Not the main one I want to make, but a corollary: what is a lingua franca?
“The term lingua franca comes from an Italian phrase for “Frankish language”. The term harkens back to the traditional role of French as the “language of diplomacy”. The underlying idea was that no matter what languages two diplomats might speak at home, they could always communicate if both had a command of French. Indeed, at one time it was not unusual for aristocrats and royalty in the courts of eastern Europe to speak French in lieu of the native tongues of their subjects. The term is something of an anachronism. At one time Latin and Greek played this role among scholars. These days, English has assumed the role of the lingua franca in many parts of the world, and is the language of choice for discourse among scientists and aviators.”
Brian Foote and Don Roberts, Paper presented at Fifth Conference on Patterns Languages of Programs (PLoP ’98)
Brian Foote foote@cs.uiuc.edu
Last Modified: 23 April 2004
What’s up with the Lorenz Attractor?! 🙂
my point, precisely!
July 19th, 2007