lingua franca 341
far beyond the Mediterranean environment that generated it. It is not unique to the
Mediterranean—other vehicular languages have emerged in other times and places
to support human mobility—and yet the Mediterranean left an unmistakable trace of
itself in the name we use for it (and for any language of convenience) and in the
substance of the language itself (a pidginized Romance, with the occasional word
lifted from Arabic, Turkish or Greek). Indeed, it is impossible to conceive two
notions crucial to the Mediterraneanist’s conceptual tool-kit—Horden and Purcell’s
connectivity over the Braudelian longue durée—without the lingua franca (or some
linguistic instrument like it). Without linguistic support—the language itself, as well
as the bureaucratic technologies included in the more capacious lingua franca con-
ceived by Wansbrough—Mediterranean trade could not be established or sustained
over the long term. Too often, it seems, historians disregard or oversimplify this
aspect of Mediterranean circulation. Words move like currency between nations (to
return to Castiglione’s formulation); and the currency, it seems, must follow in the
footsteps of the words—without which neither coins nor merchandise nor people
can travel.
Endnotes1 For “franco piccolo,” see Della Valle (1843: 1:320); for “italien corroumpu,” see Savary de
Brèves (1628: 39); for “italien baragouïné,” see Savary de Brèves (1628: 325); for “italiano
corrotto,” see Scudéry (1668: 237–238) (an Italian translation of a book originally written
in French).
2 “A maner Latyn corrupt was hir speche,/But algates therby was she understonde” (Chaucer,
“Man of Law’s Tale:”: 519–520; The Riverside Chaucer (94)).
3 The French iargon (jargon in modern French) might mean “corrupt language”; anti-
language or argot (“Un langage concerté, que l’on fait pour n’estre entendu que de ceux
avec qui on a intelligence”); or might be used contemptuously to refer to languages which
one does not understand (“Il se dit aussi abusivement, & par une espece de mespris des
Langues estrangeres qu’on n’entend pas”; Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française, 1st edn
(1694), s.v. jargon).
4 Spanish text reprinted in Cifoletti (1989: 157); Cifoletti (2004: 197); see also Sosa (2011:
185). The author of this passage, long thought to be Diego Haedo, has now been identified
as Antonio de Sosa.
5 Uberti (1952: 1:249) (Dittamondo III:23: vv 35–39); and see the commentary on these
verses, 2:298–301.
6 In illustration of the difficulty in distinguishing between lingua franca and Italian, consider
a Greek–Italian dictionary published in 1709, which defines Hē frangika glōta as “lingua
franca o italiana,” apparently recognizing no substantive difference between the two
(Somavera and Parigi, 1709: 84).
7 Sosa’s citations appear in the later volumes of his multi-volume work on Algiers, the
Dialogues (De la captividad, De los mártires de Argel, and De los morabutos). These works
have not been translated into English; the fragments of lingua franca that appear in the
Dialogues, however, have been reprinted and discussed in Cifoletti (1989: 157–164) and
Cifoletti (2004: 197–202).
8 As Cifoletti points out, it is linguistically inaccurate to imagine that one could compile a
unified lingua franca glossary; by nature, the language differs from place to place and from
time to time (Cifoletti, 1989: 31).
9 Gerard de Nerval to Monsieur Labrunie (his father), Cairo, May 2, 1842: Nerval (1911: 132).