this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2025
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Just an hour ago I changed my profile mentioning Lingua Franca because I'm downvoting non-English posts not using language tags... the last time I heard that word being used was probably like... 20 years ago maybe? It's not a common word specially because the word itself doesn't make much sense anymore (been several decades that French is no longer the trade language, so it just sounds funny)... and after just mentioning it in my profile I see it being used again... by any chance, did you read my profile? lol
Lingua franca is technically two words. Lingua franca refers to an old Germanic language lost to language evolution and time, not modern-day French. And using the term to denote a language that is widely understood by different people who don't all speak it natively is perfectly understood, 20 years ago and today. The admittedly very eurocentric expression fills a useful niche because any explanation in vernacular English inevitably becomes much longer than these two established Latin words. But because it's Latin the expression is also widely understood on the European continent as well.
I first heard of the expression in a fancy dinner a relative brought a diplomat she was dating, and for diplomats all around the world for the last four or five centuries French was the Lingua Franca, as well for meetings between courts, aristocrats, academics, and the first language a book would be translated to because up until a few generations ago if one wanted to learn an "international language" it would learn French, which makes the etymological assumption understandable. However I just went to check some info about it since I was just told Franca doesn't come from French... turns out, it has nothing to do with Germanic languages as well, but a mix of mostly Romance languages used through the Mediterranean for trade and that maybe got its name because Arabs, Turks, Persians, etc called all Europeans "Franks" and it was synonym of Westerner.
Thanks for the correction