The stories of early interpreters
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 …
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 …
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 Umayyad Caliph of Cordoba, Abd ar-Rahman III (889/91 – 961) needed intermediaries as he sought to consolidate his rule, and they were almost always non-Moslems. There is some suggestion that by the mid-tenth century the Arab elites in al-Andalus had become closed in on themselves and reluctant to deal with non-Moslems Be that as it may, the Caliph’s protracted …
The Jesuit mission in Japan recognised that the Christian faith had to be less European if they were to make converts. The need to acknowledge the realities of life in Japan gave a worldly edge to the Society’s endeavours there: communication, transactions and negotiations with local governors, powerful barons, and the shogun himself – as well as traders from Macao …
The Ottoman Empire was bound to need interpreters. In the sixteenth century it extended into Central Europe, Crimea, the Middle East and Africa and had a mixed population speaking a variety of languages. It also attracted outsiders: traders, travellers and diplomats. Not everyone needed an intermediary as multilingualism or the use of a lingua franca enabled communication within the Empire …