and education through wānanga.[49][50] After the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, Māori language was the lingua franca of the Colony of New Zealand until English superseded it in the 1870s.[43][51] The description of Māori language as New Zealand's 19th-century lingua franca has been widely accepted.[52][53][54][55] The language was initially vital for all European and Chinese migrants in New Zealand to learn,[56][57][58] as Māori formed a majority of the population, owned nearly all the country's land and dominated the economy until the 1860s.[56][59] Discriminatory laws such as the Native Schools Act 1867 contributed to the demise of Māori language as a lingua franca.[43]

Sogdian was used to facilitate trade between those who spoke different languages along the Silk Road, which is why native speakers of Sogdian were employed as translators in Tang China.[60] The Sogdians also ended up circulating spiritual beliefs and texts, including those of Buddhism and Christianity, thanks to their ability to communicate to many people in the region through their native language.[61]

Old Church Slavonic, an Eastern South Slavic language, is the first Slavic literary language. Between 9th and 11th century, it was the lingua franca of a great part of the predominantly Slavic states and populations in Southeast and Eastern Europe, in liturgy and church organization, culture, literature, education and diplomacy, as an Official language and National language in the case of Bulgaria. It was the first national and also international Slavic literary language (autonym словѣ́ньскъ ѩꙁꙑ́къ, slověnĭskŭ językŭ).[62][63] The Glagolitic alphabet was originally used at both schools, though the Cyrillic script was developed early on at the Preslav Literary School, where it superseded Glagolitic as the official script in Bulgaria in 893. Old Church Slavonic spread to other South-Eastern, Central, and Eastern European Slavic territories, most notably Croatia, Serbia, Bohemia, Lesser Poland, and principalities of the Kievan Rus' while retaining characteristically South Slavic linguistic features. It spread also to not completely Slavic territories between the Carpathian Mountains, the Danube and the Black sea, corresponding to Wallachia and Moldavia. Nowadays, the Cyrillic writing system is used for various languages across Eurasia, and as the national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central, North, and East Asia.

The Mediterranean Lingua Franca was largely based on Italian and Provençal. This language was spoken from the 11th to 19th centuries around the Mediterranean basin, particularly in the European commercial empires of Italian cities (Genoa, Venice, Florence, Milan, Pisa, Siena) and in trading ports located throughout the eastern Mediterranean rim.[64]

During the Renaissance, standard Italian was spoken as a language of culture in the main royal courts of Europe, and among intellectuals. This lasted from the 14th century to the end of the 16th, when French replaced Italian as the usual lingua franca in northern Europe.[citation needed] Italian musical terms, in particular dynamic and tempo notations, have continued in use to the present day.[65][66]

Classical Quechua is either of two historical forms of Quechua, the exact relationship and degree of closeness between which is controversial, and which have sometimes been identified with each other.[67] These are:

  1. the variety of Quechua that was used as a lingua franca and administrative language in the Inca Empire (1438–1533)[68] (or Inca lingua franca[69]). Since the Incas didn't have writing, the evidence about the characteristics of this variety is scant and they have been a subject of significant disagreements.[70]
  2. the variety of Quechua that was used in writing for religious and administrative purposes in the Andean territories of the Spanish Empire, mostly in the late 16th century and the first half of the 17th century and has sometimes been referred to, both historically and in academia, as lengua general ('common language')[71][72][73][74] (or Standard Colonial Quechua[75]).

Ajem-Turkic functioned as lingua franca in the Caucasus region and in southeastern Dagestan, and was widely spoken at the court and in the army of Safavid Iran.[76]

Modern

[edit]

Afrikaans

[edit]

Main Article: Afrikaans

Native speakers 7.2 million (2016)

10.3 million L2 speakers in South Africa (2011)

Language family Indo-European

Afrikaans originated as a contact language formed in the 17th century. The formation of the Afrikaans language started in 1652, with the colonization of the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch-speaking settler Jan van Riebeek. When Jan van Riebeek and other European settlers arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, approximately fifty thousand indigenous people were residing in the area. Among the natives were Bantu tribes, the Khoi, who were pastoral farmers, and the San tribes, who were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers.

Afrikaans' Indo-European classification points to influences from several global languages. The close engagement between the Cape Dutch, French Huguenots, Indian, Malay and Portuguese speaking people, and the indigenous speakers of Bantu and Khoekhoe languages, resulted in the development of Afrikaans as a lingua franca in the area. Afrikaans replaced the Dutch language as the official language in the Cape in 1925. [https://study.com/academy/lesson/afrikaans-language-origin-history-facts.html]

What country speaks Afrikaans?

The country of origin for Afrikaans is South Africa. However, several other Southern African countries speak Afrikaans, including Namibia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Development

Most of the first settlers whose descendants today are the Afrikaners were from the United Provinces (now Netherlands), with up to one-sixth of the community of French Huguenot origin, and a seventh from Germany.

African and Asian workers, Cape Coloured children of European settlers and Khoikhoiwomen, and slaves contributed to the development of Afrikaans. The slave population was made up of people from East Africa, West Africa, India, Madagascar, and the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia). A number were also indigenous Khoisan people, who were valued as interpreters, domestic servants, and laborers.

Beginning in about 1815, Afrikaans started to replace Malay as the language of instruction in Muslim schools in South Africa, written with the Arabic alphabet: see Arabic Afrikaans. Later, Afrikaans, now written with the Latin script, started to appear in newspapers and political and religious works in around 1850 (alongside the already established Dutch).

English

[edit]
English language distribution
  Majority native language
  Official or administrative language, but not native language

English is sometimes described as the foremost global lingua franca, being used as a working language by individuals of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds in a variety of fields and international organizations to communicate with one another.[77] English is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the historical global influence of the British Empire and the United States.[78] It is a co-official language of the United Nations and many other international and regional organizations and has also become the de facto language of diplomacy, science, international trade, tourism, aviation, entertainment and the internet.[79]

When the United Kingdom became a colonial power, English served as the lingua franca of the colonies of the British Empire. In the post-colonial period, most of the newly independent nations which had many indigenous languages opted to continue using English as one of their official languages such as Ghana and South Africa.[77] In other former colonies with several official languages such as Singapore and Fiji, English is the primary medium of education and serves as the lingua franca among citizens.[80][81][82]

Even in countries not associated with the English-speaking world, English has emerged as a lingua franca in certain situations where its use is perceived to be more efficient to communicate, especially among groups consisting of native speakers of many languages. In Qatar, the medical community is primarily made up of workers from countries without English as a native language. In medical practices and hospitals, nurses typically communicate with other professionals in English as a lingua franca.[83] This occurrence has led to interest in researching the consequences and affordances of the medical community communicating in a lingua franca.[83] English is also sometimes used in Switzerland between people who do not share one of Switzerland's four official languages, or with foreigners who are not fluent in the local language.[84] In the European Union, the use of English as a lingua franca has led researchers to investigate whether a Euro English dialect has emerged.[85] In the fields of technology and science, English emerged as a lingua franca in the 20th century.[86]

Spanish

[edit]
Spanish language distribution
  Official language
  Co-official language
  Culturally important or secondary language (> 20% of the population)

The Spanish language spread mainly throughout the New World, becoming a lingua franca in the territories and colonies of the Spanish Empire, which also included parts of Africa, Asia, and Oceania. After the breakup of much of the empire in the Americas, its function as a lingua franca was solidified by the governments of the newly independent nations of what is now Hispanic America.[87] While its usage in Spain's Asia-Pacific colonies has largely died out except in the Philippines, where it is still spoken by a small minority, Spanish became the lingua franca of what is now Equatorial Guinea, being the main language of government and education and is spoken by the vast majority of the population.[88]

Due to large numbers of immigrants from Latin America in the second half of the 20th century and resulting influence, Spanish has also emerged somewhat as a lingua franca in parts of the Southwestern United States and southern Florida, especially in communities where native Spanish speakers form the majority of the population.[89][90]

At present it is the second most used language in international trade, and the third most used in politics, diplomacy and culture after English and French.[91]

It is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout the world[92] and is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

French

[edit]
French language distribution
  Majority native language
  Official language, but not a majority native language
  Administrative or cultural language

French is sometimes regarded as the first global lingua franca, having supplanted Latin as the prestige language of politics, trade, education, diplomacy, and military in early modern Europe and later spreading around the world with the establishment of the French colonial empire.[93] With France emerging as the leading political, economic, and cultural power of Europe in the 16th century, the language was adopted by royal courts throughout the continent, including the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Russia, and as the language of communication between European academics, merchants, and diplomats.[94] With the expansion of Western colonial empires, French became the main language of diplomacy and international relations up until World War II when it was replaced by English due the rise of the United States as the leading global superpower. Stanley Meisler of the Los Angeles Times said that the fact that the Treaty of Versailles was written in English as well as French was the "first diplomatic blow" against the language.[95] Nevertheless, it remains the second most used language in international affairs and is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.[96][97][98]

As a legacy of French and Belgian colonial rule, most former colonies of these countries maintain French as an official language or lingua franca due to the many indigenous languages spoken in their territory. Notably, in most Francophone West and Central African countries, French has transitioned from being only a lingua franca to the native language among some communities, mostly in urban areas or among the elite class.[99] In other regions such as the French-speaking countries of the Maghreb (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania) and parts of the French Caribbean, French is the lingua franca in professional sectors and education, even though it is not the native language of the majority.[100][101][102]

