From Lingua Franca to Spanglish.

A Libertarian Approach to Natural Languages

Summer School- Insubria University – July 2007

School of Law
Dr. Paolo L. Bernardini
pb@bu.edu
Boston University – University of Insubria (Italy)

Abstract

This paper offers a comparative view upon two natural or quasi-natural languages.
The first is “Lingua franca”, a pidgin used by sailors, merchants, and pirates, from
the late Middle Ages until the mid of the 19th century. The second is “Spanglish”,
the combination of English and Spanish which is now so popular in the USA. I
will argue that those languages are spontaneous creations of human in order to
foster, in a state-free situation, their intercultural communication. They serve as an
example of how peoples can interact, linguistically, with each other, without being
channeled by national languages. I argue that this sort of communication is not
only freer, but more “human” and straight goal-oriented that the usual
communication by State-driven, State-constructed, languages.

1
…
For legislation may also deliberately or accidentally disrupt homogeneity by destroying
established rules and by nullifying existing conventions and agreements that have hitherto
been voluntarily accepted and kept. Even more disruptive is the fact that the very
possibility of nullifying agreements and conventions through supervening legislation
tends in the long run to induce people to fail to rely on any existing conventions or to
keep any accepted agreements. On the other hand, the continual change of rules brought
about by inflated legislation prevents it from replacing successfully and enduringly the set
of nonlegislative rules (usages, conventions, agreements) that happen to be destroyed in
the process.

Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law (Princeton, 1961). Online at

www.libertyfund.org

On the night of September 27, 1760, a large ship was wrecked on the rocks at Penzance
in Cornwall. When dawn came the local citizens found on the beach a group of strange-
looking men wearing turbans. The ship was an Algerian xebecque or corsair, and had
carried 220 men. The Algerians feared that they landed in Spain, where slavery would
have been their lot; they were overjoyed to learn that this was not the case, and
exclaimed: "Inglaterra! Inglaterra! bona Inglaterra!" Someone remembered that there was
in town a certain Mr. Mitchell who had been in the Levant trade and might be able to talk
to the Algerians. He was accordingly fetched; and as he did indeed have some knowledge
of the Lingua Franca, he was able to serve as interpreter […] it is an indication of the
importance of the Lingua Franca at that time that there should be, in a provincial town
such as Penzance, someone able to speak it. This was probably the only occasion when
the Lingua Franca was spoken in Cornwall, and one of the few times it was ever spoken
outside the Mediterranean area. But in the ports along eastern and southern coasts of the
Mediterranean the Lingua Franca was for centuries the principal language used for
communication between Europeans and the local populations.

Coates quoted by Zago, see 2.3.4.2. below

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0. This paper has been presented and discussed in Como, Italy, at the 2007 Summer School in
Comparative Law, July 16-20, devoted to “Multiculturalism”. I wish to thank Prof. Barbara Pozzo
(Insubria University, Como) and Prof. John Valery White (Dean, School of Law, University of
Nevada, Las Vegas) for having invited me to deliver a lecture and for their most helpful criticism
during a very challenging Summer School on the beautiful shores of Lake Como.

1. This paper is entitled From “Lingua Franca” to “Spanglish”. A Libertarian

Approach to Natural Languages. As a matter of fact, some of the terms used
in the title may not be familiar, or at least not be familiar to everyone, so I will
proceed here below to a brief clarification of them.
1.1. Lingua franca is pidgin, or jargon, used in the Mediterranean from the late
Middle Ages until the first decades of the 19th century. For the definition of
“pidgin” and/or jargon, in relation to the “Lingua Franca”, see the opening
paragraphs of Alan Corré, “A Glossary of Lingua Franca”, in
http://www.uwm.edu/~corre/franca/edition2/lingua.2.html
1.1.1. While the origins of the term “franca” are not clear – nor relevant to my
discourse – it must be said beforehand that there are very few written
documents of this language, so that for a linguist its reconstruction is very
difficult. The lack of written documents almost always doom entire
languages, often spoken by entire civilizations, to disappear.
1.1.2. “Lingua franca” was used among the mercantile communities of the
Mediterranean, mainly for purposes of trade.
1.1.3. Its grammar is very simple. There are several dictionaries of “Lingua
Franca” printed after its death, as well as one dated 1830, which was
compiled while “Lingua Franca” was still in use (also called petit
Mauresque).
1.1.4. In the “Lingua Franca” several languages, as to include Latin, Italian,
Portuguese, Arabic, Spanish, Venetian, Dalmatian, as well as other mainly
Mediterranean languages, provide words, occasionally used in couples
(one Latin and one Arabic to mean the same concept).
1.1.5. Among its other features, “Lingua Franca” has a very simplified structure,
both in the grammar and in the syntax, for instance, verbs are normally
used in the infinitive form.
1.1.6. It is worth nothing that the use of verbs in infinitive forms is constantly
referred, by the common usage and mentality, to foreigners and/or babies,
who are for different reasons “beginners” in the use of the language. For
instance, as for Italian”, “io volere mangiare”; “tu andare a dormire”: “I –
to want- to eat” “You – to go – to sleep”.

