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Triskitguru t1_ixhz43s wrote

You're severely underestimating the amount of multilingual people that would have existed. Merchants, scholars, or diplomats would likely have known several languages and/or had access to people who could translate for them. In some cases a bridge language may have been used (ex: an American and German who both knew French, but not each other's language).

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AnaphoricReference t1_ixi89ww wrote

Translators are obviously rarely explicitly mentioned in histories, but Caesar at some point for instance mentions changing translators due to questionable loyalty of his allies the Aedui, who apparently supplied them.

This detail has been of some interest in the discussions about the languages spoken in Gaul in Caesar's time, because it might explain why 'Germanic' tribes/chiefs/places have 'Celtic' names: the possibility of adoption of exonyms from the Gaulish language of his translators as a bridge between Latin and third languages.

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Khelek7 t1_ixju7kx wrote

No idea the identity of the OP, but man living and growing up in the USA has given many of us a very wierd version of how the world communicates.

I worked in East Africa for a few years. The average Rwandan spoke three languages and many spoke four with only a limited education. (Kinyarwandan, Swahili (for the market), and either French (if you were old) or English (if you were young).

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herewego199209 OP t1_ixi0exw wrote

Ah didn't think about that. I never thought about them using bridge languages.

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Artharis t1_ixi2vks wrote

The actual funny question is how the first Europeans, i.e. Columbus or Cortez, communicated with the various American natives.

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it_vexes_me_so t1_ixi6gla wrote

Lewis and Clark were often confronted with these types of situations, especially the more they moved west.

How they managed to negotiate with five, six, or more interpreters without it devolving into a ridiculous game of telephone is remarkable.

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Treyred23 t1_ixjixsx wrote

I read at one point it went 3-4 languages one way, and then of course, 3-4 back. 😂

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TheIrises t1_ixio1a0 wrote

There are so many amazing studies on this. They actually used for the most part Native translators. It was the natives that often spoke more than one language because of the tribes always being so near to each other and consistently having to make alliances as well as war.

La Malinche is a great example of this. Although her origins remain murky she is suspected of speaking 3 native languages, Chontal Maya, Yucatec Maya, and Nahuatl, as well as Spanish. By being exposed to only new languages one will be forced to learn them. This happened to La Malinche when she was put into Cortez’ hands.

A common misconception is that the Spanish had no native help, when in reality Cortez used the already messed up relationships between the native groups to take down the Aztec Empire, which had conquered them. While there were Spanish interpreters, many were also native.

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kewlio72 t1_ixi31t2 wrote

Takes out whip, THIS IS GOLD? WHERE GOLD - proceeds to whip till gold

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Artharis t1_ixi3v6b wrote

No, I get you are trying to be funny, but...

They didn't even know there was gold there until after Cortez was invited by the Aztecs.

And the best interraction was March_1504_lunar_eclipse ... Columbus and the Natives had great relations, until they overstayed their welcome ( 6 months ), where the natives wanted to get rid of them... Columbus used the incoming lunar eclipse ( which he knew would happen, because stronomists released books about future cosmic events which were 99% accurate at least ), thus he lied and said God was angry at how the natives had treated them. Naturally they knew the languages pretty well by that point.

Naturally the communication issue was resolved within weeks, long, long before the issue of gold even came up ( and with other natives ).

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sighthoundman t1_ixiphr4 wrote

For Cortés, it was Geronimo de Aguilar and La Malinche (name unknown).

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GermanScheissePorn t1_ixjml0a wrote

Probably over exaggerated hand signs looking ridiculous lol. And/or sock puppets?? I sometimes wonder how natives made fun of Columbus and giggle to myself. Sorry, I've had a few drinks...

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