I’ve often wondered* just how explorers, anthropologists etc ever managed to start communicating with tribes and civilisations that had never befor been encountered. I mean, you’ve got a total language barrier there - no shared words whatsoever, so how did they begin to figure out the language enough to trade and ultimately communicate fully?
For instance, I came across an article which mentioned [url=http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/l/la/la_malinche.html]La Malinche*, a woman from what is now Mexico, who acted as an interpreter for Hernan Cortés. It seems that she translated Nahuatl into Maya, which was understood by one of the Spaniards who had been a prisoner of the Maya. But how did he originally learn the lingo? It just seems like an impossible task. I mean, I can see how you could learn a few basics by pointing at trees, animals, body parts etc and getting people to say their word for them, but to progress on to complicated linguistic concepts? Hmm
heck, I might even have asked, but I’m darned if I can find the thread if I did.
You don’t need complicated linguistic concepts to communicate most things – hell, gestures can get you a long way, and a handful of nouns and verbs picked up that way will carry you for most of what you want to know.
Once you’ve managed to figure out what, where, who, and so forth, you can ask a lot of questions, and the vocabulary for asking questions builds.
Some people are just better at this guessing game than others; there may have been 5 or 6 or 20 prisoners, but only one who made any progress with the language.
Some people have a far better aptitude than other for acquiring new languages. I knew a Hungarian Cictercian monk who taught himself enough Russian in a matter of weeks to fool the invading Soviet troops into thinking he was a fellow soldier – which meant the difference between life and death.
There’s also the fact that during the Age of Exploration, Europe boasted more languages and dialects than it does today. Before the enforced standardization of the modern age, every little village had its own dialectic peculiarities, and someone who lived all of his life in one place might be hard pressed to understand someone from another town only fifty miles away, even if they both spoke the same “language.” This means that the ability to learn new languages quickly (or to find other ways of overcoming communication barriers) was an essential skill for anyone who travelled often.
In addition, there is no better environment for picking up a new language than total immersion. A Spaniard held by the Mayans would have to find ways to communicate with his captors.
Now as far as anthropologists go, they have the advantage of linguistic training that teaches powerful tools for rapid language acquisition. In a relatively short time, they can pin down a new language’s basic structure and begin building a working vocabulary. It’s a lot of work and involves a tremendous amount of memorization, but not terribly complicated.
Portugese Traders, crusing the coast of Africa, came up with a novel technique.
They’d put their goods down on the shore, near a village. Then row back to the ship, knowing that they had been seen. The locals would put some of what they had to trade on the sand.
The next day, certain of the local items would be shoved away, as unwanted.
The following day, certain Portugese items would be similarly dismissed.
By similar means, quantities (ie-prices) would be dickered over.
Only when all parties were satisfied did the Traders leave their goods, & claim their profits.
Just remember, every human being has had to solve this problem at least once. I managed to learn flawless English without having any common language with the people I learned it from, as have most members of this board. Of course, it’s a lot easier for infants, but is it so implausible to suppose that some linguistically gifted folks would retain the knack into adulthood?
Unfortunitly, much of the Americas was tamed by the gun. Kill them and take what you want. A universially understood method of communicating. The weren’t called Conquistadors for nothing.