3
1.2. “Spanglish” is a word (language) created by combining “Spanish” and
“English” (Stavans also created the synonym: espanglés), as to indicate a
language now commonly used in the USA, dating back, in its origins, to
twenty years ago. Contrary to “Lingua Franca”, it is a living language, i.e.,
people and groups speak commonly Spanglish. There also are few literary
examples of “Spanglish”, such as poems, short novels, and other forms of
writing.
1.2.1. There are several works and dictionary devoted to “Spanglish”, the most
important and among the most recent, being Ilan Stavans, Spanglish. The
Making of a New American Language, New York: Harper and Collins,
2003.
1.2.2. Also in Spanglish grammar is very simplified, and its a combination of
Spanish and English grammar. The same applies to syntax.
1.3. “Libertarian approach” means that I will follow my school of thought while
“approaching” (i.e., giving the first hints and tracks for a more complete and
detailed research to come). My school of thought, or point of ideological
reference, or background, is the “libertarian” or “classical-liberal”.
1.3.1. This is the school of thought whose founding fathers are Ludwig von
Mises and Murray Rothbard, whose contemporary harbingers are H. H.
Hoppe, Pascal Salin, Anthony De Jasay, and several other economists,
philosophers, political thinkers, historians.
1.3.2. Think tanks whose credo can be defined as “classical-liberal” (as to
distinguish itself from simply “liberal”, which in fact means the contrary
as “libertarian”) are the Ludwig von Mises Institute (www.mises.org) in
the USA and in Italy the Istituto Bruno Leoni (www.brunoleoni.com).
There are quite a few libertarian think tanks all over the world.
1.3.3. In Italy, the main thinkers belonging to the school and still active are Carlo
Lottieri, Alberto Mingardi, Carlo Stagnaro, Marco Bassani, Nicola
Iannello, Sergio Ricossa, and several others, including myself (Paolo
Bernardini).
1.3.4. While it is difficult to summarize the libertarian credo in few paragraphs,
it must be said that it is against the State as political entity, in favor of the
individuals, free-market, absolute freedom, and communities out of free
choice, and the rule of law.
1.3.5. As such, libertarian thought provides good instruments to approach the
“natural languages” as spontaneous, not State-driven or authoritarian
formations.
1.4. “Natural languages” is used here in a slightly peculiar, technical meaning, as
not “State-driven”, authoritarian languages, imposed somewhat ex alto.
Examples of “State-driven” languages are Armenian, for instance, as it was

