A lingua franca is a language used for international and interethnic communication. If a city has 2 or more ethnic groups living in it, communication usually takes place in just one language. If a city has 5 different language groups, it makes the most sense for everyone to learn just one language. Otherwise, everyone would have to learn 4 languages, which is time-consuming and impractical.
English is the modern world’s lingua franca, but this hasn’t always been the case. In ancient Mesopotamia, it was Akkadian language that had this role. In the Roman Empire, it was Greek and Latin, while in the Soviet Union it was Russian. These languages were certainly influential, but at some point they lost their pre-eminence, but there was always one that would replace them.
Read the whole article: http://saundz.com/english-as-the-modern-worlds-lingua-franca/
Comments
Thank you for sharing
It's an interesting question without an obvious answer. English is unique indeed and the reason it infected the entire globe is that it became the language of the Internet, which enabled it to spread rapidly. As long as mass media favors American English culture, it'll be very difficult to replace it in this position.
Now if we had to choose, Mandarin Chinese would probably be the top suspect, as it has the largest number of speakers in the world.
What do you think?
Hi Saundz,
Thank you for your post. Interesting truth!
Which language will be the next "Lingua Franca" after English? There will ?
"Although other lingua francas have declined and fallen out of use, English is unique in that it has infected the entire globe, so it would be much more difficult to reverse the process."