Problem
What does Lingua Franca mean?
Answer
Lingua Franca is the go-between language in a city or country or continent where people speak different languages or dialects.
So English is the Lingua Franca in India.
Aramaic was the common language or in between language at the time of Jesus.
English Lingua Franca
I believe that one of the reasons that the English natives speak so little of foreign languages is that English was the lingua Franca of the empire until the 1900s.
Story About German
At school in England in London's East End in the 1920s and 1930s children learned German. German was easy and handy in the East end of London. People had come from Russian, Poland and Germany (Austro-Hungarian empire.) Yiddish and German were close languages. Germany was nearer than Russia, the latter being too far to visit. German could be used in Austria and neutral Switzerland. German was a lingua Franca. Dutch and the Flemish spoken in Belgium were similar to German.
French was a fancy restaurant language for posh people.
German as Lingua Franca
However, although many people spoke German as a second language, speaking it in public places outside German speaking countries became unpopular after WWI and WWII. After the British royal family took umbrage at their German cousins after World War I, the rest of the country copied. Dislike coupled with fear of the Nazis.
In the late Sixties I went on holiday to Greece and I and a friend met Dutch boys. They spoke German as a second language, along with English. But they insisted on speaking English to practise their English.
Even in the 1960s, a pleasant conversation started with an elderly German in a cafe led to embarrassing conversations about where they learned English or had been in their youth. My inability to distinguish between the active and passive and before and after in German led to some confusion.
I remember the German man who I met in a cafe, smiling about his wartime experiences. He spoke English.
I went into English, "You learned English - after - you were captured by - soldiers? Before or after? No? You learned English - after - you captured - soldiers? Before or after?"
French Accents and Canadian
I must admit conversations with the French fared no better. I had learned French, travelled to Paris and drove through France to Spain or Germany, had French au pair girls from Paris. So my French grammar and accent developed and improved year after year. I learned the Parisian accent, which I later discovered is not the same as French spoken in Montreal.
Taboo Topics
However, it was better to talk to Parisians about food than history. I discovered that Dunkirk was regarded by the French as the time and place where the French were deserted by their allies. As an innocent grammar school girl, speaking to a French girl, I had previously spoken joyfully about the wonderful sailors, rallying to rescue our soldiers at Dunkirk with brave little boats.
But the effect of World War II, following on The Great War, was to make most British people turn their backs on the German language they had learned at school. They did not want to speak German, speak to Germans, nor visit Germany. This left them in a language vacuum.
Revision of Language Learning
Oddly enough, in my experience, things have changed, certainly in the North of France. The French running the cafes around the Normandy battlefields and making their living from showing tearful Brits the rows of graves, reviving them with French food and wine, are nowadays extremely warm.
A new generation of Germans, especially all the people I meet in the travel industry, are delightful, understanding, welcoming, and keen to show off their excellent English and explain the mysteries of German grammar.
Political alliances and language fashions have ups and downs. While we are in an up, with opportunities to travel and so many opportunities to travel from our armchairs around language learning sites, we have greater opportunities than ever before.
Flag of Canada
Polyglots
When I went to Canada, to Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, I was disappointed that Montreal was entirely French speaking with French signs. I understood, but was equally disappointed, that Toronto was entirely English with English signs. However, I was delighted with bilingual Ottawa, with bilingual signs.
In America, Spanish is increasingly the second language. Knowing Spanish opens the gate to learning Portuguese and Italian.
On other continents, other contenders in our lifetime for popular languages are Chinese (Mandarin) and Arabic.
Polyglots often live in countries where they are surrounded by several languages, have parents who speak different languages, so the children are bilingual, and learn a third language as the lingua franca or common language.
Aramaic
The bible was written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Aramaic was the lingua Franca. Aramaic is still spoken today in pocket communities in several countries. Apparently it is not an easy language. Not just that you cannot find many people who speak it. If it is an old language, is the grammar easy? On the contrary, quite complicated.
Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic
For a long time I had wished that Aramaic could be revived. I could recognize Bar was son of, as in Bar Kochba, Bar Mitzvah (son of the law). Bar is son in Aramaic. B e n is son in Hebrew, as in Benjamin and Ben Gurion. Bin is son in Arabic. All are easy to remember.
Even more, I wished that Israel had adopted Yiddish, written in the Roman alphabet, instead of Hebrew written in the Hebrew alphabet. I am still struggling with the Russian, Hebrew and Greek alphabets. (Which reminds me to spend five minutes on each today.)
Hebrew Keyboard - even more confusing.
I hope to become a polyglot,which means a speaker of several languages.
Tips
BBC article on polyglots and languages
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-40824597
Article on Aramaic and Lingua Franca
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/aramaic-middle-east-language/404434/
www.duolingo.com Free online language learning.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and other languages. I have other posts on Aramaic, Hebrew, Russian, Greek, Welsh and travel. Please share links to your favourite posts.
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