French continues to be used as a lingua franca in certain cultural fields such as cuisine, fashion, and sport.[103][93]

As a consequence of Brexit, French has been increasingly used as a lingua franca in the European Union and its institutions either alongside or at times, in place, of English.[104][105]

German

[edit]
Legal statuses of German in Europe:
  "German Sprachraum": German is (co-)official language and first language of the majority of the population
  German is a co-official language, but not the first language of the majority of the population
  German (or a German dialect) is a legally recognized minority language (Squares: Geographic distribution too dispersed/small for map scale)
  German (or a variety of German) is spoken by a sizable minority, but has no legal recognition

German is used as a lingua franca in Switzerland to some extent; however, English is generally preferred to avoid favoring it over the three other official languages. Middle Low German used to be the Lingua franca during the late Hohenstaufen till the mid-15th century periods, in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea when extensive trading was done by the Hanseatic League along the Baltic and North Seas. German remains a widely studied language in Central Europe and the Balkans, especially in former Yugoslavia. It is recognized as an official language in countries outside of Europe, specifically Namibia. German is also one of the working languages of the EU along English and French, but it is used less in that role than the other two.

Chinese

[edit]

Today, Standard Mandarin Chinese is the lingua franca of China and Taiwan, which are home to many mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese and, in the case of Taiwan, indigenous Formosan languages. Among many Chinese diaspora communities, Cantonese is often used as the lingua franca instead, particularly in Southeast Asia, due to a longer history of immigration and trade networks with southern China, although Mandarin has also been adopted in some circles since the 2000s.[106]

Arabic

[edit]
Arabic language map
Dark green: majority; light green: significant minority

Arabic was used as a lingua franca across the Islamic empires, whose sizes necessitated a common language, and spread across the Arab and Muslim worlds.[107] In Djibouti and parts of Eritrea, both of which are countries where multiple official languages are spoken, Arabic has emerged as a lingua franca in part thanks to the population of the region being predominantly Muslim and Arabic playing a crucial role in Islam. In addition, after having fled from Eritrea due to ongoing warfare and gone to some of the nearby Arab countries, Eritrean emigrants are contributing to Arabic becoming a lingua franca in the region by coming back to their homelands having picked up the Arabic language.[108]

Russian

[edit]
Areas where Russian is the majority language (medium blue) or a minority language (light blue)

Russian is in use and widely understood in Central Asia and the Caucasus, areas formerly part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. Its use remains prevalent in many post-Soviet states. Russian has some presence as a minority language in the Baltic states and some other states in Eastern Europe, as well as in pre-opening China.[citation needed] It remains the official language of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Russian is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations.[109] Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, its usage has declined significantly in the post-Soviet states and former members of the Warsaw Pact and it has been replaced as a primary foreign language in many schools by English and other languages. Parts of the Russian speaking minorities outside Russia have emigrated to Russia or assimilated into their countries of residence by learning the local language and using it preferably in daily communication.

Portuguese

[edit]
The Lusophone world
  Native language
  Official and administrative language
  Cultural or secondary language

Portuguese served as lingua franca in the Portuguese Empire, 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 Dutch, English or French ships came to compete with the Portuguese, the crews 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 the Portuguese-speaking African countries, East Timor, and to a certain extent in Macau where it is recognized as an official language alongside Chinese though in practice not commonly spoken. Portuguese and Spanish have a certain degree of mutual intelligibility and mixed languages such as Portuñol are used [citation needed] to facilitate communication in areas like the border area between Brazil and Uruguay.

Hindustani

[edit]
Areas (red) where Hindustani (Delhlavi or Kauravi) is the native language, and the much wider area of the Indo-Aryan language group (gray), where it is lingua franca

The Hindustani language is the lingua franca of Pakistan and Northern India.[110][self-published source?][111][page needed] Many Hindi speaking North Indian states have adopted the Three-language formula in which students are taught: "(a) Hindi (with Sanskrit as part of the composite course); (b) Any other modern Indian language including Urdu and (c) English or any other modern European language." The order in non-Hindi speaking states is: "(a) the major language of the state or region; (b) Hindi; (c) Any other modern Indian language including Urdu but excluding (a) and (b) above; and (d) English or any other modern European language."[112] Hindi has also emerged as a lingua franca for the locals of Arunachal Pradesh, a linguistically diverse state in Northeast India.[113][114] It is estimated that 90 percent of the state's population knows Hindi.[115]

Malay

[edit]
Countries where pluricentric Malay is spoken, regardless of standard variety

Malay is understood across a cultural region in Southeast Asia called the "Malay world" including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, southern Thailand, and certain parts of the Philippines. It is pluricentric, with several nations codifying a local vernacular variety into several national literary standards:[116] Indonesia notably adopts a variant spoken in Riau specifically as the basis for "Indonesian" for national use despite Javanese having more native speakers; this standard is the sole official language spoken throughout the vast country despite being the first language of some Indonesians.[117]

Swahili

[edit]
Geographic extent of Swahili. Dark green: native range. Medium green: official use. Light green: bilingual use but not official.

