LINGUA FRANCA • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Lingua franca

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/lˈɪŋgwə frˈæŋkə/ Listen

noun

Lingua Franca n.

The commercial language of the Levant, a mixture of the languages of the people of the region and of foreign traders.

Any hybrid or other language used over a wide area as a common or commercial tongue among peoples of different speech.

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Etymology of 'Lingua franca'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Lingua franca" Quotes from Famous Books

... was brought to Madame Binat's and filled his nostrils with the well-remembered smell of the East, that runs without a change from the Canal head to Hong-Kong, and his mouth with the villainous Lingua Franca of the Levant. The heat smote him between the shoulder-blades with the buffet of an old friend, his feet slipped on the sand, and his coat-sleeve was warm as new-baked bread when he lifted ...

— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... Lingala (a lingua franca trade language), Kingwana (a dialect of Kiswahili or Swahili), ...

— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... borrowed set is to be found in the Slang Dictionary. It appears that the English street-folk have adopted as a means of secret communication a set of Italian numerals from the organ-grinders and image-sellers, or by other ways through which Italian or Lingua Franca is brought into the low neighbourhoods of London. In so doing they have performed a philological operation not only curious but instructive. By copying such expressions as due soldi, tre soldi, as equivalent to ...

— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant