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24 May 2005 Volume 1, Issue 11 Certain historical artifacts are so well-known—you know, plastered on mousepads and shopping bags--that my mind ceases to register them for the astonishing things they are. But I’ll never forget wandering up to an exhibit in the British Museum and realizing suddenly that I was standing in front of the Rosetta Stone. Its physical substance transformed my perspective in an instant. I could imagine the discovery of the stone, by a French engineer in Napoleon’s army in 1799. How incredible it must have been to realize that there were three different languages inscribed on the stone, enabling scholars to decipher hieroglyphs for the first time. This issue of World History To Go is focused on world languages, on the ways we communicate. While English is today’s world language, who knows what the twenty-first century will bring. Will we be speaking Chinese, or perhaps a global language like Esperanto?
The Cocktail Party EffectInside the Berkshire Encyclopedia:
For more information on the history of linguistics, try articles like "Language, Classification of", or "Language, Standardization of". Dead and artificial languages are discussed in "Decipherment of Ancient Texts" and "Esperanto", while the written word is touched upon in "Letters and Correspondences", "Communication-Overview" and "Writing Systems and Materials". This form of verbal communication, so-named by social psychologists, is a common form of communication among people who speak different languages, especially when one person has only limited understanding of the language spoken by the other. The names comes from research at cocktail parties which shows that listeners often use nonverbal and limited verbal cues to engage in conversations when they barely understand what is being said. These cues included nods of the head and short verbal responses such as “oh,” “really,” and “I see.” The cocktail party effect is very common in cross-cultural situations because both parties often have very limited knowledge of each other’s language. They nod, smile, and offer brief utterances to keep the conversation going and to behave politely, even if neither comprehends much of what is being said. The result can be a pleasant conversation with little information actually communicated. Lingua Franca
Free article for classroom use: “Esperanto” from the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History, by Hugh R. Page, Jr. CockneyCockney rhyming slang drops the bit that rhymes, creating a kind of secret language.
Cockney is a dialect of British English spoken by the lower class in the East End of London. Cockney differs from standard British English in pronunciation. The h sound is dropped so that house becomes ouse, the t sound is glottalized so that bottle becomes bo'hl; and the th sound is sounded as v so that mother becomes muhver. Cockney is also distinguished by so-called Cockney slang, a form of speech which uses distinct vocabulary and rhyming to communicate in way often unintelligible to non-Cockney speakers. Cockney is viewed as low-class by speakers of standard British English. However, historical research indicates that Cockey may have been an early form of London English, being the major dialect of the language in eleventh century London. It became “low class” in the twelfth century when rural gentry began moving into London. The term Cockney is probably a contraction of “cock’s egg” which meant odd or unusual.
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A lingua franca is a language that permits communication among peoples who speak different languages. A well-known lingua franca is Swahili in East Africa which permits communication among dozens of African societies each of which speaks its own language. Swahili also played a role in Muslim trade and European colonization in the region. Another lingua franca was the sign languages of the Plains Native Americans. These languages used the positioning and movement of the fingers, hands, and arms to communicate trade and diplomatic information among groups who spoke different languages. Other lingua francas are Javanese in Indonesia, Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs), Mandarin in China, and English which is the language of commerce around the world. Most lingua francas developed as trade languages to facilitate economic relations across cultural and regional borders and to facilitate diplomatic relations. People in the interacting groups learned enough of the lingua franca so as to be able to communicate about matters of mutual interest. Another type of trade language is the pidgin. Unlike like lingua francas, pigdins are not full languages. Rather, they have simple grammars and limited vocabularies that help people communicate in situations of cultural contact. Some pidgins do become more complex languages and are called Creoles. Pidgin languages are common in Africa, the Caribbean, and New Guinea and often appeared to facilitate communication between indigenous peoples and European colonists. 
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