ABSTRACT
The term lingua franca has undergone so many semantic changes that the historical existence of such a language is often confused with the application of this term in reference to similar phenomena in other places and other times. Since the same term lingua franca has been applied to the Sabir spoken in North Africa as well as various kinds of contact vernacular, 1 some scholars assumed that the linguistic situation of the Latin East was similar to that which prevailed in the western Mediterranean in modern times. It has been asserted that the Levantine lingua franca was a pidgin 2 or a Sabir. 3 Perego declares that the medieval lingua franca of the Levant has left no traces. This, however, is far from being true if we assume that the lingua franca is in fact Levantine French or colonial Venetian. 4 Actually, we do find here and there traces of a Levantine French from the time of the crusades. The fact that this Francophony has not been very much studied 5 does not mean that it is not extant at all.
