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English as a lingua franca (ELF) is the use of the English language "as a global means of inter-community communication" [1] [2] and can be understood as "any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice and often the only option".
During the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings in the first half of the 11th century, a kind of diglossia may have come about, with the West Saxon literary language existing alongside the Norse-influenced Midland dialect of English, which could have served as a koine or spoken lingua franca.
When the United Kingdom became a colonial power, English served as the lingua franca of the colonies of the British Empire. In the post-colonial period, some of the newly created nations which had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as an official language to avoid the political difficulties inherent in promoting any ...
A lingua franca (/ ˌ l ɪ ŋ ɡ w ə ˈ f r æ ŋ k ə /; lit. ' Frankish tongue '; for plurals see § Usage notes), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect ...
Between the 11th and 19th centuries, people in North Africa, as well as Cyprus and Greece commonly communicated in the Mediterranean Lingua Franca from which the widely applied term "lingua franca" is derived. In literal translation to English, lingua franca means "language of the Franks," a general reference to Europeans rather than to ...
It has also become the de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science, technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and the Internet. [10] English accounts for at least 70% of total speakers of the Germanic language branch, and as of 2021, Ethnologue estimated that there were over 1.5 billion speakers worldwide.
In 1349, English became the language of instruction at the University of Oxford, which had taught in French or Latin. In 1476, the use of English became widespread through the introduction of printing to England by William Caxton. Henry IV (1367-1413) was the first English king whose first language was English.
Latin became the lingua franca of the early Roman Empire and later of the Western Roman Empire. Despite the decline of the Western Roman Empire, the Latin language continued to flourish in the very different social and economic environment of the Middle Ages, not least because it became the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. In ...