Lingua Franca

lingua franca língua franca English Etymology See en lingua franca. Proper noun 1 en historical archaic Sabir, the Italian-based pidgin that served as a common language of Mediterranean trade around the 11th-19th centuries. en Mediterranean Lingua Franca I 30 There were ſeveral of his Prieſts and Lawyers preſent, (as I conjectured by their habits) who were commanded to addreſs themſelves to me, and I ſpoke to them in as many Languages as I had the leaſt ſmattering of, which were High and Low Dutch, Latin, French, Spaniſh, Italian, and Lingua Franca; but all to no purpoſe. en 1864 w:J.C. Hotten w:The Slang Dictionary 22 ...the Lingua Franca, or bastard Italian, spoken at Genoa, Trieste, Malta, Constantinople, Smyrna, Alexandria, and all Mediterranean seaport towns. The ingredients of this imported Cant are many. Its foundation is Italian, with a mixture of modern Greek, German, (from the Austrian ports,) Spanish, Turkish, and French. en 1961 Eric Partridge The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang ...tusheroon and its C.20 variant tossaroon (2s. 6d.) are manifest corruptions of Lingua Franca MADZA CAROON. Usage notes Formerly the language's most common English name, Lingua Franca is now usually referred to as en Sabir or the en Mediterranean Lingua Franca in order to avoid confusion with the generic, lowercase term en lingua franca. Traditionally, the term is not prefaced by the. Further reading Mediterranean Lingua Franca