Swahili developed as a lingua franca between several Bantu-speaking tribal groups on the east coast of Africa with heavy influence from Arabic.[118] The earliest examples of writing in Swahili are from 1711.[119] In the early 19th century the use of Swahili as a lingua franca moved inland with the Arabic ivory and slave traders. It was eventually adopted by Europeans as well during periods of colonization in the area. German colonizers used it as the language of administration in German East Africa, later becoming Tanganyika, which influenced the choice to use it as a national language in what is now independent Tanzania.[118] Swahili is currently one of the national languages and it is taught in schools and universities in several East African countries, thus prompting it to be regarded as a modern-day lingua franca by many people in the region. Several Pan-African writers and politicians have unsuccessfully called for Swahili to become the lingua franca of Africa as a means of unifying the African continent and overcoming the legacy of colonialism.[120]

Persian

[edit]
Areas with significant numbers of people whose first language is Persian (including dialects)

Persian, an Iranian language, is the official language of Iran, Afghanistan (Dari) and Tajikistan (Tajik). It acts as a lingua franca in both Iran and Afghanistan between the various ethnic groups in those countries. The Persian language in South Asia, before the British colonized the Indian subcontinent, was the region's lingua franca and a widely used official language in north India and Pakistan.

Hausa

[edit]

Hausa can also be seen as a lingua franca because it is the language of communication between speakers of different languages in Northern Nigeria and other West African countries,[121] including the northern region of Ghana.[122]

Amharic

[edit]

Amharic is the lingua franca and most widely spoken language in Ethiopia, and is known by most people who speak another Ethiopian language.[123][124]

Creole languages

[edit]

Creoles, such as Nigerian Pidgin in Nigeria, are used as lingua francas across the world. This is especially true in Africa, the Caribbean, Melanesia, Southeast Asia and in parts of Australia by Indigenous Australians.

Sign languages

[edit]
Rough territorial extent of Hand Talk (in purple) within the US and Canada

The majority of pre-colonial North American nations communicated internationally using Hand Talk.[125][126] Also called Prairie Sign Language, Plains Indian Sign Language, or First Nations Sign Language, this language functioned predominantly—and still continues to function[127]—as a second language within most of the (now historical) countries of the Great Plains, from Newe Segobia in the West to Anishinaabewaki in the East, down into what are now the northern states of Mexico and up into Cree Country stopping before Denendeh.[128][129] The relationship remains unknown between Hand Talk and other manual Indigenous languages like Keresan Sign Language and Plateau Sign Language, the latter of which is now extinct (though Ktunaxa Sign Language is still used).[130] Although unrelated, perhaps Inuit Sign Language played and continues to play a similar role across Inuit Nunangat and the various Inuit dialects. The original Hand Talk is found across Indian Country in pockets, but it has also been employed to create new or revive old languages, such as with Oneida Sign Language.[131]

