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Yep. Latin was the lingua franca (or at least one of the major ones) in Europe until 1800 or so, more than 1000 years after the fall of the western Roman Empire
by School-Cotton 5y ago
Yep. Latin was the lingua franca (or at least one of the major ones) in Europe until 1800 or so, more than 1000 years after the fall of the western Roman Empire.
- CryptoPunk 5y agoWas Latin really the lingua franca, or just the language of liturgy, over that period?
- inawarminister 5y agoLatin was also the lingua franca of nobles and merchants. Lingua Franca Mediterrania itself, the language spoken by medieval sailors in Italy, Egypt, and nearly all the coastline of Mediterranean is a creole of Italian, Portuguese, and Arabic. To the point that Shakespearean Moors spoke it as "Arabic". Then, the language of science until the 1900s is Latin. Isaac Newton wrote in Latin. Nearly all scientific papers and books were published in "Neolatin".
- kragen 5y agoLatin was also the language of academia, which gradually separated from the Church starting in the Late Middle Ages.
- School-Cotton 5y agoBoth. (Less and less towards the end, of course).
- cowl 5y agoMaybe you are confusing what lingua franca means. Yes the literature used Latin but at that period only a tiny fraction of people could read or write. There where many more languages that we even have today spoken by the general populace. French maybe came close to being a Lingua Franca in the 18-19th century when almost all aristocracy could speak, read and write it but then again the people did not. The Real Lingua Franca was a mix of Italian, French, Spanish and Greek that was used by the merchants of the Mediterranean. Only English has the People Mass to be considered a Lingua Franca for all intents and purposes.
- oblio 5y agoSpanish, too.