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I remember reading 17th century letters from Dutch diplomats. They used French to write back home- except when they talked about money. Such matters required a
by expedition32 5mo ago
I remember reading 17th century letters from Dutch diplomats. They used French to write back home- except when they talked about money. Such matters required a higher form of communication.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- shadowtree 5mo agoLingua Franca, like literally. French used to be the language of diplomacy.
- rafram 5mo agoLingua franca actually comes from the Mediterranean Lingua Franca [1], which was mostly derived from Northern Italian languages, not French. French eventually became the "lingua franca," but it wasn't widespread (or even clearly defined) when that term started being used. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca
- giraffe_lady 5mo agoThere's a lot of french in tolstoy too, and I believe most of the dialog can be inferred to be in french but is in russian for literary reasons. French was the daily home language of the russian imperial aristocracy. They spoke russian with an accent.
- ForHackernews 5mo agoNabokov was famously raised trilingual in Russian, English, and French by his Russian aristocratic family.