International Sign, though a pidgin language, is present at most significant international gatherings, from which interpretations of national sign languages are given, such as in LSF, ASL, BSL, Libras, or Auslan. International Sign, or IS and formerly Gestuno, interpreters can be found at many European Union parliamentary or committee sittings,[132] during certain United Nations affairs,[133] conducting international sporting events like the Deaflympics, in all World Federation of the Deaf functions, and across similar settings. The language has few set internal grammatical rules, instead co-opting national vocabularies of the speaker and audience, and modifying the words to bridge linguistic gaps, with heavy use of gestures and classifiers.[134]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "lingua franca – definition of lingua franca in English from the Oxford dictionary". Oxforddictionaries.com. Archived from the original on 3 July 2013. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  2. ^ Viacheslav A. Chirikba, "The problem of the Caucasian Sprachbund" in Pieter Muysken, ed., From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics, 2008, p. 31. ISBN 90-272-3100-1
  3. ^ Nye, Mary Jo (2016). "Speaking in Tongues: Science's centuries-long hunt for a common language". Distillations. 2 (1): 40–43. Archived from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  4. ^ Gordin, Michael D. (2015). Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226000299.
  5. ^ Italian-Based Pidgins and Lingua Franca. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications. Vol. 14. 1975. pp. 70–72 – via JSTOR.
  6. ^ "vehicular, adj." OED Online. Oxford University Press, July 2018. Web. 1 November 2018.
  7. ^ Intro Sociolinguistics Archived 22 May 2018 at the Wayback MachinePidgin and Creole Languages: Origins and Relationships – Notes for LG102, – University of Essex, Peter L. Patrick – Week 11, Autumn term.
  8. ^ a b LINGUA FRANCA:CHIMERA OR REALITY? (PDF). Publ. Office of the Europ. Union. 2010. ISBN 9789279189876. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 February 2020. Retrieved 15 December 2018.
  9. ^ Romaine, Suzanne (1988). Pidgin and Creole Languages. Longman.
  10. ^ "Lingua Franca, Pidgin, and Creole". 3 April 2015. Archived from the original on 21 August 2020. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  11. ^ "Language – Pidgins and creoles". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 5 December 2014. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  12. ^ "Definition of VERNACULAR". www.merriam-webster.com. Archived from the original on 15 May 2021. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  13. ^ a b Dursteler, Eric R. (2012). "Speaking in Tongues: Language and Communication in the Early Modern Mediterranean". Past & Present (217): 47–77. doi:10.1093/pastj/gts023 – via JSTOR.
  14. ^ Directorate-General for Translation, European Commission (2011). "Studies on translation and multilingualism" (PDF). Europa (web portal). pp. 8, 22–23. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 November 2012. Up to now [constructed languages] have all proved transient and none has actually achieved the status of lingua franca with a large community of fluent speakers.
  15. ^ "lingua franca | linguistics". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 31 July 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
  16. ^ Lexico Triantaphyllide online dictionary, Greek Language Center (Kentro Hellenikes Glossas), lemma Franc ( Φράγκος Phrankos), Lexico tes Neas Hellenikes Glossas, G.Babiniotes, Kentro Lexikologias(Legicology Center) LTD Publications. Komvos.edu.gr. 2002. ISBN 960-86190-1-7. Archived from the original on 24 March 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2015. Franc and (prefix) franco- (Φράγκος Phrankos and φράγκο- phranko-)
  17. ^ "An etymological dictionary of modern English : Weekley, Ernest, 1865–1954 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive". Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  18. ^ [1] Archived 12 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  19. ^ House, Juliane (2003). "English as a lingua franca: A threat to multilingualism?". Journal of Sociolinguistics. 7 (4): 557. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9841.2003.00242.x. ISSN 1467-9841.
  20. ^ Brosch, C. (2015). "On the Conceptual History of the Term Lingua Franca". Apples: Journal of Applied Language Studies. 9 (1): 71–85. doi:10.17011/apples/2015090104.
  21. ^ Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, Simon and Schuster, 1980
  22. ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Etymonline.com. Archived from the original on 11 May 2015. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  23. ^ Morgan, J. (1632). A Compleat History of the Present Seat of War in Africa, Between the Spaniards and Algerines. p. 98. Archived from the original on 17 October 2022. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
  24. ^ a b Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford Dictionaries Online, Oxford University Press, archived from the original on 16 May 2001.
  25. ^ a b c Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, archived from the original on 25 September 2015, retrieved 25 February 2018.
  26. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster, MerriamWebster's Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, archived from the original on 10 October 2020, retrieved 25 February 2018.
  27. ^ Ostler, 2005 pp. 38–40
  28. ^ Ostler, 2010 pp. 163–167
  29. ^ The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel. Nicholas Ostler. Ch.7. ISBN 978-0802717719
