ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a short overview of Early Modern Europe. It outlines the main linguistic developments associated with the period. The chapter considers the role of cities in European trade development, highlighting Frankfurt. Gerhard Fouquet suggests that the great emphasis on 'bilingualism for business', is citing the existence of pidgins based on Latin, French, Italian and Low German and characterising mediaeval international commercial language behaviour as 'a semi-communication strategy'. The chapter focuses on merchants and the language of business. There is a problem with this formulation. It implies that 'semi-speakers' are incompetent, seeing that they must perforce contribute to intercultural confusions, misunderstandings and breakdowns because one partner or the other has an imperfect knowledge of a particular language. The local business elite were already highly skilled in the Italian language. The combination of professional and integrative motives encompassed all elements of business transactions.
