Lingua Franca

Lingua Franca is a pidgin, a trade language used by numerous language communities around the Mediterranean, to communicate with others whose language they did not speak. It is, in fact, the mother of all pidgins, seemingly in use since the Middle Ages and surviving until the nineteenth century, when it disappeared with hardly a trace, probably under the onslaught of the triumphant French language, leaving only a few anecdotal quotations in the writings of travelers or observers, an imperfect French/Lingua Franca vocabulary (1830) meant for settlers in the newly annexed territory of Algeria, and some other rather strange detritus.

A lingua franca (from Italian, literally meaning Frankish language) is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues.

Lingua franca is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic history or structure of the language: Though pidgins and creoles often function as lingua francas, many lingua francas are neither pidgins nor creoles.Lingua franca may also refer to the de facto language within a more or less specialized field.

A synonym for lingua franca is “vehicular language.” Whereas a vernacular language is used as a native language in a single speaker community, a vehicular language goes beyond the boundaries of its original community, and is used as a second language for communication between communities. For example, English is a vernacular in England, but is used as a vehicular language (that is, a lingua franca) in the Philippines.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca

In many countries around the world, English is the lingua franca, but in some places, it is a native language; in others, it is a second language or a foreign language. In India, the Philippines and Singapore, English is viewed as second language next to their respective first languages.

English will not decline as a first language: Indeed for the foreseeable future it will be among the five major mother tongues of the world. Spread out worldwide, it may even change and ultimately split into a family of languages. But it would go against the pattern of world history if alien peoples patronized English for very much longer than necessary. Chinese, Hindi, Spanish and Portuguese--possibly also Russian, Malay, Persian and Arabic--have the potential to increase within their vast regions, and perhaps even globally. The aspirations of some of these languages are already visible, if far from realization. China is a third of the way into its program to establish 100 Confucius Institutes around the world to popularize learning Chinese. They are now present in 23 countries, part of plans to have 100 million people studying Chinese worldwide by 2010.

How lingua franca is developed?

Hundreds of years ago, when the world was being traversed by sailors from dozens of nations, and each vessel was manned by any number of nationalities, new languages called lingua franca began to emerge. These languages were often a blend of Portuguese, English, French, Mandarin and local languages, and allowed for communication and trade between the polyglot merchants both on board and on the mainland. Several examples of it exist today - the pidgin of Papua New Guinea is one example.

Worldwide lingua franca

Malay - Country :Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia
In the 14th century, during the Malacca Sultanate, Malay was used as a lingua franca in the Malay archipelago, by the locals as much as by the traders and artisans that stopped at Malacca via the Straits of Malacca.
Nowadays, Malay is used mostly in Malaysia (officially called Bahasa Malaysia) and Brunei, and to a lesser extent in Singapore. One of Singapore's four official languages, the Malay creole language Baba Malay was the lingua franca in Singapore prior to the introduction of English as a working and instructional language, and remains so for the elder generation.
However, Indonesian, a standardized variety of Malay, serves as a lingua franca throughout Indonesia and East Timor. While Indonesia counts several hundred different languages, Indonesian, the official language of Indonesia, is their vehicular language.

Chinese – Country : China / Taiwan

Classical Chinese previously served as both a written lingua franca and diplomatic language in Far East Asia, used by mainland China, Mongolia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, the Ryukyus, and Vietnam in interstate communications. In the early 20th century Classical Chinese in China was replaced by modern written Standard Chinese. Currently, among most Chinese-speaking communities, Standard Mandarin serves the function of providing a common spoken language between speakers of different and mutually unintelligible Chinese spoken languages—not to mention between the Han Chinese and other ethnic groups in China. Written Chinese has also been used as a way of communication through these character-using countries. However, specific regions in China also possess their individual lingua franca, such as Standard Cantonese in Guangdong province, Hong Kong, Macau, as well as traditionally the ethnic Chinese populations residing in Singapore and Malaysia.

English – Country : United Kingdom , United States of America

English is the dominant language of the United Kingdom, and therefore, as the UK became a colonial power, English served and, to some extent, continues to serve as the lingua franca of Ireland, former colonies of the British Empire (including Australia, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the United States, and Vanuatu), present British territories (like Bermuda, Falkland Islands, and Saint Helena), former British territories (such as Hong Kong), U.S. territories (like Guam, Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico), Virgin Islands (both British and American), and the Philippines. In many of these nations the use of English is seen as a means of avoiding the political difficulties inherent in promoting any individual indigenous language as the lingua franca.

2. Section on whether language used in coffee shops are lingua of some sort, if not state whether they are pidgins or creoles.

In Malaysia places such as coffee shops, fish markets and taxi stands, the language being used are recognize as Manglish which is English-based pidgin of Malaysia.
Malaysian Colloquial English which is famously known as Manglish or Street English, a portmanteau of the word Malay and English should not be confused to Malaysia English which is formally known as Malaysian Standard English (MySE), is a form of English used and spoken in Malaysia as a second language.
Manglish has become part of Malaysian culture and heritage. Manglish has become something we can be proud of. Why try to hide it? It’s part of our cultural heritage. And it’s something that all Malaysians can participate in, no matter which ethnicity. Muhibbah! Plus tourists think it’s cute when they hear people saying lah all the time.
Manglish is English as it is commonly spoken in Malaysia. It’s basically English with Malay and Chinese words and grammar thrown in. For example: “Why you so like that one? Don’ play-play-lah!” “Where got such a ting?”
“Why you so like that, lah?”
“No lah.”
“Lah” does not have any actual meaning, but Malaysians like to pepper their sentences with it:
Then, there is the famous “can or not?”
For example: “You borrow to me five dollars, can or not?”
Obviously, sentences like these totally confuse any visiting foreigners, but to Malaysians they somehow make perfect sense.

The vocabulary of Manglish consists of words originating from English, Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese, Tamil, and to a lesser extent various other European languages, while Manglish syntax resembles southern varieties of Chinese. Also, elements of American and Australian slang have come through from imported television series.
The Malaysian Manglish is sometimes known as Rojak or Bahasa Rojak, but it differs from the Rojak language by the usage of English as the base language.It is similar to Singlish.
Manglish shares substantial linguistic similarities with Singlish in Singapore, although distinctions can be made, particularly in vocabulary.
Initially, "Singlish" and "Manglish" were essentially the same language, when Singapore and Malaysia were a single geographic entity: Malaya. In old Malaya, English was the language of the British administration whilst Malay was spoken as the lingua franca of the street. Thus, even the Chinese would revert to Malay when speaking to Chinese people who did not speak the same Chinese dialect.
Theoretically, English as spoken in Malaysia is based on British English and called Malaysian English. British spelling is generally followed. However, the influence of American English modes of expression and slang is strong, particularly among Malaysian youth.
Since 1968, Malay, or Bahasa Melayu, has been the country's sole official language. While English is widely used, many Malay words have become part of common usage in informal English or Manglish. An example is suffixing sentences with lah, as in, "Don't be so worried-lah", which is usually used to present a sentence as rather light-going and not so serious, the suffix has no specific meaning. However, Chinese dialects also make abundant use of the suffix lah and there is some disagreement as to which language it was originally borrowed from.