2 - The Author

Summary

This chapter substantiates the hypothesis that the key publication on Lingua Franca, the Dictionnaire de la langue franque ou petit mauresque published anonymously in 1830, is based on the work of the US consular officer William Brown Hodgson carried out in Algiers in the late 1820s. By removing the anonymity of the Dictionnaire, and by linking its compilation to the activities of the American consulate in Algiers shortly before the French invasion of Algeria, the hypothesis presented in this chapter opens new avenues for both linguistic and historical research. The chapter is structured as follows. Section 2.1 introduces the argument. Section 2.2 lays out the structure of the Dictionnaire and highlights its importance for Lingua Franca scholarship. Section 2.3 contains the bulk of the chapter, and Section 2.4 provides a succinct summary of the main points.