The stories of early interpreters
We associate Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) with the New World and sometimes forget that he was from the old one. “Christopher Columbus” is the posthumous, anglicised version of the Ligurian “Cristoffa Corombo”, the Italian, “Cristoforo Colombo”, the Portuguese “Cristóvão Colombo” and the Spanish “Cristóbal Colón” by which he was known in his lifetime among Ligurian, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish speakers. He …
There are two buildings in Heritage Town in the former French colony of Pondicherry that are associated with men who were key to the success of French trade there: St Andrew’s Church, built in 1745 by Pedro Kanakaraya Mudaliar in memory of his son, and the 1735 house owned by Ananda Ranga Pillai, who succeeded Mudaliar as chief intermediary for …
English travellers to India on East India Company (EIC) business were well aware of the need to find ways to communicate with locals on their journey and at their destination. Sir James Lancaster, who led the first EIC fleet to explore trade prospects in 1601 had an original way of replenishing the ships’ stores while at the Cape of Good Hope. …
The Schlagintweit brothers’ account of their expedition to the Indian subcontinent in the 1850s acknowledged the crucial role of their interpreters. “During our travels in Tíbet and Turkistán, and also in some parts of Sikkim, we had to engage different men, who knew Hindostani as well as the languages of the countries we were traversing. Besides filling their office as …
Recent histories of exploration and colonisation have acknowledged that early accounts tended to privilege intrepid outsiders grappling single-handedly with the unknown; scholars now recognise that these were often complex undertakings involving different kinds of intermediaries. It is interesting to consider interpreters as one of several kinds of go-betweens as a way of understanding the role they played. The British Raj provides us …
Themistocles and his historians reflect a range of attitudes to language, identity and loyalty, thus giving us a sense of attitudes towards interpreters far back in time and memory. Themistocles was a rare example of a Greek who could speak a foreign language … This sense of a common tongue was the decisive criterion for determining who were Greeks. Herodotus …
It is part of the working life of interpreters today that they are behind the scenes, most successful when unnoticed. That invisibility can characterise the historical record too: the interpreters who are known to us are the exceptions; the others are an assumed presence. That is certainly true of Ancient Rome. Interpreters are rarely mentioned in documentary or epigraphic sources for …
Looking for Interpreter Zero in the era before the Norman Conquest or the Crusades can seem unpromising. There is very little material on language use at that time, which is why the record of the Strasbourg Oaths in Nithard’s (795-844) Historiae or De dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici pii (Histories or On the Dissensions of the Sons of Louis the Pious) is so significant. What we get from this …
1066 is a key date in British history, marking the beginning of the Norman Conquest that led to years of upheaval as William the Conqueror consolidated his rule, repressed rebellions, redistributed estates and built castles. This is one of the most studied periods of British history; our interest here is in some details in the landscape, namely languages, communication and …
Fulcher of Chartres, one of the chroniclers of the First Crusade, was an insider who travelled with Duke Robert of Normandy and Count Stephen of Blois. He had every reason to know when communication within a given group might present problems. Outside observers had little time for the nuances of regional participation: Anna Komnene referred to the Crusaders as Kelts, …