English as a lingua franca

[Laurence Horn]

>The 'franca' in the expression probably refers to a Germanic
>language and not to French.
>
>At 01:33 PM 4/26/01 EDT, you wrote:
>  >>>>
>      (At least the French can take comfort
>in the term "lingua franca."  The phrase, if
>not the reality...very much to gallic tastes,
>that.)
><<<<

Well, I was looking at that too.  I had assumed, quite possibly
without foundation, that the "franc-" stem here doesn't really refer
directly to a language, but derives from the Frankish people via the
connection with the meaning of 'free' (obviously preserved in mod.
Eng. "frank", "frankly", etc.).  Here's the OED on this, at "frank",
an interesting history even if not directly relevant to the current
topic:

FRANK, adj.
[med.Lat. francus free; originally identical with the ethnic name
Francus (see Frank sb.1), which acquired the sense of `free' because
in Frankish Gaul full freedom was possessed only by
those belonging to, or adopted into, the dominant people. Cf. the use
of the originally ethnic name slave, and of OE. wealh, orig.
`Welshman', to denote a person of servile condition. ]

(This reference to the source of "slave" as an etymological ethnic
slur was something that didn't come up in our earlier discussion of
such labels.)

There are related senses of "frank" as 'generous, liberal', 'open',
or predictably in the negative sense of 'unchaste' when applied to
women.  The question, though, is whether the "franca" of "lingua
franca" is the feminine form of the medieval Latin, and presumably
Italian, adjective "francus"/"franco", or whether it refers directly
to Frankish or French.  In the latter case, is the reference really
to "Italian mixed with French (and other languages)" (as the AHD4
claims) or to "Italian mixed with (Germanic) Frankish", as Bob Wachal
claims above?  I have no idea.  In either case, the current speakers
of French are indeed heirs to the nation of Frankish
speakers--"Frankish Gaul"--as preserved in the name of the country
and language, and thus may well take comfort and cultural pride from
"lingua franca".  Someone must have looked at this in much more
detail.

larry
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/attachments/20010427/536da26e/attachment.htm>