> with French as a "lingua ...franca" for a large area of the world Fun fact—lingua franca is often assumed to refer to French, because French was the most pro

> with French as a "lingua ...franca" for a large area of the world Fun fact—lingua franca is often assumed to refer to French, because French was the most prominent lingua franca until English, but it actually originally referenced a pidgin (mostly simplified Italian) used for trade in the eastern Mediterranean. At the time people in the East often referred to all Western Europeans as Franks, so lingua franca mostly meant "the language used by westerners".