How to Use lingua franca in a Sentence

lingua franca

noun

• English is used as a lingua franca among many airline pilots.
• And the word nyam, to eat, is thought to come from Wolof, a lingua franca in West Africa.
  — Simon Romero Alejandro Cegarra, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2023
• It’s sort of the lingua franca of fashion, there’s so many of them.
  — Nicole Phelps, Vogue, 19 June 2021
• Tsotsil—the language of the Chamulas—is the lingua franca.
  — Peter Canby, The New Yorker, 10 Jan. 2022
• Both of your parents are artists, and art-making was the lingua franca of your household.
  — Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 9 July 2024
• Workday is the lingua franca of skills for the global workforce.
  — Pete Schlampp, Fortune, 17 Feb. 2023
• First used to send messages over land in 1844, Morse code outlived the telegraph age by becoming the lingua franca of the sea.
  — Saahil Desai, The Atlantic, 2 Mar. 2024
• In its formative years, the soul of the Catholic Church, like that of Rome and its empire, was conformed forever to the shape of its lingua franca.
  — Nicholas Frankovich, National Review, 2 Jan. 2021
• In a room crackling with languages, culture was the lingua franca.
  — Francesco Lagnese, Town & Country, 23 Oct. 2020
• Greek was the lingua franca of the time and of historian Flavius Josephus, who was born around C.E. 37.
  — Lynn Whidden, Scientific American, 26 July 2024
• Make your way to Nagu, a picturesque village where Swedish is still the lingua franca, then take a late-afternoon boat back to Turku.
  — J.s. Marcus, WSJ, 17 Aug. 2022
• English is the lingua franca here but most of those living in the official camp walls and in the overspill areas are Afghan.
  — 1843, 12 Mar. 2020
• His early work was squarely in the lingua franca of the platform: short, comedic videos synced to popular songs.
  — Damian Garde, STAT, 25 Mar. 2022
• By contrast, Malone and Wallen just seem to be drawing on their own lingua franca.
  — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 11 June 2024
• Quechua was the lingua franca of the Inca Empire, which stretched from what is now southern Colombia to central Chile.
  — Franklin Briceño and Matt O'Brien, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 May 2022
• Lawyers should adapt their language to the lingua franca of business and society.
  — Mark A. Cohen, Forbes, 18 May 2021
• But the narrative also lingers long on the future of the current lingua franca of our age, English.
  — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 16 Aug. 2010
• Even better, Goldstein embraces the lingua franca of the lab, and the reader learns a thing or three about epigenetics along the way.
  — Susan Kaplan Carlton, BostonGlobe.com, 22 June 2018
• Thanks to this new law, the only lingua franca in Catalonia will be Catalan.
  — Itxu Díaz, National Review, 25 Nov. 2020
• Charles gave a speech in pidgin English (the lingua franca here in 🇸🇧) to great applause at the football stadium.
  — Amy MacKelden, Harper's BAZAAR, 25 Nov. 2019
• But family ties and the allure of a city where Spanglish is the lingua franca has nonetheless dawn many.
  — Christine Armario, Washington Post, 11 July 2022
• That’s because, for better of worse, English has become the world’s lingua franca.
  — Annabelle Timsit, Quartz, 5 Nov. 2019
• In a new country, with a new language to learn, the Van Halen sons, Eddie and his older brother, Alex, turned to music as their lingua franca.
  — Jim Farber, New York Times, 6 Oct. 2020
• Even in Ghana, where the lingua franca is English, knowing how to use smartphones and apps can be a challenge for newcomers.
  — Francis Kokutse, Fortune, 20 May 2024
• But this sort of talk is a lingua franca for the sensitive teens and young adults who populate wholesome romances.
  — Time, 11 Aug. 2023
• More than just cute pictures, these digital icons are a lingua franca for the digital age.
  — Zak Jason, Wired, 16 Feb. 2021
• On the internet, the lingua franca of millennials and Gen Z is brevity.
  — Jason Parham, Wired, 19 Aug. 2020
• For fifteen years now the lingua franca among men Vernon’s age—strangers, pals, business acquaintances, anyone who’d been in high school in 1941—was war talk.
  — Tom Hanks, Harper’s Magazine , 5 Jan. 2023
• An eagerness for conflict is of course a defining feature of social-media discourse, insult and aggression its lingua franca.
  — Christine Emba, The Atlantic, 13 Sep. 2024
• Martínez and Hernández are committed to keeping the Italian American classics going, even as Spanish increasingly has become the lingua franca of this kitchen.
  — Ahmed Ali Akbar, Chicago Tribune, 30 July 2024

Last Updated: 7 Dec 2024