Mediterranean Lingua Franca

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Mediterranean Lingua Franca
sabir
RegionMediterranean Basin (esp. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Greece, Cyprus)
Extinct19th century
Pidgin, Romance based
  • Mediterranean Lingua Franca
Official status
Official language in
none
Language codes
ISO 639-3pml
Glottologling1242
Linguasphere51-AAB-c
Map of Europe and the Mediterranean from the Catalan Atlas of 1375

The Mediterranean Lingua Franca or Sabir was a pidgin language used as a lingua franca in the Mediterranean Basin from the 11th to the 19th centuries.[1]

History[]

Lingua franca means literally "language of the Franks" in Late Latin, and originally referred specifically to the language that was used around the Eastern Mediterranean Sea as the main language of commerce.[2] However, the term "Franks" was actually applied to all Western Europeans during the late Byzantine Period.[3][4] Later, the meaning of lingua franca expanded to mean any bridge language. Its other name in the Mediterranean area was Sabir, a term cognate of saber—“to know”, in most Iberian languages—and of Italian sapere and French savoir.

Based mostly on Northern Italian languages (mainly Venetian and Genoese) and secondarily from Occitano-Romance languages (Catalan and Occitan) in the western Mediterranean area at first,[5] it later came to have more Spanish and Portuguese elements, especially on the Barbary coast (today referred to as the Maghreb). Sabir also borrowed from Berber, Turkish, French, Greek and Arabic. This mixed language was used widely for commerce and diplomacy and was also current among slaves of the bagnio, Barbary pirates and European renegades in pre-colonial Algiers. Historically the first to use it were the Genoese and Venetian trading colonies in the eastern Mediterranean after the year 1000.

As the use of Lingua Franca spread in the Mediterranean, dialectal fragmentation emerged, the main difference being more use of Italian and Provençal vocabulary in the Middle East, while Ibero-Romance lexical material dominated in the Maghreb. After France became the dominant power in the latter area in the 19th century, Algerian Lingua Franca was heavily gallicised (to the extent that locals are reported having believed that they spoke French when conversing in Lingua Franca with the Frenchmen, who in turn thought they were speaking Arabic), and this version of the language was spoken into the nineteen hundreds .... Algerian French was indeed a dialect of French, although Lingua Franca certainly had had an influence on it. ... Lingua Franca also seems to have affected other languages. Eritrean Pidgin Italian, for instance, displayed some remarkable similarities with it, in particular the use of Italian participles as past or perfective markers. It seems reasonable to assume that these similarities have been transmitted through Italian stereotypes.[6]

Hugo Schuchardt (1842–1927) was the first scholar to investigate the Lingua Franca systematically. According to the monogenetic theory of the origin of pidgins he developed, Lingua Franca was known by Mediterranean sailors including the Portuguese. When Portuguese started exploring the seas of Africa, America, Asia and Oceania, they tried to communicate with the natives by mixing a Portuguese-influenced version of Lingua Franca with the local languages. When English or French ships came to compete with the Portuguese, the crews tried to learn this "broken Portuguese". Through a process of relexification, the Lingua Franca and Portuguese lexicon was substituted by the languages of the peoples in contact.

This theory is one way of explaining the similarities between most of the European-based pidgins and creole languages, such as Tok Pisin, Papiamento, Sranan Tongo, Krio, and Chinese Pidgin English. These languages use forms similar to sabir for 'to know' and piquenho for "children".

Lingua Franca left traces in present and Polari. There are traces even in geographical names, such as Cape Guardafui (that literally means "Cape Look and Escape" in Lingua Franca and ancient Italian).

Example of "Sabir"[]

An example of Sabir is found in Molière's comedy Le Bourgeois gentilhomme.[7] At the start of the "Turkish ceremony", the Mufti enters singing the following words:

Se ti sabir
Ti respondir
Se non sabir
Tazir, tazir

Mi star Mufti:
Ti qui star ti?
Non intendir:
Tazir, tazir.

A comparison of the Sabir version with the same text in each of similar languages, first a word-for-word substitution according to the rules of Sabir grammar and then a translation inflected according to the rules of the similar language's grammar, can be seen below:

Sabir Italian Spanish Catalan Galician Portuguese Occitan (Provençal) French Latin English

Se ti sabir
Ti respondir;
Se non sabir,
Tazir, tazir.

Mi star Mufti:
Ti qui star ti?
Non intendir:
Tazir, tazir.

Se tu sapere
Tu rispondere
Se non sapere
Tacere, tacere

Io essere Mufti:
Tu chi essere tu?
Non capire:
Tacere, tacere

Se sai
Rispondi
Se non sai
Taci, taci

Io sono il Mufti:
Chi sei tu?
Non capisci
Taci, taci

Si tú saber
Tú responder;
Si no saber,
Callar, callar.

