What is a lingua franca? A brief history, from the Crusades to today

By Alexandra Aikhenvald, Professor and Australian Laureate Fellow, Jawun Research Institute, CQUniversity Australia

When the Crusaders descended upon the eastern shores of the Mediterranean at the end of the 11th century, they had to communicate with each other, with traders and with locals.

Many of them spoke different Romance languages: Italian (especially from the then powerful city-states of Venice and Genoa), Provençal, French or their forerunner, Latin.

Most Westerners in southern Europe were French, especially from between Marseilles and Genoa, from where ships and traders sailed towards the Middle East. These…

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