  30. ^ A Dictionary of Buddhism p.350 ISBN 0191579173
  31. ^ Before the European Challenge: The Great Civilizations of Asia and the Middle East p.180 ISBN 0791401685
  32. ^ Sheldon Pollock (1996). Jan E. M. Houben (ed.). Ideology and Status of Sanskrit. BRILL Academic. pp. 197–223 with footnotes. ISBN 978-90-04-10613-0. Archived from the original on 17 October 2022. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
  33. ^ William S.-Y. Wang; Chaofen Sun (2015). The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics. Oxford University Press. pp. 6–19, 203–212, 236–245. ISBN 978-0-19-985633-6. Archived from the original on 17 October 2022. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
  34. ^ Burrow, Thomas (1973). The Sanskrit Language (3rd, revised ed.). London: Faber & Faber. pp. 63–66.
  35. ^ "Reclaiming a Common Language | BU Today". Boston University. 28 April 2015. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  36. ^ "Koine". CollinsDictionary.com. HarperCollins. Retrieved 24 September 2014.
  37. ^ "Koine". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d.
  38. ^ "Koine". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary.
  39. ^ Bubenik, V. (2007). "The rise of Koiné". In A. F. Christidis (ed.). A history of Ancient Greek: from the beginnings to late antiquity. Cambridge: University Press. pp. 342–345.
  40. ^ Scroll.in – News. Politics. Culture., scroll.in, 6 February 2015, archived from the original on 8 February 2015, retrieved 29 March 2022
  41. ^ Talbot, Cynthia (2001), Precolonial India in practice: Society, Region and Identity in Medieval Andhra, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 27–37, ISBN 978-0-19-513661-6
  42. ^ Murthy, Srinivasa; Rao, Surendra; Veluthat, Kesavan; Bari, S.A. (1990), Essays on Indian History and culture: Felicitation volume in Honour of Professor B. Sheik Ali, New Delhi: Mittal, pp. 85–106, ISBN 978-81-7099-211-0
  43. ^ a b c "History of the Māori language". nzhistory.govt.nz. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
  44. ^ Ko Aotearoa Tēnei, Te Taumata Tuarua - Wai 262 (2011), Waitangi Tribunal, pp. 41
  45. ^ Preservation of Classical Maori', from An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/1966/maori-language/page-10 (accessed 16 Mar 2024)
  46. ^ Belich, Jamie (1996). Making Peoples: A History of New Zealanders (1st ed.). Auckland: Penguin Books New Zealand. pp. 57, 67. ISBN 9781742288222.
  47. ^ "New Zealand literature - Modern Maori, Poetry, Novels | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  48. ^ High or Classical Māori: Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 21. 5 September 1973
  49. ^ https://teara.govt.nz/en/economic-history/page-2
  50. ^ Brar, Atarjit. "LibGuides: The Polynesian expansion across the Pacific: Maori". libguides.stalbanssc.vic.edu.au. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
  51. ^ "The Post". www.thepost.co.nz. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  52. ^ Benton, Richard A. "CHANGES IN LANGUAGE USE IN A RURAL MAORI COMMUNITY 1963-1978." The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 89, no. 4, 1980, pp. 455–78. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20705517. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.
  53. ^ "The Post". www.thepost.co.nz. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  54. ^ Coffey, Clare. "Demand For Māori Language Skills at Work Rises in New Zealand". Lightcast. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  55. ^ "Revitalizing Endangered Languages". THE INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  56. ^ a b "Revitalizing Endangered Languages". THE INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
  57. ^ Coffey, Clare. "Demand For Māori Language Skills at Work Rises in New Zealand". Lightcast. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  58. ^ "The Post". www.thepost.co.nz. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  59. ^ https://teara.govt.nz/en/te-maori-i-te-ohanga-maori-in-the-economy/page-3
  60. ^ Lung, Rachel (2011). Interpreters in Early Imperial China. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 151–154. ISBN 9789027284181.
  61. ^ "Who Were the Sogdians, | The Sogdians". sogdians.si.edu. Archived from the original on 11 September 2021. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  62. ^ Wells, John C. (2008), Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.), Longman, ISBN 9781405881180
  63. ^ Jones, Daniel (2003) [1917], Peter Roach; James Hartmann; Jane Setter (eds.), English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-3-12-539683-8
  64. ^ Henry Romanos Kahane. The Lingua Franca in the Levant (Turkish Nautical Terms of Italian and Greek Origin)
  65. ^ "Italian: The Language That Sings". NPR.org. Archived from the original on 17 October 2022. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  66. ^ "Why Italian is the language of music and opera". I Virtuosi dell'Opera Di Roma. 4 January 2022. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  67. ^ See Itier (2000: 47) for the distinction between the first and second enumerated senses, and the quote below for their partial identification.
  68. ^ Snow, Charles T., Louisa Rowell Stark. 1971. Ancash Quechua: A Pedagogical Grammar. P.V 'The Quechua language is generally associated with the "classical" Quechua of the Cuzco area, which was used as a lingua franca through Peru and Bolivia with the spread of the Inca Empire'
  69. ^ Following the terminology of Durston 2007: 40
  70. ^ Durston 2007: 40, 322
