Category: Multilingualism

Long before English dominated global communication, the world’s oceans were a linguistic laboratory where sailors, merchants, and pirates forged simplified contact languages to bridge cultural divides. Known as maritime pidgins, these functional languages—like the Mediterranean Sabir—were not “broken” English or Spanish, but elegant, purpose-built tools for connection. This is the story of how the language of the sea became one of the unsung engines of early globalization.