This is a list of lingua francas. A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a first language, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both speakers' first languages.
Examples of lingua francas are numerous and exist on every continent. The most utilized modern example is English, which is the current dominant lingua franca of international diplomacy, business, science, technology and aviation, but many other languages serve, or have served at different historical periods, as lingua francas in particular regions, countries, or in special contexts.
Africa Akan Akan can be regarded as the main lingua franca of Ghana, although mainly in the south.
Afrikaans During apartheid, the South African government aimed to establish Afrikaans as the primary lingua franca in South Africa and South African-controlled South-West Africa (now Namibia), although English was also in common use. Since the end of apartheid, English has been widely adopted as the sole lingua franca even though it was replaced with a new language. Many institutions that had names in English and Afrikaans have since dropped the Afrikaans names. Notable cases are South African Airways and the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
In Namibia, Afrikaans holds a more universal role than in South Africa, across ethnic groups and races and is the spoken lingua franca in the capital Windhoek and throughout most of central and southern Namibia. There are pockets where German is commonly spoken. English is the sole official language.
Amharic
Amharic is the primary lingua franca used in major cities and towns across Ethiopia.
Arabic There are more Arabic speakers in Africa than in Asia. It is spoken as an official language in all of the continent's Arab League states. Arabic is also spoken as a trade language across the Sahara as far as the Sahel, including parts of Mali, Chad and Borno State in Nigeria. Varieties and Arabic-based pidgins function as the lingua francas of Sudan (Sudanese Arabic), Chad (Chadian Arabic; mainly in the northern half of the country), and South Sudan (Juba Arabic; mainly the Equatoria region). Sudan has a majority of people that speak Arabic natively and minorities that speak various other languages in addition to Arabic, while native Arabic speakers are a significant minority in Chad and a very small minority in South Sudan.
Ewondo Ewondo is a lingua franca used in Cameroon's Centre Region, including the capital Yaounde, often in a pidginized form known as Ewondo Populaire. However, Cameroon is one of the African countries where French is most widely spread, and Ewondo's status may be coming under threat. Ewondo is mutually intelligible with Fang, which is the main language of the neighboring Río Muni mainland of Equatorial Guinea, as well as a major language of Gabon.
Fanagalo Fanagalo or Fanakalo is a pidgin based on the Zulu, English, and Afrikaans languages. It was used as a lingua franca mainly in the mining industries in South Africa, however, in this role, it is being increasingly eclipsed by English which is viewed as being more neutral politically.FANAGALO – J. Olivier (2009) – SA Languages.
Fon Fon is regarded as the lingua franca of the southern third of Benin, which is the most densely populated area and includes the largest cities and the national capital.
Fula Fula ( or Pulaar or Pular, depending on the region; ) the language of the Fula people or Fulani (; ) and associated groups such as the Toucouleur. Fula is spoken in all countries directly south of the Sahara (such as Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Mali...). It is spoken mainly by Fula people, but is also used as a lingua franca by several populations of various origins, throughout Western Africa. One region where it is particularly important as a link language is the Adamawa Plateau of northern Cameroon, which, although largely populated by non-Fula people, was united and ruled by Fula conquerors prior to colonial rule. Fula is also the main lingua franca of the Sahel Region of Burkina Faso.
Hausa Hausa is widely spoken throughout Nigeria and Niger and recognised in neighbouring states such as Ghana, Benin, and Cameroon. The reason for this is that Hausa people used to be traders who led caravans with goods (cotton, leather, slaves, food crops etc.) through the whole West African region, from the Niger Delta to the Atlantic shores at the very west edge of Africa. They also reached North African states through Trans-Saharan routes. Thus trade deals in Timbuktu in modern Mali, Agadez, Ghat, Fez in Northern Africa, and other trade centers were often concluded in Hausa. Today, Hausa is the most widely spoken language in West Africa; although its speakers are mainly concentrated in the traditional Hausa heartland, it functions as the lingua franca of Nigeria's multilingual Middle Belt, including the capital of Abuja, and is also widely spoken and understood in other countries, especially northern Ghana, both because of Hausa settlement in other areas, and the influence of Hausa media.
Kanuri Kanuri has historically been an important lingua franca around the Lake Chad region due to its association with the powerful Kanem-Borno empire. However, since the creation of the modern nation-states of Nigeria and Niger, it has declined somewhat in prestige, due to the expansion of the populous Hausa language.
Kituba A pidgin based on the Kongo language which originated when Belgian colonists enlisted West African labor to help build a local railroad, Kituba is used in the southern half of the Republic of the Congo and the Kwilu and Kwango provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Krio The Krio language of the Sierra Leone Creole people is the lingua franca and de facto national language of Sierra Leone spoken by 96% of the country's population. Krio is distinct from West African Pidgin English and is strongly influenced by British English, Gullah, African American Vernacular English, Jamaican Creole, Akan, Igbo and Yoruba.