Yo estar muftí:
¿Tú quién estar tú?
No entender:
Callar, callar.

Si sabes,
Responde.
Si no sabes,
Cállate, cállate.

Yo soy el muftí:
Tú, ¿quién eres?
Si no entiendes:
Cállate, cállate.

Si tu saber
Tu respondre
Si no saber pas
Callar, callar

Jo ésser Mufti:
Tu qui ésser tu?
No pas capir:
Callar, callar

Si ho saps
Respon
Si no ho saps pas
Calla

Jo sóc Mufti:
Qui ets tu?
No ho capeixes pas:
Calla

Se ti saber
Ti responder
Se non saber
Calar, calar

Eu estar Mufti:
Ti quen estar ti?
Non entender:
Calar, calar.

Se sabes
Responde
Se non sabes
Cala

Eu son Mufti:
Ti quen es?
Non entendes:
Cala.

Se tu saber
Tu responder
Se não saber
Calar, calar

Eu estar Mufti:
Tu quem estar tu?
Não entender:
Calar, calar

Se sabes
Responde
Se não sabes
Cala-te, cala-te

Eu sou Mufti:
Quem és tu?
Não entendes:
Cala-te, cala-te

Se tu saber
Tu respondre
Se non saber
Tàiser, tàiser

Ieu èstre mufti
Tu qu èstre tu ?
Non entendre
Tàiser, tàiser

Se sabes
Responde
Se non sabes
Taise-ti, taise-ti

Ieu siáu Mufti
Tu qu siás ?
Non entendes ?
Taise-ti, taise-ti

Si toi savoir
Toi répondre
Si pas savoir
Se taire, se taire

Moi être Mufti
Toi qui être toi?
Ne pas entendre
Se taire, se taire

Si tu sais
Réponds
Si tu ne sais pas
Tais-toi, tais-toi

Je suis le Mufti
Toi, qui es-tu ?
Tu n'entends pas
Tais-toi, tais-toi

Si tu scire
Tu respondere
Si non scire
Tacere, tacere

Ego esse Mufti:
Tu quis esse tu?
Non intellegere:
Tacere, tacere

Si scis
Responde
Si non scis
Tace, tace

Sum Mufti:
Quis es tu?
Non intellegis:
Tace, tace

If you know
You answer
If you do not know
Be silent, be silent

I am Mufti
Who are you?
If you do not understand,
Be silent, be silent

The Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Provençal, French, and Latin versions are not correct grammatically, as they use the infinitive rather than inflected verb forms, but the Sabir form is obviously derived from the infinitive in those languages. There are also differences in the particular Romance copula, with Sabir using a derivative of stare rather than of esse. The correct version for each language is given in italics.

See also[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ Bruni, Francesco. "Storia della Lingua Italiana: Gli scambi linguistici nel Mediterraneo e la lingua franca" [History of the Italian Language: Linguistic exchanges in the Mediterranean and the lingua franca] (in Italian). Archived from the original on 2009-03-28. Retrieved 2009-03-28.
  2. ^ "lingua franca". Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 2011-12-13.
  3. ^ Lexico Triantaphyllide online dictionary , Greek Language Center (Kentro Hellenikes Glossas), lemma Franc (Φράγκος Phrankos) , Lexico tes Neas Hellseenikes Glossas, G.Babiniotes, Kentro Lexikologias(Legicology Center) LTD Publications. Komvos.edu.gr. 2002. ISBN 960-86190-1-7. Archived from the original on 2012-03-24. Retrieved 2015-06-18. Franc and (prefix) franco- (Φράγκος Phrankos and φράγκο- phranko-
  4. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921). "frank". An etymological dictionary of modern English. London. p. 595. Retrieved 2015-06-18.
  5. ^ Castellanos, Carles (2007). "La lingua franca, una revolució lingüística mediterrània amb empremta catalana" (PDF) (in Catalan). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-02-26. Retrieved 2018-07-18.
  6. ^ (2005). (ed.). "Foreword to A Glossary of Lingua Franca" (5th ed.). Milwaukee, WI, United States. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  7. ^ La Cérémonie turque with a translation in English Archived 2021-07-21 at the Wayback Machine

Bibliography[]

  • Dakhlia, Jocelyne, Lingua Franca – Histoire d'une langue métisse en Méditerranée, Actes Sud, 2008, ISBN 2-7427-8077-7
  • John A. Holm, Pidgins and Creoles, Cambridge University Press, 1989, ISBN 0-521-35940-6, p. 607
  • Henry Romanos Kahane, The Lingua Franca in the Levant: Turkish Nautical Terms of Italian and Greek Origin, University of Illinois, 1958
  • Hugo Schuchardt, "The Lingua Franca". Pidgin and Creole languages: selected essays by Hugo Schuchardt (edited and translated by Glenn G. Gilbert), Cambridge University Press, 1980. ISBN 0-521-22789-5.

External links[]


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