English as a lingua franca English as a lingua franca English as a lingua franca (ELF) is the use of the English language as "a common means of communication for speakers of different first languages". ELF is also "defined functionally by its use in intercultural communication rather than formally by its reference to native-speaker norms" whereas English as a foreign language aims at meeting native speaker norms and gives prominence to native speaker cultural aspects. While lingua francas have been used for centuries, what makes ELF a novel phenomenon is the extent to which it is used – both functionally and geographically. A typical ELF
Italian language luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world. Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was also influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent, by the Germanic languages of the post-Roman invaders. The incorporation into Italian of learned words from its own ancestor language, Latin, is another form of lexical borrowing through the influence of written language, scientific terminology and