On Sat, Mar 04, 2006 at 03:13:26PM -0800, Erik Steffl wrote: > >Well, there's a reason they call it the linuga-franca. > >French once was, and may yet be again. > > nitpicking: don't think 'franca' stands for french, see > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca (I'm not 100% sure whether > you were implying franca stands for french or simply that franch was > lingua franca once) There is a least a very strong connection. The German name for France is 'Frankreich' - empire of the Franks - while the Wikipedia refers to 'Frankish Language'. French used the be the lingua franca in 'better circles' in most of Europe, and also in diplomacy. One remaining trace of this is seen in diplomatic protocol: when countries are ordered alphabetically, this is still done using their french names. It was a recurring pain for the English during WW II that in neutral countries 'Allemagne' came before 'Angleterre' :-) -- FA