4
 created in vitro, to serve the purpose of a Nation-State in the antiquity; also,
partially, modern Hebrew, re-created in vitro to serve the purpose of the first
Jewish settlements in Palestine 19th-20th century and then being made the
official language of the State of Israel (1948-).
1.4.1. “State-driven” languages include also Italian. It was not created in vitro to
serve the purpose of a State by Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, in the 13th
century, but was forcibly adopted and imposed upon a different
(linguistically speaking) population, when the modern Italian State was
created in 1859. Six centuries after its innocent creation.
1.4.2. “Natural languages” properly speaking are those which use gestures, the
language of animals and kids, and other languages properly belonging to
nature, such as the rather complicated language of the whales. On “natural
languages” there is a huge amount of literature, still being useful that
related to the Herder-Mondobbo controversy in the 18th century.
1.4.3. That said, a more accurate analysis – performed by a linguist and not by a
political theorist – to the “Lingua Franca” and to “Spanglish”, might bear
as a consequence the findings of some structural and/or more subtle
resemblance between those languages and the “natural languages”
properly speaking. This goes however beyond my limits as a scholar, as
well as the limits of this paper.
2. “Lingua franca” can be considered as a “free language”, or else as a “language
bearing strong traits of freedom”, or else as “language pointing at
freedom/based upon freedom”, or finally as a “language of free choice”.
2.1. For the sake of this paper, we stipulate that “freedom” is “a situation of
absolute absence of State constrains and restrains, and relative absence of
States”.
2.1.1. As to clarify, in the case of the “Lingua franca”, States do not impose their
control on the language, in all its aspects.
2.1.1.1.Aspects of a language, or element, in abstracto, of a language, are in
general its origins, its codification, its development, the creation of a
canon of its writers (the writers who, by using it, develop/mold it); the
control over its use, and others.
2.1.2. An example of State-control of the use of a language: sanctions against
those who at school, in writings, somewhere else, infringe upon the rules
(complex, from dictionary to grammar and syntax).
2.1.3. Sanctions can take several forms: failing an exam is the most commonly
used and identified as such (as a sanction).
2.1.4. Also social disrespect, and other more or less subtle sanctions, imposed
directly or indirectly by the State, are prescribed against whom violates in
the way or another the rules of languages.

5
2.1.4.1.In order to better clarify the 2.1.4. A sanction, or penalty, can be directly
inflicted upon the violator by the State: teachers do that while sanctioning the
incorrect use of a language.
2.1.4.2. The common mentality and customs react promptly when the language is
violated by a speaker. Why does this happen? We just take for granted, without
developing further on this point, that the common mentality and the relevant
social and personal reactions are basically state-driven. Why should I naturally
react with despise, mockery, irritation, to someone making grammar-syntax-
and/or dictionary errors, mistakes, misspells, in the use of a (normally his/her
native) language? It is not an act of violence against myself (such as hitting,
spitting, stealing a property, shooting etc.), so why do I react with irritation? I take
an unnatural act as a natural linguistic act, so I (who is reacting to linguistic
errors), has naturalized the State imposition of a language to a degree that s/he
perceives the correct use of grammar and in general of a language as a natural
thing, something taught but almost in-bred. To such degree we have been
“statalized”.
2.1.4.3. To further develop on the above point (2.1.4.2.). By way of speaking, we
identify our interlocutor. If s/he does not speak the language properly: s/he is a
foreigner (of another State/nation); s/he is ignorant (s/he did not attend the proper
schools, or, while at school, was sleeping); s/he is disabled; s/he is making fun of
the national language. In all this case, our interlocutor is an enemy/potential
enemy, of alien/potential alien, to the State.
2.1.4.4. In case of misuse of the national language, we tend to forgive only kids
and toddlers. This is why they have still “to learn how to speak properly”. We also
tend to forgive very old people: “their health is decaying so that they cannot
properly speak any longer”.
2.1.4.5. This explains why immigrants, at least some of them, tend to learn at the
best the new language, as to be better accepted within the new community. But
once again this is a State-driven reaction to a State-driven action: they want to be
accepted a “citizens”, for, to be accepted simply as “human beings” does not
imply at all the command of the language of the State where they migrated to.
2.1.4.6. The identification, complete as it can be, of “human being” with “citizen”,
is potentially and indeed extremely dangerous, especially for the (moral)
identification of a human being in what s/he implies.
2.2. “Lingua franca” bears all the “freedom elements” we hint to in the above
points, albeit randomly we did.
2.2.1. It has not been created in vitro, nor it has been based on the works of great
authors (told otherwise: it never had its Dantes, Petrarcas, Boccaccios).
2.2.1.2. It has been created piecemeal by the combination of the need to
communicate (perform business, find a truce, exchange sea information, play

