English as a lingua franca

[Peter Richardson]

> 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".

Well, then the Germans can wade in, and not just those from Frankfurt, but
the speakers of the Franconian dialects from Nuernberg/Heilbronn north and
east--and the Dutch, too, with Low Franconian extending all the way to the
North Sea. Charlemagne's native language, after all, was a dialect of
Franconian German (not French), and we shouldn't be misled by this
version of his name in English to think otherwise. Personally, I'm
delighted if the French find comfort in "lingua franca," but they're
hardly the only ones who have legitimate claim to the term. Maybe "lingua
romana/latina" for the universal that English seems to have become? It
would more closely approximate the range and influence of the current
lingua americana.

PR