Mediterranean Lingua Franca

The Lingua franca of the Mediterranean or Sabir ("know") was a pidgin language used as a Lingua franca in the Mediterranean Basin from the 11th to the 19th century.Based mostly on Italian and Provençal in the eastern Mediterranean, it later came to have more Spanish and Portuguese elements, especially on the Barbary coast. It also borrowed from French, Greek and Arabic. This mixed language was used for communication throughout the medieval and early modern Middle East as a diplomatic language. It was the language used between slaves of the bagnio, Barbary pirates and European renegades in pre-colonial Algiers.
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