Lingua Franca

A lingua franca is any language widely used beyond its native speakers, primarily for international commerce but extending to other cultural exchanges, such as diplomacy. The origin of the term lingua franca is Latin (literally "Frankish language"), derived from the medieval Arab and Muslim use of "Franks" (ancient Germanic people) as a generic term for Europeans during the period of the Crusades.
Originally "lingua franca" referred to a mix of mostly Italian with a broad vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic. This mixed language (pidgin, creole language) was used for communication throughout the medieval and early modern Middle East as a diplomatic language; the generic description "lingua franca" has since become common for any language used by speakers of different languages to communicate with one another.
In an important sense, the terms "lingua franca" and "diplomatic language" remain distinct; the former refers largely to spoken languages which find common use, while the latter is typically limited to common written systems which do not directly find use among the common public. A prime example is Akkadian, which (as shown in the Amarna letters,~1350 B.C.) was used for correspondence between Egypt and its Canaanite vassals, and neighboring kingdoms, as far away as Babylon. Akkadian, being one of the first "diplomatic languages", contained Sumerograms, from Sumer, the sumerogram being many hundreds of years older, from the beginning of written language. This diplomatic-level communication would, over time, serve language (hence cultural) transculturation, eventually developing the Greek and Roman writing systems, that we currently use today.
Languages which have served as a lingua franca
During the Roman Empire and for the following millennium the lingua franca was Greek in the east and Latin in the west. The French language also served as lingua franca later on. French was the language of diplomacy in Europe from the 17th century until its very recent replacement by English, and as a result is still the working language of international institutions and is seen on documents ranging from passports to airmail letters. French was also the language used among the educated in cosmopolitain cities in North Africa such as Cairo, Egypt around the turn of the century until WWII. German served as a lingua franca in portions of Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries, especially in business, politics, science (physics), and sociology. English is the current lingua franca of Western international business and has also displaced French in diplomacy since World War II, a trend arguably advanced by the role of English-speaking countries in the outcome of the war (the de facto status of lingua franca is usually "awarded" by the masses to the language of the most influential nation(s) of the time), and certainly influenced by the massive anglophonic cultural exports from the United States (movies and music). English is also regarded by some as the global lingua franca owing to the economic hegemony of the developed Western nations in world financial and business institutions. The de facto status of English as the lingua franca in these countries has carried over globally as a result.
In other regions of the world, other languages perform the function of a lingua franca: Portuguese served as lingua franca in Africa and Asia in the 15th and 16th centuries. Swahili in East Africa, Russian in areas formerly associated with the Soviet Union, German in much of Eastern Europe until after World War II, "Hindustani" (or Hindi, along with English) in India, Malay or Thai in South-East Asia, Bislama in the Pacific Islands, and various Pidgin languages in other locations and times. Classical Chinese served as both a lingua franca and a diplomatic language for Far East Asia, used by China, Korea, Japan, the Ryukyus, Vietnam, Tibet, and Xinjiang in interstate communications until the late 19th century. Currently, among most Chinese speaking communities, Mandarin Chinese serves the function of providing a common spoken language between speakers of different and mutually unintelligible Chinese languages- not to mention between Chinese and ethnic non-Chinese in China. In Switzerland, which has four different official languages, English serves as a lingua franca with citizens and the relatively high (20%) foreign population.
Polish was once a lingua franca in various regions of Central and Eastern Europe, mostly due to the political, cultural, scientific and military influence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Although not that popular any more due to the Russian language influence, it is still sometimes spoken or at least understood in western border areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania as a second language.
In a specific sense
Lingua Franca meaning "Frankish language" was an early language, used in the Mediterranean area from the 14th century or earlier and still in use in the 20th century. Lingua Franca was known by Mediterranean sailors including the Portuguese. When the Portuguese started exploring the seas of Africa, America, Asia and Oceania, they tried to communicate with the natives by mixing a Portuguese-influenced version of Lingua Franca with the local languages. When English or French ships came to compete with the Portuguese, the crew tried to learn this "broken Portuguese". Through a process of change the Lingua Franca and Portuguese wordstock was substituted by the languages of the people in contact.
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international language. The name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof first published the Unua Libro in 1887. Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy and flexible language as a universal second language to foster peace and international understanding.
Although no country has adopted the language officially, it has enjoyed continuous usage by a community estimated at between 100,000 and 2 million speakers. Today, Esperanto is employed in world travel, correspondence, cultural exchange, conventions, literature, language instruction, television (Internacia Televido) and radio broadcasting. It is estimated that there are more than a thousand native speakers of the language.
There is evidence that learning Esperanto before another foreign language improves one's ability to learn that language — so much so that it takes less time to learn both than it would to learn just the second.
The speakers are more numerous in Europe and East Asia than in America,Africa and Oceanian and more numerous in urban than in rural areas.the planned language is particularly prevalent in the northern and Eastern countries of Europe; in China,Korea,Japan and Iran within Asia; in Brazil, Argentina and mexico in the Americas; and in Togo and Madagascar in Africa.
Despite of the claims of Espirentoists,linguistics and critics have critcised their voceferous assertion.Justin B Rye and many other linguists have pointed out various weak points of Esperanto:
· Its vocabulary and grammar are too Westtern European.
· Esperanto’s word-classes are based on the traditions of classical Latin and Greek grammars,unfamiliar even to many Europeans.
· Its main sources are European languages and it gave little consideration to Eastern languages.
· Esperanto has developed fairly distinct culture,customs mythology and even religion of its own.it does not suit to a language that claims to be neutral.
· Few learners of the language progress to a high level of fluency.
· Esperanto in frequently accused of being inherently gender biased because the generic form of noun is used for males while a derived form is used for females.
· Esperanto has not lived up to the hopes of its creator who dreamed of it becoming a universal second language.