A lingua franca is a language used to make communication possible by groups of people that don’t have a language or dialect in common. The term dates from the Middle Ages when a patois developed in the Mediterranean and the Levant that was a mash-up of Italian and Spanish. It wasn’t precise or pretty, but it got the job done. In the modern world, English is the language of business. There are a lot of reasons for this, but it has much to do with the British Empire, later abetted by Britain’s fractious offspring, the United States. I mention this to tell how one word got in our mouths as a consequence. Here it is.
© 2024 John Oliver
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