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Borrowed words and phrases can lead to weird things that we don't even notice. For example the author of the essay casually calls English the lingua franca wit

by btilly 4y ago

Borrowed words and phrases can lead to weird things that we don't even notice. For example the author of the essay casually calls English the lingua franca without pausing to realize that he's using an Italian phrase for "French language", and means English by it! This borrowing, adapting and linguistic evolution has been going on for a very long time.

henrikschroder 4y ago
Well, English is the lingua franca du jour, after all!
- jamiek88 4y ago
  That’s because the English are very industrious, not like the French who don’t even have a word for entrepreneur!
  - lesquivemeau 4y ago
    /s i suppose
  - feintruled 4y ago
    Reminds me of the gag, "English is the best language as it always has a mot juste for everything"
    - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
      English has lots and lots and lots of vocabulary. Of course, a lot of that vocabulary still has tags on it saying "PROPERTY OF SPANISH" or "IF FOUND, RETURN TO FRANCE".
      - CRConrad 4y ago
        Kind of like the English, while in many senses having lost their marbles, still have a lot of marbles with "Return to..." labels on them.
- ElfinTrousers 4y ago
  Which I bet the French just _love_.
mgraupner 4y ago
Definition of lingua franca: "bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca And it does not mean French, but Frankisch tongue. And by the definition this phrase means "language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language" - which is English nowadays, at least in the Western Hemisphere.
- CRConrad 4y ago
  > And it does not mean French, but Frankisch tongue. Yeah, but "Frankish" in the sense of what we now call French. What is nowadays called "Fränkisch" is the dialect of German spoken in the north-west corner of Bavaria, and that sure as fuck wasn't what was used as a universal pidgin around the Mediterranean in the days of the Crusades. > And by the definition this phrase means "language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language" - which is English nowadays, at least in the Western Hemisphere. Yup. Which in the days of the Crusades was a mixture of many tongues, prominent among them knights from, if not then, then what is now France and whose language(s) even then were seen as variants or close relatives of that "Frankish" we now call French.
piaste 4y ago
> an Italian phrase for "French language" Nitpicking: 'lingua franca' actually referred to an Italian-based Mediterranean pidgin. It was called 'franca' because Byzantine and Muslim peoples would call all Western European peoples 'Franks'.

by btilly 4y ago

henrikschroder 4y ago

Well, English is the lingua franca du jour, after all!

jamiek88 4y ago
That’s because the English are very industrious, not like the French who don’t even have a word for entrepreneur!
- lesquivemeau 4y ago
  /s i suppose
- feintruled 4y ago
  Reminds me of the gag, "English is the best language as it always has a mot juste for everything"
  - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
    English has lots and lots and lots of vocabulary. Of course, a lot of that vocabulary still has tags on it saying "PROPERTY OF SPANISH" or "IF FOUND, RETURN TO FRANCE".
    - CRConrad 4y ago
      Kind of like the English, while in many senses having lost their marbles, still have a lot of marbles with "Return to..." labels on them.
ElfinTrousers 4y ago
Which I bet the French just _love_.

mgraupner 4y ago

Definition of lingua franca: "bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca And it does not mean French, but Frankisch tongue. And by the definition this phrase means "language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language" - which is English nowadays, at least in the Western Hemisphere.

CRConrad 4y ago
> And it does not mean French, but Frankisch tongue. Yeah, but "Frankish" in the sense of what we now call French. What is nowadays called "Fränkisch" is the dialect of German spoken in the north-west corner of Bavaria, and that sure as fuck wasn't what was used as a universal pidgin around the Mediterranean in the days of the Crusades. > And by the definition this phrase means "language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language" - which is English nowadays, at least in the Western Hemisphere. Yup. Which in the days of the Crusades was a mixture of many tongues, prominent among them knights from, if not then, then what is now France and whose language(s) even then were seen as variants or close relatives of that "Frankish" we now call French.

piaste 4y ago

> an Italian phrase for "French language" Nitpicking: 'lingua franca' actually referred to an Italian-based Mediterranean pidgin. It was called 'franca' because Byzantine and Muslim peoples would call all Western European peoples 'Franks'.