alt Hacker NewsI remember reading 17th century letters from Dutch diplomats. They used French to write back home- except when they talked about money. Such matters required a higher form of communication.
Replies
shadowtree • today at 2:36 PM
Lingua Franca, like literally. French used to be the language of diplomacy.
➕ show 1 reply
There's a lot of french in tolstoy too, and I believe most of the dialog can be inferred to be in french but is in russian for literary reasons. French was the daily home language of the russian imperial aristocracy. They spoke russian with an accent.