LINGUA FRANCA

auxiliary or compromise language used between groups having no other language in common. Examples are English and French for diplomatic purposes, Swahili in eastern Africa, Hindi and English in India, Melanesian Pidgin in the South Pacific, and Bazaar Malay in the East Indian archipelago. The term lingua franca (Frankish language) was perhaps first applied to a jargon or pidgin based on southern French and Italian, developed by crusaders and traders for use in the eastern Mediterranean during the Middle Ages. In the post-Renaissance period of European exploration, many other such contact languages developede.g., Indo-Portuguese (Ceylon), Annamite-French (Indochina), Papiamento (based on Spanish, spoken in Curaao), and several types of Pidgin Englishall of these based on the languages of the European colonizing nations. Insofar as a European language was simplified or distorted in pronunciation or grammar, it became a pidgin. When such a pidgin or other lingua franca replaced the original language of a speech community, it became a creole (q.v.).