• Corpus ID: 208221611

An Approach to the Lingua Franca of the Mediterranean

@inproceedings{Daz2008AnAT,
  title={An Approach to the Lingua Franca of the Mediterranean},
  author={Eva Mart{\'i}nez D{\'i}az},
  year={2008}
}

• E. M. Díaz
• Published 2008
• Linguistics

There are certain languages that have been created as a result of the difficulty of communication between people who speak distinct languages but have common interests. Faced with this linguistic situation, the speakers are capable of creating a specific language for these contexts in which there is a community of interests; this common communication system is known as the lingua franca. The aim of these pages is to analyse the lingua franca created on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea from the 15th century until the late 19th century. There is no intention to describe its linguistic system but to define what exactly must be understood by the lingua franca of the Mediterranean. For this it will be necessary to delimit this concept with others closely related and to present, in general terms, the social, political and military factors that helped the birth of a common communication system throughout the Mediterranean basin. Towards the end of 1951, the lingua franca was defined as what was normally used by speakers of different mother tongues in order to be able to establish communication between them (UNESCO, 1972: 689). When using a lingua franca, the speakers of different linguistic systems pursue one objective or a variety of ends: trade, political, military, cultural, administrative or religious relations. These ends are those that justify some of the synonymous, or almost synonymous, terms of the lingua franca that form part of the bibliography of the subject: trade language, contact language or international language. All these terms have the common denominator of forming a language created by the need to bring different linguistic communities together. However, to better understand what a lingua franca is we must finish defining it in relation to other terms with which it tends to be confused: koine, pidgin and jargon. A koine and a lingua franca are linguistic systems shared by speakers of different vernacular languages. However, koine can be identified with one of these vernacular languages or with any of the varieties of the same language. Moreover, pidgin is an interlinguistic variety – a mixed language – which is not acquired as the mother tongue by any social group (Silva-Corvalán, 1989: 190). When pidgin is established linguistically and socially – the process of “pidginisation” –, expanding its vocabulary and making its system more complex, it can give way to what is known as a Creole language, which is acquired as the mother tongue and usually establishes itself as the national language. According to Samarin (1972), a lingua franca is a pidgin language, a hybrid or mixed language. In addition, jargon, just like koine and pidgin, is a variety of common language which is only used by determined groups or social communities. Specifically, the lingua franca which is the object of this study was born at the end of the Middle Ages with the political and, above all, economic expansion of the main maritime cities of the Mediterranean, which would leave so many marks throughout their area of influence. A language of international communication was constructed, which developed a more