The superstrate is not always the lexifier: Lingua Franca in the Barbary Coast 1530-1830

摘要: The terms superstrate and substrate seem to lose some of their predictive force in the earliest documented European contact language. While Lingua Franca (LF) is best known for its purported origins as a trade pidgin used across all areas Mediterranean, vast majority actually available LF documents come from slave colonies on North Africa’s “Barbary Coast’’. Here, social linguistic data do not synchronically coincide according usual creolist framework, where lexifier are largely treated being synonymous. Algiers held largest prison colony where, contemporary reports (Haedo 1612), 25,000 people lived, them speaking with different proficiencies. Masters these prisons were Arab Turkish Moslems; slaves captured Christians. Most lexicon derived Romance languages, therefore bulk that oppressed, oppressor. This situation shown major LF, such 1830 Dictionnaire de la Langue Franque ou Petit Mauresque . Bakker’s principle – pidgins often use dominant group borne out by data, possible (social) causes this difference well-known languages coming slavery contexts will be discussed.