Lingua Franca
The definition of lingua franca accepted by most sources is a common language used by people who normally speak other languages. As the British Empire grew, the English language grew in importance, spread all over the world by the many British colonies, it stayed as an official language in many of them even after the colonies were their own countries again. Throughout human history, various languages have been the primary Lingua Franca, like for example Latin during the height of the Roman Empire. Arabic too was a lingua franca among the counties in the Islamic Empire, till the fall of the Ottoman Empire. German, or a form of it, was the lingua franca of the Holy Roman Empire, from the time of Charlemagne to the 16th century. Read more ... |
Pidgens & Creoles
A pidgin arises when speakers of two different languages encounter one another and have a need for limited communications. The pidgin incorporates words from both source languages and has a simplified grammatical structure, just enough to allow some communication. A pidgin is never a person's native language. A pidgin evolves among adult native speakers of different languages. In contrast, a Creole is a fully-functional language of its own which includes elements of its parent languages. A Creole language develops among the children of pidgin speakers. A Creole is a native language to its speakers (although they may also speak a mother language in addition). |
|
|