this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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Interestingly, while French was the lingua franca of Europe for several hundred years, it wasn't the origin of the term 'Lingua Franca'.
That term meant the "language of the Franks" and was the Mediterranean trade language in the medieval through Renaissance eras. It was actually a pidgin of Italian, French, Greek and Arabic adopted as being roughly mutually intelligible among Venetians, Byzantines and North Africans.
The reference to the 'Franks' is because the generic word for a western European (in the Byzantine, Greek world) had long been "Frank".
No kidding? That's what I get for just accepting information without checking it! I heard that from an old family member and have never bothered to question it
Thank you, for the correction and doing in such a friendly way :)
I always thought the same thing! I only found this out relatively recently, and I thought it was pretty cool