Abstract This article puts forward the hypothesis that a small number of lingua francas (LFs) can be historically observed as having reached a special status and manner of use. Termed here lingua cosmopolitanas (LCs), the proposed distinctive group is exemplified by languages such as Sanskrit, Classical Arabic and Latin, representing a distinctive quasi-universal communicative phenomenon not adequately observed in research. To test this hypothesis, our study compares six LFs in terms of broad sociolinguistic characteristics. These include, on the one hand, post-4th-c. Sanskrit, post-8th-c. Classical Arabic and post-9th-c. Latin, conjectured as potentially LCs, and, on the other hand, post-18th-c. French, post-16th-c. Spanish and post-18th-c. KiSwahili in international use, as likely not of such additional status. The results of the comparison show the former as distinctive, with five characteristics separating them from the three latter LFs. They are found to include (a) loss of native speaker reference; (b) becoming the implicit conduit of the times; (c) fixedness of norm in writing; (d) extreme longevity in stable form; and (e) emergence of and co-existence with ‘daughter’ languages. The findings are then discussed in terms of paradigms describing natural language as a phenomenon in general and LF as a concept in particular. In addition, English is also discussed in the same terms, as potentially an LC in statu nascendi, and tested against the deduced signifiers.
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