Lingua franca
Language used to facilitate communication between groups without a common native language
Summary
A lingua franca, 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, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers' native languages.
Originally created by Kpjas
8/11/2001, 11:04:01 AM
Modified
5/29/2026, 9:57:11 PM
Recent revisions
Rescuing orphaned refs (":1" from rev 1356159995; ":5" from rev 1356159995)
proper citation needed for language spoken at court
/* French */ Missing "to"
Remove unsourced statements, add sources/expand section on German
/* Russian */ Add sourced info; fix overgeneralizations
/* Hindustani */ Copyedit (minor)
/* Hindustani */ correction as per the source
[[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/VWF bot 4|Bot]]: [[Pulse Nigeria]] citation — changed Cite web→Cite news, replaced plain newspaper with wikilink, replaced |website= with |newspaper= ([[User talk:Vanderwaalforces|give feedback]])
/* Spanish */ brevity; also, brevity
/* Spanish */
/* Spanish */
Added link to another article
correcting citations
added more information
added map. (i forgot the password of the last account i made so i had to create this one to add the map)
/* Italian */
added Italian which was one of the few major European languages not yet added
In the 16th century the leading power in Europe was Spain