6
jokes maybe while in the hardships of navigation and wars); together with the
basis provided to each one of the several national actors who gave birth to it, by
their own native languages (Italian, Portuguese, Arabic etc.).
2.2.1.2.1. A further reflection is that, insofar “Lingua Franca” contained Latin and
classical Arabic words, they were purely literary languages, or close to become
purely literary and “dead languages” during the last centuries of “Lingua Franca”
– 17th to early 19th – while they were rarely “commonly” spoken as such outside
of State administration and academe, from the late 14th century onwards.
2.2.1.2.1.1. According to historians, the first documents in “Lingua Franca” are of
1353, but it is highly probable that the “Lingua Franca” was used also before.
2.2.2. It was freely used: nobody, no State, no international conventions, no
treaty, no other law enforcement obliged sailors and merchants and other
people to use “Lingua franca”, apart from the natural need to trade, i.e. to
make a living and prosper.
2.2.3. No great writers, or “creator” of language and/or alphabet (Saint Cyril)
stood behind “Lingua franca”. There are probably very few literary works
(poems etc.) in “Lingua franca”, or at least they did not widely survive.
2.2.4. It was not taught in State schools. Peoples learned “Lingua franca”
onboard, by using it, adapting it to the several circumstances.
2.2.5. There was not sanction for possible misuses/errors/deficiencies in the use
of “Lingua Franca”, first and foremost for it appears as a very flexible
language, secondly for its purpose, for s/he who spoke it, was to make
himself/herself properly understood, not to please any teacher, or any
community of learned speakers, or to pay homage to the “God of the
Modern Nations”, its poets and writers.
2.2.5.1.Sanctions for bad/incompetent use of “Lingua Franca” might be harsher,
though, while at sea: failing to conclude a business; to give correct
information about routes, to come to term with pirates (who knew and
used “Lingua franca”); to understand proper vital information about:
routes, weather, safety of every sort. This is a sort of sanction much
harsher than a bad grade and slightly harsher than the mockery/rejection
and/or diffidence from a given community of “people-properly-speaking-
a-National-language”.
2.2.6. Only at a late stage we find written documents in “Lingua Franca”, only at
a later stage we find dictionaries of it.
2.2.6.1.This fact must be regarded, or may be regarded, as natural reluctance of a
language to codification.
2.2.6.2. A language however has not free will nor capacity of actions, for both
reside only and exclusively in human beings (in God too).

7
2.2.6.3.So probably for the sake of its adaptability and flexibility, the “Lingua
Franca” speakers held it for more convenient (considered also the costs of
printing in the Old Regime) not to print – i.e. to codify – the “Lingua
Franca” beyond a certain limited extent. It worked as it was.
2.2.7. “Lingua franca” developed mainly offshore. As such, it is the language of
sea, and seas only at a later stage (exactly when Lingua Franca
disappeared) where subject to extensive State-Imperial control (from
Napoleon I onwards).
2.2.8. The “territorial limits” of the State Control upon the sea where already a
matter of concern, i.e., of Paolo Sarpi and Venice in the early 17th century,
but only in the early 18th a Dutch jurist, Cornelius Bynkershoek, following
Grotius, set out the limits of the “territorial waters”, within the range of a
cannonball: “ibi finitur dominium maris, ubi finitur armorum vis”.
2.2.8.1.Hence it must be clear that “Lingua Franca” was spoken on a free territory,
the sea.
2.2.8.2.Not a sea in general, but the Mediterranean sea. “Mare nostrum” during
the Western Roman Empire, “free Sea” after the collapse of the Western
Roman Empire (476-) and especially so after the weakening of the Eastern
Roman Empire (1204-).
2.2.8.2.1. G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) called the Mediterranean the cradle as
well as the center of civilization. It is not true what commonly
attributed to him, that this role (center, obviously, not cradle!) was
conferred by him to Prussia.
2.2.9. Nobody if not natural necessity forced sailors, tradesmen, military men, to
speak “Lingua Franca”. No State aimed at controlling it (as far the present
state of research indicates).
2.2.10. “Lingua Franca” was in fact a free, quasi-natural language, spoken for
centuries (at least 14th to mid-19th) in the free space of the Mediterranean,
at sea and in the ports.
2.2.10.11. “Quasi-natural” is a more appropriate definition, at this point, for it
combined elements (nouns, verbs) from national languages, or, more precisely,
from languages, such as Italian, who at a later stage became National, State
languages.
2.3. If the language was free, what about the speakers?
2.3.1. Its speakers obviously came from different backgrounds, nations, states
and even empires, so for the them “Lingua Franca” was not their native
language. Nor it could have been anybody’s native language.
2.3.2. Its speakers where citizens of free republic, Genoa and Venice for
instance, and there are Genoese and Venetian linguistic elements in the
“Lingua Franca”. But they were also citizens or denizens of the Ottoman

