Which term is used for any common language used as a means of communication between peoples of different tongues?
English as a lingua franca the fore. 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
Demolinguistic descriptors used in Canada into marriages between parents who use different languages in the home, the census allows individuals to indicate multiple mother tongues. Data for this descriptor were first collected in the census of 1931. This index has been used by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages to determine the health of French-language minority populations outside Quebec. The index "represents the relation between the number of persons speaking French most often at home and the number of persons for whom French is the mother tongue. A continuity index of less than 1 means that French registers more losses than gains in