English as a lingua franca

[Salikoko Mufwene]

At 10:04 AM 4/27/2001 -0500, Robert Wachal wrote:
>
> The 'franca' in the expression probably refers to a Germanic language and
not
> to French.



   When the term was coined, I think the Arabs referred to populations
north of
the Mediterranean as the Franks. The term literally meant 'language of the
Franks'. I have no idea what correlation it has with the fact that the French
had also been "colonized" by the Frankish Germans.

Sali.

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Salikoko S. Mufwene                        s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
University of Chicago                      773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924
Department of Linguistics
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html
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