8
 Empire, quite far away, as a form of Empire of Super-State, from the
maritime republics, and also from another Empire, the Eastern Roman
Empire, or Byzantine Empire, which lasted until 1453.
2.3.3. While class and (relatively less) gender differences were common among
the speakers, the use of the same pidgin, of “Lingua Franca”,
democratically leveled them. So while there were living in a form of
territory which was not a State nor a democracy, the Mediterranean, and
while they belonged to several social layers, but mostly were military men
and/or merchants of different fortune, they shared a common language.
2.3.3.1.This common language, the “Lingua Franca”, in its simplicity, had no
higher or lower level, nor “lingua culta” and “lingua populi”, nor dialects
within it, if not possibly some geographical difference.
2.3.3.2. A further, maybe marginal, element of freedom lies in the same term
“Lingua Franca”, which, contrary to the main European languages (with
some exceptions: Italian was also know as “vulgare” for certain period of
time, as to differentiate it from Latin and from dialects), had different
synonims (maybe they also indicated varieties of the “Lingua Franca” with
slight differences, or were some Arabic, some Western denominations of
the same): they are for instance: Petit Mauresque, Ferenghi, Sabir, 'Ajnabi,
Aljamia.
2.3.4. The “Lingua Franca” was thus not a creator of absolute democracy and/or
a vehicle to spread a State doctrine and a State power, but created a
democratic (“free”) linguistic space among them who spoke them at least
when they spoke it.
2.3.4.1.We might therefore infer, with a certain degree of certainty, that no
rhetoric was implied in nor constructed from the “Lingua Franca”, apart
from that implicit in any business and or human transition.
2.3.4.2. As an example of the ways in which “Lingua Franca” tended not only to
simplify communications as directed to non-linguistic transactions and
actions (trade, war), we might note that several noun were democratically,
i.e. respectfully, constructed as to be a linguistic couple, with a neo-Latin
term together with an Arabic term to identify linguistically the same
object. On all these aspects of “Lingua Franca”, Renata Zago, Una
dissertazione sulla lingua franca,
http://www.homolaicus.com/linguaggi/lingua_franca/lingua6.html
2.3.5. While the “Lingua Franca” declined, States were more and more active in
the process of creating-codifying, by linguistic ways in most of the cases,
their set of rules: in the realm of Law, Politics (Public Law) and Language.
2.3.5.1.It is easy to stipulate therefore that “Lingua Franca” was a potential enemy
in this process of State consolidation and not surprisingly, with no action

9
 (probably) directly taken for that, disappeared within the first half of the
19th century.
2.3.5.2.Its dictionary was published in 1830 in Algiers. The French invasion of
Algeria took place in 1828, the war lasted until 1842, Algeria was a
French colony until 1962.
2.3.5.3.As a set of rules – linguistic rules – the “Lingua Franca” has one of its
possible parallels in the – juridical – rules regulating the life of the
Mediterranean, and known as international law(s) of the sea.
2.3.5.3.1. While the rules pertaining to a language, if we take the language as a
code, are set (codified) also by single individuals, by common usage,
and so on, while this might happen also for the Law, in this former
case a more solid State tradition is needed, at least as much as we talk
about international law as a compound of laws coming from different
sources, the sources being the current Law of every single State.
2.3.5.3.2. That said, it is possible to conceive of a set of laws, or “code”, with
some elements of “freedom” as those to be found in the “Lingua
Franca”, on the natural law assumption that moral (juridical) laws
serve the same goal of the linguistic laws, told otherwise, we need
moral (juridical laws) and linguistic laws (languages) to communicate
and survive.
2.3.5.3.3. Furthermore: the give substance to the Law a language, not necessary a
written language, is needed. Only maybe in the purest state of nature
laws (natural laws, such as “do not kill”, “do not steal”) do not need a
written not even a verbal codification.
2.3.5.3.3.1.As a corollary: the Ten Commandments belong to the real of spoken
(bespoken) Law, only at a later stage written. But also to that of
positive Law inasmuch the imply Revelation, which is a disruption
(interruption/alteration) with respect to the purest State of Nature.
2.3.6. Is there a juridical parallel to the “Lingua Franca”, is there, put otherwise,
a strictly juridical set of rules which reflect the “freedom of the Seas” as
much as it is reflected in the “Lingua Franca”?
2.3.6.1.One might wonder whether the point 2.3.6. cannot fall in the contradiction
that if we speak of “freedom of/in/on the Seas” a set of rules (a code?) was
not a contradiction.
2.3.6.1.1. It is not, insofar we speak of freedom always as relative freedom,
freedom with certain laws, and not as absolute freedom, which is at the
end the contrary of freedom, but a state of constant threat for the
individuals.