  71. ^ Beyersdorff, Margot, Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz. 1994. Andean Oral Traditions: Discourse and Literature. P.275. 'the primarily catechetical domain of this lingua franca – sometimes referred to as "classical" Quechua'...
  72. ^ Bills, Garland D., Bernardo Valejo. 1969. P. XV. 'Immediately following the Spanish Conquest the Quechua language, especially the prestigious "classical" Quechua of the Cuzco area, was used as a lingua franca throughout the Andean region by both missionaries and administrators.'
  73. ^ Cf. also Durston (2007: 17): 'The 1550–1650 period can be considered both formative and classical in relation to the late colonial and republican production'.
  74. ^ See e.g. Taylor 1975: 7–8 for the dating and the name lengua general and Adelaar 2007: 183 for the dating
  75. ^ Following the terminology of Durston (2007: 40)
  76. ^ Lars Johanson; Éva Á. Castó (1998). "14". The Turkic Languages. Routledge. pp. 248–261.
  77. ^ a b "The Linguistic Colonialism of English". Brown Political Review. 25 April 2017. Archived from the original on 24 April 2021. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  78. ^ English at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019) Closed access icon
  79. ^ Chua, Amy (18 January 2022). "How the English Language Conquered the World". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 1 March 2022.
  80. ^ Tan, Jason (1997). "Education and Colonial Transition in Singapore and Hong Kong: Comparisons and Contrasts". Comparative Education. 33 (2): 303–312. doi:10.1080/03050069728587 – via JSTOR.
  81. ^ "Pure Fiji English (Basilectal FijiE)". The Electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English. 2020.
  82. ^ "Why Does Everyone Speak English in Fiji?". Raiwasa Private Resort. 26 February 2018. Archived from the original on 27 August 2022. Retrieved 5 December 2023.
  83. ^ a b Tweedie, Gregory; Johnson, Robert. "Listening instruction and patient safety: Exploring medical English as a lingua franca (MELF) for nursing education". Archived from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  84. ^ Stephens, Thomas (4 April 2021). "English as a common language in Switzerland: a positive or a problem?". Retrieved 4 December 2023.
  85. ^ Mollin, Sandra (2005). Euro-English assessing variety status. Tübingen: Narr. ISBN 382336250X.
  86. ^ Alan Grier, David (2017). "The Lingua Franca of Technology". Computer. 50 (8): 104. doi:10.1109/MC.2017.3001253.
  87. ^ Stavans, Ilan (26 April 2017). "The Spanish Language in Latin America since Independence". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.371. ISBN 978-0-19-936643-9. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  88. ^ Granda, Germán de (1 January 1991). El Español en Tres Mundos: Retenciones y Contactos Lingüísticos en América y África (in Spanish). Universidad de Valladolid, Secretariado de Publicaciones. ISBN 9788477622062.
  89. ^ Macías, Reynaldo (2014). "Spanish as the Second National Language of the United States: Fact, Future, Fiction, or Hope?". Review of Research in Education. 38: 33–57. doi:10.3102/0091732X13506544. JSTOR 43284061. S2CID 143648085.
  90. ^ Lynch, Andrew (2023). "Heritage language socialization at work: Spanish in Miami". Journal of World Languages. 9 (1): 111–132. doi:10.1515/jwl-2022-0048. S2CID 255570955.
  91. ^ "¿Por qué los brasileños deben aprender español?" Archived 17 October 2022 at the Wayback Machine – Copyright 2003 Quaderns Digitals Todos los derechos reservados ISSN 1575-9393.
  92. ^ Spanish in the World Archived 6 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Language Magazine, 18 November 2019.
  93. ^ a b Wright, Sue (2006). "French as a lingua franca". Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. 26: 35–60. doi:10.1017/S0267190506000031.
  94. ^ Marc Fumaroli (2011). When The World Spoke French. Translated by Richard Howard. New York Review of Books. ISBN 978-1590173756.
  95. ^ Meisler, Stanley (1 March 1986). "Seduction Still Works : French—a Language in Decline". The Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 18 October 2021.
  96. ^ The World's 10 Most Influential Languages Archived 12 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine Top Languages. Retrieved 11 April 2011.
  97. ^ Battye, Adrian; Hintze, Marie-Anne; Rowlett, Paul (2003). The French Language Today: A Linguistic Introduction. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-203-41796-6. Archived from the original on 17 October 2022. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
  98. ^ What are the official languages of the United Nations?, Ask UN, 23 December 2023.
  99. ^ "Why the future of French is African". BBC News. 7 April 2019. Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  100. ^ Maamri, Malika Rebai. "The Syndrome of the French Language in Algeria." (Archive) International Journal of Arts and Sciences. 3(3): 77 – 89 (2009) CD-ROM. ISSN 1944-6934 p. 10 of 13
  101. ^ Stevens, Paul (1980). "Modernism and Authenticity as Reflected in Language Attitudes : The Case of Tunisia". Vol. 30, no. 1/2. Civilisations. pp. 37–59. JSTOR 41802986.
  102. ^ Felicien, Marie Michelle. Schools Teaching in Creole Instead of French on the Rise in Haiti, Global Press Journal, 13 November 2019
  103. ^ Notaker, Henry. How French Cuisine Took Over the World, excerpt from A History of Cookbooks From Kitchen to Page over Seven Centuries, University of California Press, 13 September 2017.
  104. ^ Chazan, Guy and Jim Brunsden. Push to bid adieu to English as EU’s lingua franca, Financial Times, 28 June 2016.
  105. ^ Rankin, Jennifer. Brexit: English is losing its importance in Europe, says Juncker, The Guardian, 5 May 2017.
