How irksome, how wearying, to be doomed always to the society of those who are like people speaking different languages! It resembles travelling through the East, with a few phrases of lingua franca—just enough for the ordinary purposes of life—enow of words to communicate a want, but not to communicate a thought!
1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], pages 83–84