10
2.3.6.2.If the consider international law of the seas in the Late Middle Ages and in
the Early Modern Era (1300-1800), we might refer to a text which has
structural similarities with the “Lingua Franca”.
2.3.6.2.1. This text (code) is the “Consolato del Mare”. I already drew a parallel
between the “Lingua Franca” and the “Consolato del Mare” in a previous paper,
in Italian: P. Bernardini, “Lingua franca e Consolato del mare: Ipotesi per una
ricerca tra linguistica e diritto”, in Francesco Sberlati, ed., Il Mare Adriatico e
l’Europa orientale/Adriatic Sea and Eastern Europe, Bologna: Clueb, 2006, 25-
34.
2.3.6.3.What is the “Consolato del Mare”? It is a collection of laws, uses,
customs, in a form of code, regulating the life in the Mediterranean basin,
especially as it refers to trade and rules of mutual respects, as well as
insurance and rules onboard, first codified (collected) and printed in
Barcelona, in 1484, in the Catalan language.
2.3.6.3.1. Among the vast literature on the “Consolato del Mare”, the most
complete work to date is Salvatore Corrieri, Il Consolato del mare. La
tradizione giuridico-marittima del Mediterraneo attraverso
un’edizione italiana del 1584 del testo originale catalano del 1484,
Roma: Associazione Nazionale del Consolato del Mare, 2005.
2.3.6.3.2. The most important author who in the Old Regime dealt with it,
systematically, is Giuseppe Lorenzo Maria Casaregi (1670-1737), Il
consolato del mare colla spiegazione di Giuseppe Maria Casaregi…in
questa prima veneta impressione oltre tutto ciò che s’attrova
nell’edizioni di Firenze e di Lucca aggiuntovi molte leggi della
Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia attinenti alla materia. Con il
Portolano del mare d’Alvise da Mosto nobile veneto, Venezia:
Piacentini, 1737.
2.3.6.3.3. The “Consolato del Mare” was reprinted several times up until the mid
of the 19th century, so it seems to disappear-go out of use, parallel with
the “Lingua Franca”.
2.3.6.4.However, the parallel with “Lingua Franca” is not total. In fact, the
“Consolato del Mare” would be comparable rather to a handbook
(grammar-syntax-dictionary) of the “Lingua Franca”, had it been written
ever.
2.3.6.5. Furthermore: the first codification attempt of it came out in 1484, in
recently unified Spain (Castile and Cataluna), prototype of the modern
State, in that the newly unified Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella a was
strongly centralized organism, against religious and ethnic minorities
(Jews, Muslims, Protestants) and firmly bound to colonialism.