  106. ^ Li, David (2006). "Chinese as a lingua franca in Greater China". Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. 26: 149–176. doi:10.1017/S0267190506000080.
  107. ^ M. A., Geography; B. A., English and Geography. "How Lingua Franca Helps Different Cultures to Communicate". ThoughtCo. Archived from the original on 17 October 2022. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  108. ^ Simeone-Sinelle, Marie-Claude (2005). "Arabic Lingua Franca in the Horn of Africa". Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. 2 – via Academia.edu.
  109. ^ "Department for General Assembly and Conference Management – What are the official languages of the United Nations?". United Nations. Archived from the original on 12 October 2007. Retrieved 25 January 2008.
  110. ^ Mohammad Tahsin Siddiqi (1994), Hindustani-English code-mixing in modern literary texts, University of Wisconsin, archived from the original on 17 October 2022, retrieved 18 August 2020, ... Hindustani is the lingua franca of both India and Pakistan ...[self-published source]
  111. ^ Lydia Mihelič Pulsipher; Alex Pulsipher; Holly M. Hapke (2005), World Regional Geography: Global Patterns, Local Lives, Macmillan, ISBN 0-7167-1904-5, archived from the original on 17 October 2022, retrieved 18 August 2020, ... By the time of British colonialism, Hindustani was the lingua franca of all of northern India and what is today Pakistan ...
  112. ^ "Three Language Formula". Government of India Ministry of Human Resource Development Department of Education. Archived from the original on 22 February 2012. Retrieved 16 May 2016.
  113. ^ Chandra, Abhimanyu (22 August 2014). "How Hindi Became the Language of Choice in Arunachal Pradesh." Archived 21 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine Scroll.in. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  114. ^ "Census of India Website : Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India". Archived from the original on 13 November 2019. Retrieved 17 October 2022.
  115. ^ Roychowdhury, Adrija (27 February 2018). "How Hindi Became Arunachal Pradesh's Lingua Franca." Archived 21 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine The Indian Express. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  116. ^ Asmah Haji Omar (1992). "Malay as a pluricentric language". In Clyne, Michael G. (ed.). Pluricentric Languages. Gruyter. pp. 402–3, 413. ISBN 3-11-012855-1.
  117. ^ "Indonesian". Asian Languages & Literature. University of Washington. Archived from the original on 16 May 2021. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  118. ^ a b "Swahili language". Encyclopædia Britannica. 27 August 2014. Archived from the original on 23 July 2019. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  119. ^ E. A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London, 1975.., pp. 98–99 ; T. Vernet, "Les cités-Etats swahili et la puissance omanaise (1650–1720), Journal des Africanistes, 72(2), 2002, pp. 102–105.
  120. ^ Dzahene-Quarshie, Josephine (December 2013). "Ghana's Contribution to the Promotion of Kiswahili: Challenges and Prospects for African Unity". Journal of Pan African Studies. 6: 69–85 – via Academic Search Complete.
  121. ^ "Hausa Language: 4 interesting things you should know about Nigeria's most widely spoken dialect". Pulse Nigeria. 23 March 2021. Archived from the original on 21 April 2021. Retrieved 21 April 2021.
  122. ^ Obeng, Samuel Gyasi (1997). "An Analysis of the Linguistic Situation in Ghana". African Languages and Cultures. 10: 63–81. doi:10.1080/09544169708717813 – via JSTOR.
  123. ^ "Amharic Language: How it become Ethiopia's Lingua Franca – Addis Herald".
  124. ^ "Amharic as a lingua franca and tool of domination". 12 January 2022.
  125. ^ "Plains Indian Sign Language". Sam Noble Museum. 21 December 2017. Archived from the original on 24 April 2021. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  126. ^ Graber, Jennifer (9 May 2018). "Who put Native American sign language in the US mail?". OUPblog. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 15 February 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  127. ^ Hilleary, Cecily (3 April 2017). "Native American Hand Talkers Fight to Keep Sign Language Alive". VOA. Archived from the original on 17 October 2022. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  128. ^ "Indian Sign Language Council of 1930". YouTube. Grande Polpo Deaf. 9 June 2012. Archived from the original on 17 October 2022. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  129. ^ Tomkins, William. Indian sign language. [Republication of "Universal Indian Sign Language of the Plains Indians of North America" 5th ed. 1931]. New York : Dover Publications 1969. (p. 7)
  130. ^ Flynn, Darin. "Indigenous sign languages in Canada". University of Calgary. Archived from the original on 11 May 2021. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  131. ^ "Oneida Sign language created to connect deaf community with culture | CBC News". NewsHub. Archived from the original on 30 October 2021. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  132. ^ "International Sign". European Union of the Deaf. Archived from the original on 28 November 2018. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  133. ^ "A Disability-Inclusive Response to COVID-19 – Policy Brief Executive Summary (International Sign Language)". UN Web TV. United Nations. Archived from the original on 11 May 2021. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  134. ^ "DEAFGPS: International Sign Connects". YouTube. H3 WORLD TV. 26 July 2019. Archived from the original on 30 October 2021. Retrieved 11 May 2021.

Further reading

[edit]
[edit]