The stories of early interpreters
Accounts of early European expeditions of exploration and conquest usually paid scant attention to the role of interpreters, but there were notable exceptions. A multilingual region The Spanish empire-builders who set out from Cuba to explore lands to the west of the Caribbean took Columbus’s improvisational approach to the need for interpreting. When Francisco Hernández de Córdoba led an expedition …
Christopher Columbus knew he would need interpreters but did not necessarily know what languages would be needed or who would do the work. Conference interpreting has a clear history but less is known about the interpreters who assisted early travellers, diplomats or traders. I have only just started looking into this and am intrigued to note that the literature shows …