Sabirr — The Sabir Lingua Franca | sabirr.com
A table of names and identifiers: Mediterranean Lingua Franca, Sabir as cognate of saber 'to know', ISO 639-3 pml, Glottolog ling1242, and the pidgins that borrowed the word.
The language carries several names in the literature. Its formal designation is the Mediterranean Lingua Franca; Sabir is the common name, and the two refer to the same primarily Romance-based pidgin used across the Mediterranean basin from the 11th to the 19th century.
The name Sabir is a cognate of the Romance word saber, meaning 'to know'. The etymology ties the language's very name to the practical knowledge it conveyed between peoples who did not share a mother tongue.
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Modern catalogues record the language under two identifiers: ISO 639-3 code pml and Glottolog code ling1242. These codes allow the language to be referenced unambiguously in linguistic databases, library catalogues and computational work.
The vocabulary travelled further than the language itself. Pidgin languages as distant as Krio and Chinese Pidgin English use forms similar to or derived from Sabir for 'to know', demonstrating that elements of the lexicon survived long after the Mediterranean contact medium went extinct.
Taken together, the names and codes give a complete reference set: a descriptive name (Mediterranean Lingua Franca), a common name with a Romance etymology (Sabir, from saber 'to know'), two catalogue codes (pml, ling1242) and a documented legacy in other pidgins.
Further reading