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German served as a lingua franca in portions of Europe for centuries, mainly the Holy Roman Empire outside of the sphere of influence of the Hanseatic League, which used Low German, and to a lesser extent in Eastern Europe where the Polish Empire and the Russian Empire dominated, and South-Eastern Europe where the Ottoman Empire was the ...
Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League. It was the predominant language in Northern Germany until the 16th century. In 1534, the Luther Bible was published. It aimed to be understandable to a broad audience and was based mainly on Central and Upper German varieties.
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 ...
United Arab Emirates: Arabic is the official language of the country, although English is an unofficial language it is widely accepted as the lingua franca as over 89% of the population is migrant. Almost everyone has a working knowledge of English.
Latin served as the undisputed European lingua franca until the 19th century, when the cultures of vernacular languages and the "national languages" started to gain ground and claim status. Today, several institutions of the European Union use Latin in their logos and domain names instead of listing their names in all the official languages.
Typically in the rise of a national language the new language becomes a lingua franca to peoples in the range of the future nation until the consolidation and unification phases. If the nation becomes internationally influential, its language may become a lingua franca among nations that speak their own national languages.
During the late 19th century, German displaced Latin as the lingua franca of Western science, and remained the primary language of science through the first half of the 20th century. Many of the greatest scientific papers of that era were first published in the German language, such as Albert Einstein 's Annus Mirabilis papers of 1905.
The Mediterranean Lingua Franca (or "Frankish language") was a pidgin first spoken by 11th century European Christians and Muslims in Mediterranean ports that remained in use until the 19th century. The term Frangistan ("Land of the Franks") was used by Muslims to refer to Christian Europe and was commonly used over several centuries in Iberia ...