Lingua franca 通用語 (通用语)

tōngyòngyǔ · from Italian

What is a lingua franca?

A lingua franca is a language used for communication between people with different native languages, like English today or Malay historically in Southeast Asia.

The term comes from a Mediterranean trade pidgin. Classical Chinese was the written lingua franca of East Asia for centuries, and Malay served traders across the archipelago, later becoming the basis for Indonesian. Mandarin functions as a lingua franca within China.

Examples

English worldwide; Malay in the historical Malay world; Classical Chinese across the Sinosphere; Mandarin among Chinese speakers of different topolects

Kungfucius says: A lingua franca is whatever language everyone in the room speaks badly enough to agree on.