Lingua franca

A language used for communication among people who do not share a first language. It may be native to some participants or learned by all.

English as a lingua franca: The use of English as a shared language among people with different first languages. English serves this role in international business, education, travel, and digital communication.
Mediterranean Lingua Franca: A pidgin used for trade and communication around the Mediterranean from the medieval period into the nineteenth century. This historical contact language gave the broader concept its name.
Second-language acquisition: The process of learning a language after acquiring a first language. A lingua franca often depends on participants learning a shared language beyond their mother tongues.
Linguistic imperialism: The dominance of a language that marginalizes other languages through political, economic, or cultural power. The spread of a lingua franca can expand communication while reinforcing unequal language hierarchies.
Swahili: A Bantu language spoken widely in East Africa, including as a second language. It enables communication across many language communities in East Africa.
Koine Greek: The common form of Greek that spread across the eastern Mediterranean after Alexander the Great's conquests. Its spread illustrates how conquest and shared institutions can establish a regional lingua franca.
Code-switching: The alternating use of languages or language varieties within a conversation or other discourse. Speakers may shift between a lingua franca and local languages as participants and purposes change.
Language shift: The gradual replacement of one language by another within a community across generations. A widely used lingua franca can contribute to declining use of local languages.
Classical Arabic: The formal variety of Arabic used in the Quran and in classical literary and scholarly works. It historically connected scholarship and religious life across regions with diverse spoken languages.
Latin: An ancient Italic language that became the language of the Roman Empire and later of Western European scholarship and worship. Its long use across political and scholarly networks made it a major historical bridge language.

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