Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Trade and commerce stimulate the formation of new,
hybrid languages to facilitate such interaction, but other,
local languages collapse under the onslaught of change.
Although new languages are created through trade and
interaction over time, local languages with few native
speakers are becoming extinct. Globalization is shrink-
ing the world's linguistic heritage. Anthropologist Wade
Davis estimates that half of “the world's 7000 languages
are endangered.” Davis argues that most languages are
lost because one group dominates another and the domi-
nant language is privileged, which is “driving vibrant peo-
ples and languages out of existence.”
mixture of two or more languages. When people speak-
ing two or more languages are in contact and they com-
bine parts of their languages in a simplifi ed structure and
vocabulary, we call it a
pidgin language
.
The fi rst widely known lingua franca was a pidgin
language. During the 1200s seaborne commerce in the
Mediterranean Sea expanded, and traders from the ports
of southern France (the Franks) revitalized the ports of
the eastern Mediterranean. But the local traders did not
speak the seafarers' language. Thus began a process of
convergence in which the tongue of the Franks was mixed
with Italian, Greek, Spanish, and Arabic. The mixture
came to be known as the Frankish language, or lingua
franca, and it served for centuries as the common tongue
of Mediterranean commerce.
The term
lingua franca
is still used to denote a com-
mon language used for trade and commerce that is spoken
by peoples with different native tongues. Arabic became a
lingua franca during the expansion of Islam, and English did
so in many areas during the colonial era. English is the only
linguistic common denominator that binds together multi-
lingual India—both in India itself and among those from the
subcontinent who have migrated to other areas (Fig. 6.16).
Lingua Franca
Even before the expansion of trade encouraged the global
diffusion of languages such as English and Spanish,
regional trade encouraged people speaking different
tongues to fi nd ways to communicate with one another.
A
lingua franca
is a language used among speakers of dif-
ferent languages for the purposes of trade and commerce.
A lingua franca can be a single language, or it can be a
Figure 6.16
Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The message on the back of the bench is written in the lingua
franca known to virtually all Indian migrants to the Arabian Peninsula.
© Alexander B. Murphy
.
