List of lingua francas
Turkish is still in use and widely spoken in several areas formerly part of the Ottoman Empire and may be understood by older people in other parts of the Middle East.
Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
Europe became dominated by nation states with the rise of nationalism in Europe. The Ottoman Empire was a religious empire. The 19th century saw the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire which resulted in the establishment of an independent Greece in 1821, Serbia in 1835, and Bulgaria in 1877-8. Many of the local Muslims in these countries died during the conflicts and massacres while others fled. Unlike the European nations, the Ottoman Empire made no attempt to integrate conquered peoples through cultural assimilation. The Porte had no official policy of converting the non-Muslims of the Balkans or Anatolia into Islam. Instead, Ottoman policy was to rule through the millet system, constituting of confessional communities for each religion..