II Abraham Salamé
Salamé was the last Royal Interpreter of Oriental Languages. He is best known for his account of the naval attack on Algiers in August 1816, his first assignment as royal interpreter.
33 – The Interpreters of Oriental Languages for the Georgian Kings of Great Britain
II: Isaac Cardozo Nuñez and Simon Lucas The men on the list of Interpreters of Oriental Languages are not well known, and some of them have left very little trace. We have seen that John Massabecky’s story is unknown; so are those of Messrs Arbona (1763-1767), Logie (1767-1769), Deceramis (1769-1782), Tully (1794-1802), Costa (1802-1809) and Delagarde (1809-1816). They hardly appear …
Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century
32 -The Interpreters of Oriental Languages for the Georgian Kings of Great Britain
Fourteen men acted as Interpreters of Oriental Languages for the King of England from 1723. The first four were Easter Christians from Syria, then part of the Ottoman Empire.
31 – Malamine Camara and Pierre de Brazza
In loving memory of Adrian Adams (1945-2000) When Pierre de Brazza started to explore the coast of Gabon and the Ogooué River in 1874, he relied on soldiers and sailors recruited by the French Navy – laptots – to act as his interpreters. These were the latest iteration of a system that relied on Senegalese intermediaries from the late seventeenth …
Portrait of Mabruki and Bombay in H M Stanley, How I Found Livingstone, Scribner's 1913 edition
30 – Selim, Bombay and Maganga, I Presume?
Bombay and Mabruki. H M Stanley, How I Found Livingstone, Scribner’s 1913. p. 69
29 – Trade, Embassies and Communication: The English in China, 1715-1842 – Part III
Dr Robert Morrison, Sir George Thomas Staunton and the Amherst Embassy of 1816 The failure of the 1816 Amherst embassy to the Chinese court can be seen as a step toward worsening relations between the United Kingdom and China. The tensions between the two nations were clear in the embassy’s dealings with the officials who accompanied them to the emperor’s …
28 – Trade, Embassies and Communication: The English in China, 1715-1842 – Part II
Li Zibiao, George Thomas Staunton and the Macartney Embassy In 1787, The British government decided to send an embassy to the Chinese imperial court to negotiate more favourable trading conditions than those afforded by the Canton system. Their goals included access to ports other than Canton (Guangzhou), an embassy in Beijing, and an island reserved for British traders’ use. While …
27 – Trade, Embassies and Communication: The English in China, 1715-1842 – Part I
Foreign traders in eighteenth-century Canton used interpreters – called linguists – in their dealings with Chinese officials.
26 – Artus de Lionne and Constantine Phaulkon
A number of diplomats travelled in embassies between Siam and France from 1680 to 1688. Six different groups of envoys attempted to bring about a rapprochement between the kingdoms of Phra Narai and Louis XIV. These negotiations varied in success and proved inconclusive but the stories of two of the most significant middlemen involved – the missionary Artus de Lionne …
25 – George Drouillard, Toussaint Charbonneau and Sacagawea
Lewis and Clark started recruiting interpreters when they were planning their expedition to land west of the Mississippi. Sacagawea and her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau joined them in November 1804.