From the wikipedia article on Mediterranean Lingua Franca > Based mostly on Northern Italian languages (mainly Venetian and Genoese dialects) and secondarily f

From the wikipedia article on Mediterranean Lingua Franca > Based mostly on Northern Italian languages (mainly Venetian and Genoese dialects) and secondarily from Occitano-Romance languages... So it's not the "language of Franks". Also, > Lingua franca means literally "language of the Franks" in Late Latin, and originally referred specifically to the language that was used around the Eastern Mediterranean Sea as the main language of commerce. However, the terms "Franks" and "Frankish" were actually applied to all Western Europeans during the late Byzantine Period.