When The Mediterranean Spoke The Same Language… More Or Less
Sabir was the Esperanto of the sea
Learning to speak sabir — a mix of Italian, French, Spanish, and Arabic — was essential if you were a sailor or a merchant in the Middle Ages. It also came in handy if you were an Ottoman pirate. Maybe even a banker. Or a Christian renegade hiding in Algiers. Or, unfortunately for you, a slave.
Whoever you were, you definitely should have been speaking sabir.
What’d you say?
International ports have always been a melting pot of cultures, foods, clothing, and religions, in the past as well as today. During the Middle Ages, European ports all around the Mediterranean were a Babel of languages and local dialects, and people who needed to communicate with each other had a pretty rough time.
Merchants came from the Ottoman empire to sell silk, tobacco, and cotton: they spoke Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. Jewish merchants from Marseille came in with wine, cloth, and coral, while Northern Europeans brought furs, woolen cloth, tin, hemp, and honey.
Porcelain and gunpowder came from China, marten skins from Ireland, linen from Flanders. Indian merchants brought cumin and ginger, pepper, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
