How did civilizations understand each other when they first made contact?

[Xanikk999]

I always wondered this. Civ games got me thinking.

Like for example when the romans met the chinese or when india met the greeks.

How did trade take place? How did they understand eachother?

And also with the native americans and europeans. I dont get how they communicated.

 

[Riesstiu IV]

Is this question even worthy of a thread?

Explorers, travelers, and traders made the effort to learn a foreign language through interaction or simple used intermediary translators. If you remain exposed to a foreign language long enough, you will eventually start to pick up speech.

 

[deo]

And there was no contact like we know it from Civ, Rome for example didnt knew anything about china before the 3rd century ( was it the 3rd?), they just knew there was a far east, but some traders from Rome knew China very well...

 

[Dreadnought]

Romans knew Greek, Greeks knew Persian, Persians knew Indian, Indians knew Chinese.

Simple.

 

[willemvanoranje]

First contact? Would probably be the same as when you meet someone that doesn't speak any language you speak. Hands and feet and a lot of guessing.

 

[sydhe]

First contact? Would probably be the same as when you meet someone that doesn't speak any language you speak. Hands and feet and a lot of guessing.

That's pretty much how Columbus and the Arawak did it. You wind up with a lot of names of landmarks that mean something like, "I don't understand you!" or "What?"

 

[ice2k4]

I meet you. You speak a different language. You point to a chair and say "sedia." I point to the same chair and say "chair." Quite simple.

If you ever get a chance watch The 13th Warrior (movie) with Antonio Benderes. It's based on Beowulf (the epic.) In it a Arab ambassador is sent to the Northen lands to make contact with the Northmen (Vikings.) When he is at the first meadhall he makes contact with he is selected to go on a journey with 12 other Northmen to defend another meadhall. He eventually learns there language and as none of them can write, he begins to teach a few how to write in arabic.

 

[deo]

Yeah, that movie is great! I wish there were more of this sort of movies...

 

[Adler17]

BTW, that Arab, Ahmed ibn Fahadlan, indeed lived and indeed traveled to the Vikings. He was also indeed visitor of a ship funeral, I mean, where the ship was burnt with the dead king. The rest is Hollywood.

Adler

 

[Lonpone]

How did trade take place? How did they understand eachother?

And also with the native americans and europeans. I dont get how they communicated.

Being human helps. A smile means happy, wherever you live, pointing at something means, 'that'. The next time you meet a foriegner, try asking them how they felt coming to your country and how it was learning the language and you'll get the idea.

 

[Verbose]

BTW, that Arab, Ahmed ibn Fahadlan, indeed lived and indeed traveled to the Vikings. He was also indeed visitor of a ship funeral, I mean, where the ship was burnt with the dead king. The rest is Hollywood.

Adler

Fadlan met the Scandinavians somewhere in present day Russia. He also described them as simultaneously time filthiest and most beautiful people God ever created.

 

[Verbose]

The trickiest situation we know of is probably Cortez landing on the mainland of the New World without interpreters.

What occured was that he came across Mayan speakers. Among these he found a Spaniard named Aguilar who alongside a mate had been shipwrecked years before, but been adopted by the local Mayans. Aguilar had a pretty miserable time and was happy to see Cortez and perfectly willing to act as a Mayan-Spanish interpreter.
His mate otoh had got married, had two sons and had effectively "gone native". He even rallied the local natives to attack the Spanish after telling them what their appearance meant for them. They were of course defeated.

It then transpired that Cortez found this Aztec princess, Malinche/Malintzin, sent off to marry some Mayan kingling and possibly resenting the whole situation to the point of wanting some pay-back on her own Aztec kind. She also became Cortez mistress and the mother of his son.

So Cortez would say something in Spanish to Aguilar, who would translate it into Mayan for Malintzin, who would render it into Aztec/Nauhatl.

Those kinds of interactions through many layers of language seem quite common. Stanley in Africa in the late 19th c. would speak Arabic, or possibly Swahili, with his interpreters who would translate into the local lingo. It led to a fair bit of misunderstanding though.

 

[ice2k4]

Yeah, that movie is great! I wish there were more of this sort of movies...

Horrible ratings though, I guess you would of had to read Beowulf to really appreciate it, but then again, who hasn't read Beowulf?

BTW, that Arab, Ahmed ibn Fahadlan, indeed lived and indeed traveled to the Vikings. He was also indeed visitor of a ship funeral, I mean, where the ship was burnt with the dead king. The rest is Hollywood.

Adler

Never knew that. That will come in pretty handy for my British Literature class. We just annotated Beowulf, read Grendel and watched The 13th Warrior. Only thing we haven't done yet was read Eaters of the Dead, which the movie is based on (which Eaters of the Dead is obviously based on Beowulf.) Quite fun comparing all these pieces.

 

[The Yankee]

Time and learning. Remember that these processes were drawn out over much longer periods of time than we would consider to be reasonable. That and those few that did learn and conduct business and negotiations were probably more prestigious considering they were one of the extreme few that could do such a thing and could pass those skills on.

 

[Dachs]

Romans knew Greek, Greeks knew Persian, Persians knew Indian, Indians knew Chinese.

Simple.

Actually, Aurelius sent an ambassador to the Chinese.