Lingala Lingala is used by over 10 million speakers throughout the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a large part of the Republic of the Congo, as well as to some degree in Angola and the Central African Republic, although it has only about two million native speakers. Its status is comparable to that of Swahili in eastern Africa.
Between 1880 and 1900, the colonial administration, in need of a common language for the region, adopted a simplified form of Bobangi, the language of the Bangala people, which became Lingala. Spoken Lingala has many loanwords from French, inflected with Lingala affixes.
Lozi The Lozi language is a lingua franca in Zambia.
Manding The largely interintelligible Manding languages of West Africa serve as lingua francas in various places. For instance Bambara is the most widely spoken language in Mali, and Jula (almost the same as Bambara) is commonly used in western Burkina Faso and northern Côte d'Ivoire; these two varieties are especially closely related and mutually intelligible, whereas other varieties may present more difficulties. Manding languages have long been used in regional commerce, so much so that the word for trader, jula, was applied to the language currently known by the same name. Other varieties of Manding are used in several other countries, such as Guinea, The Gambia, and Senegal.
Mende Mende is a regional lingua franca of southeastern Sierra Leone, although almost the entire population speaks the Krio language.
Ngambay Ngambay is an important lingua franca of southwestern Chad, covering areas where Chadian Arabic is not as widespread. It is the most important of the Sara languages and may be used by speakers of other varieties.
Sango The Sango language is a lingua franca developed for intertribal trading in the Central African Republic. It is based on the Northern Ngbandi language spoken by the Sango people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo but with a large vocabulary of French loan words. It has now been institutionalised as an official language of the Central African Republic.
Sar Sar is the lingua franca of the city of Sarh in Chad and surrounding areas, although not as widespread as Ngambay.
Swahili Swahili, known as Kiswahili to its speakers, is used throughout large parts of East Africa and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo as a lingua franca, despite being the mother tongue of a relatively small ethnic group on the East African coast and nearby islands in the Indian Ocean. Swahili is also one of the working languages of the African Union and officially recognised as a of the East African Community. At least as early as the late 18th century, Swahili was used along trading and slave routes that extended west across Lake Tanganyika and into the present-day Democratic Republic of Congo. Swahili rose in prominence throughout the colonial era, and has become the predominant African language of Tanzania and Kenya. Some ethnic groups now speak Swahili more often than their mother tongues, and many, especially in urban areas, choose to raise their children with Swahili as their first language, leading to the possibility that several smaller East African languages will fade away as Swahili transitions from being a regional lingua franca to a regional first language.
It has official status as a national language in DR Congo, Tanzania and Kenya, and symbolic official status (understood but not widely spoken) in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. It is the first language of education in Tanzania and in much of eastern Congo. It is also the auxiliary language to be in the proposed East African Federation.
Temne Temne is a regional lingua franca of northwestern Sierra Leone, although almost the entire population speaks the Krio language.
West African Pidgin English West African Pidgin English is used by an estimated 75 million people across coastal West Africa, mainly as a second language. It is used in Nigeria, where it functions as something close to a national lingua franca (Nigerian Pidgin, as well as Ghana (Ghanaian Pidgin English) and Cameroon (Cameroonian Pidgin English), mainly the two anglophone regions. Closely related languages are used as lingua francas in Sierra Leone (Krio), Liberia (Liberian Kreyol) and Bioko island of Equatorial Guinea (Pichinglis).
Wolof Wolof is a widely spoken lingua franca of Senegal and The Gambia (especially the capital, Banjul). It is the native language of approximately 5 million Wolof people in Senegal and is spoken as a second language by an equal number.
Yoruba By the advent of European contact and commercial activities in the region, Yoruba (or Lukumi, Lucumi, or Alkomij) was the lingua franca of the coast of the Bight of Biafra and elsewhere in present-day southern Nigeria. Some non-Yoruba kingdoms recorded that enforced its usage as a prestige language include the Aja kingdom of Ardra.
Asia
Akkadian
In the Middle East, from around the 24th century BC to the 8th century BC, forms of Akkadian were the universally recognized language. It was used throughout the Akkadian Empire, as well as later states such as Assyria and Babylon. It was also used as internationally as a diplomatic language – for example between Egypt and Babylon – well after the fall of the Akkadian Empire itself and even while Aramaic was more common in Babylon, beginning from the 8th century BC. Akkadian eventually lost its primacy and became extinct by the 1st century AD.
Arabic
Arabic, the native language of the Arabs, who originally came from the Arabian Peninsula, became the lingua franca of the Islamic (Arab) Empire (from CE 733 – 1492), which at its greatest extent was bordered by China and Northern India, Central Asia, Persia, Asia Minor, the Middle East, North Africa, France and Portugal.