11
2.3.6.5.1. Under this respect, we might even see the “Consolato del Mare” has an
attempt to codify – by initiative of a State – rules and customs hitherto
more “free” as not written, in that it can be seen as going in an
opposite direction as that taken by the “Lingua Franca”.
2.3.6.5.2. We will not take this road, for the “Consolato del Mare” will be
considered in a way as a collection of free and constantly evolving
laws of trade in the Mediterranean.
2.3.6.5.3. It was an example of international law in that tribunals of all the
Mediterranean ports, i.e. of ports of different States and Empires, were
to different degree, or had ideally, as an auspice, to be bound to this
code, or at least to take it into a certain account while judging upon
certain cases (trade, maritime law, etc.).
2.3.6.5.4. Under this point of view, this was a code of customs and uses (or
“usages”), different from the State-codified international law of sea as
we know it today.
2.3.7. Both “Lingua Franca” and “Consolato del Mare”, or better, the customary
laws collected in it, disappeared in 19th century, and cease to be effective.
They were replaced by national languages with different “international”
languages used as pidgin (French, English), with less respect therefore for
other Mediterranean languages (Arabic and Italian first of all), in a century
(the 19th century) where the Ottoman Empire proved to be more and more
an “empire of sand”, and the Italian powers had disappeared (Venice,
Genoa), while Spain no longer had great power in the Mediterranean.
Other users of “Lingua Franca”, as the Berberian pirates, disappeared as
well in the 19th century.
2.3.8. “Lingua Franca” and “Consolato del Mare” both sank in that ocean of
misery, of hyperpowerful States and Empires, of neglect for the individual
and complete secularization, called "Nineteenth Century".
2.3.9. National Codes, International Codes (based on treatises among the
powers), and later on International Law codes replaced the customs
assembled in the Consolato del Mare as to rule over the life of the
Mediterranean basin.
2.3.9.1. As philosopher of Law Bruno Leoni (1914-1967) wrote in 1961:
“Legislation appears today to be a quick, rational, and far-reaching remedy
against every kind of evil or inconvenience, as compared with, say, judicial
decisions, the settlement of disputes by private arbiters, conventions, customs, and
similar kinds of spontaneous adjustments on the part of individuals.”
2.3.10. This proved to be an illusion. The Mediterranean became a sea of dispute
in the 19th and 20th century, of wars and bloodshed.

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2.3.11. Certainly, “Lingua Franca” and “Consolato del Mare” were a pidgin and a
“code” for peaceful transactions.
2.3.11.1. We might easily assume that at the battle of Lepanto (7 October
1571) “Lingua Franca” was not spoken, each of the parts spoke their own
national languages, nor the “Consolato del Mare”, a commercial code,
applied. Instead, arms ruled.
3. What about “Spanglish”?
3.1. In order to approach “Spanglish”, albeit briefly as we are going to do, we had
to mention several other “natural” or “quasi-natural”, non-national language.
However, we will give just an example, of a language of this kind still
spoken.
3.1.1. This language is called “papamientu” and is spoken in the island of Aruba,
in the Dutch Antilles.
3.1.2. “Papamientu” is a combination, quite grammatically and syntax easy, of
several languages, a “criollo” language, which includes Dutch, English,
Spanish, local languages spoken by the original population of Aruba
before the Spanish, and, later on, Dutch conquest.
3.1.2.1.“Papamientu” is still spoken in Aruba and understood in that area of South
Caribbean.
3.1.2.2. Should anyone be interested: see The Story of Papamientu: A Study in
Slavery and Language di Gary C. Fouse; as for grammars: E. R. Goilo,
Papamientu Textbook; there is also available an English-Papamientu
dictionary edited by Betty Ratzlaff.
3.1.3. “Papamientu” is spoken in Aruba not exclusively, but together with Dutch,
English, Spanish, in one of the most multi-linguistic islands of the
Caribbean, and probably of the world.
3.1.4. It is spoken in an island with very many ethnic groups, peacefully living
together.
3.2. “Spanglish” is a new jargon-pidgin, or “quasi-natural” language spoken in
contemporary USA.
3.2.1. As such, even the term “Spanglish” is rather new: my word (.doc)
dictionary underlines it with the red waves, as to say that it “does not
recognize” this word [today, June 28th, 2007].
3.2.1.1.Microsoft, albeit more powerful that many States in the world (!), will
have to come to terms with this term, and accept it eventually. Certainly
cannot stop, nor has any interest in doing that, the spreading of
“Spanglish”.
3.2.2. “Spanglish” being a new quasi-natural language, arises some questions,
such as:
3.2.2.1.How many people speak it?

