Final answer:
The predominantly Italian lingua franca on corsair ships was a result of the central role that Italian maritime republics played in Mediterranean trade and cultural exchanges during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Step-by-step explanation:
The lingua franca on corsair ships was influenced by a mix of languages, primarily shaped by the interaction of various cultures through trade and conquest across the Mediterranean. Italian played a predominant role in this maritime pidgin language due to the extensive trade networks Italians had across the region, especially during the time of the Renaissance. Merchants from the Italian maritime republics, such as Venice and Genoa, were deeply involved in the trade between the East and West, facilitating not only economic exchange but also cultural and intellectual interactions. This included the transfer of knowledge, revival of lost Greek texts, and the growth of the Renaissance humanist movement.
Given the broad commercial and cultural network of the Mediterranean, sailors and pirates would have encountered various language influences, including Turkish and Greek. However, the dominance of Italian maritime republics in trade and their encounters with other Mediterranean powers meant that Italian influences were strongest on pirate ships, serving as the lingua franca facilitating communication among diverse crews.
It is worth noting that in medieval and Renaissance Europe, and specifically in the Mediterranean, the interaction between different cultures led to a blend of languages that served practical purposes, such as trade, navigation, and governance. Such language evolution is evident in the historical contexts of Norman Sicily, where coins bore inscriptions in both Arabic and Greek, in Byzantium where Greek was widely spoken even after the Arabic language of governance was introduced, and in the Renaissance where immense cultural and knowledge exchange took place influenced by texts recovered from the Arab world.