English as a lingua franca

[Gregory {Greg} Downing]

At 10:58 AM 4/27/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>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.
>
>**********************************************************
>Salikoko S. Mufwene                        s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
>

Perhaps likewise of interest in this regard is the etymology of the
sometimes pejorative "farengi" (foreign, western) used in India, plus all
the related terms employed throughout Asia -- see e.g. the Linguist List
archive:

www.linguistlist.org/issues/4/4-492.html



Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at nyu.edu