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3.2.2.2.How many people understand it?
3.2.2.3.How many people contribute to it by writing, etc.?
3.2.2.4.How many people speak only “Spanglish”?
3.2.2.5.How many people speak only Spanish and “Spanglish”?
3.2.2.6.How many people speak only English and “Spanglish”?
3.2.2.7.How many people speak both English and Spanish, and “Spanglish”?
3.2.3. These are only examples of possible questions, relevant to our perspective.
3.2.3.1.From another perspective, such as the purely linguistic one, there are other
questions, such as:
3.2.3.1.1. How is “Spanglish” formed?
3.2.3.1.2. What is its dictionary and how large is it?
3.2.3.1.3. Its grammar?
3.2.3.1.4. Its syntax?
3.2.4. “Spanglish” is a language often spoken within of a community of ca.
40,000,000 Spanish-speaking immigrants in the USA as of 2007.
3.2.4.1.If this figure is correct, this is about 13% of the American population.
3.2.5. “Spanglish” is known also with other names, such as casteyanqui,
inglañol, argot saión, español bastardo, papamiento gringo, caló pachuco,
but it was also historically known as Chicano Spanish; other names
include cubonics, dominicanish, Tex-Mex, pachuco.
3.2.6. We might say that “Spanglish” is a facilitator in the communication in the
lower middles classes and as such is commonly used in presence of major
Latin-American communities, for instance in Florida and in New York
City.
3.2.7. English is the official language of the USA while Spanish is currently
spoken by large sections of the population. Colleges, however, and the
major newspapers and television channels use English as the common
and/or exclusive language (as in the cases of colleges, apart from the
Foreign Language Departments, where some of the scholars normally
know the language they teach).
3.2.8. Stavans, a major scholar at Amherst College, Mass., compares
“Spanglish” to jazz as a form of mixed language bound to help human
understanding and exchanges among the various components of the
American population. As with jazz, according to Stavans “Spanglish” will
overcome the initial diffidence, mostly from scholars, writers, WASP, and
become accepted as well as produce literature.
3.2.9. “Spanglish” will probably become an example of a new language – with a
much bigger dictionary than “Lingua Franca” – born/created
spontaneously in multi-ethnic, multi-cultural environment. Maybe

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 something similar will happen in Italy with Italian and Arabic, for
instance, or maybe it is already appening.
3.3. An example of “Spanglish” in literary/scholarly context is the introduction
Stavans has put in his book Spanglish.
4. As for the conclusions of this paper, we might reflect on the importance of
“natural” or “quasi-natural” languages in the history of mankind.
4.1. A sad remark: the creation of a splendid language, full of life, and of literary
products, such as Yiddish (Hebrew-German) did not prevent the Holocaust. It
was spoken in the shtetl, and immensely favored German-Jews relations over
centuries.
4.1.1. Unfortunate moves by German-Jewish intellectuals such as Moses
Mendelssohn in the 18th century and several others in the 19th century – the
bias/refusal of Yiddish as a “lower-class”, low-refinement language – did
not bring any luck to the Jews. In Auschwitz the perpetrators spoke the
same or almost the same pure German of Mendelssohn or Hermann
Cohen, unsympathetic to popular culture, and friends of the State-élite
culture, which brought them to destruction.
4.1.2. Yiddish was one of the languages of the victims and at least was of some
comfort to some of them to be able to communicate in a way, too few
spoke Hebrew, the élites probably French, in the concentration camps.
4.2. There are some common elements in the two language we spoke about above,
as well as in those we mentioned (Yiddish, papamientu).
4.2.1. They all come spontaneously to be.
4.2.2. They all share the lack of major authors, canons, literary traditions, fixed
grammars, “academies for the languages” such as the Accademia della
Crusca in Italy and the Real Academia Espaňola de La Lengua, in Spain.
4.2.3. They are not compulsory taught in State and private Schools.
4.2.4. They all facilitate the exchanges of different groups of people, each one of
them having its own background, linguistically, ethnically, and State-wise.
4.2.5. They are not “national” languages, i.e. languages that some authority,
academic and of the State, has decided they were the “language of the
Nation” and as such had to preserved, defended, dictionarized, taught,
imposed, cherished, often at the expenses of other languages.
4.2.6. They refer to normal, basic situations where some linguistic exchange is
needed in order to smooth/facilitate extra-linguistic exchanges (trade,
conflict, love, etc.).
5. As such, all these languages are expression of the basic human freedom, i.e.
the aspiration of freedom inasmuch as it can be realized.

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5.1. No doubt then that they are seen, were seen, will be seen as a threat by the
State authority in all its branches, from State schools to universities, from
official papers to offices, etc.
6. We might easily envisage a multiplication of these languages in the global
world.

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