Initial Communication

[SKG_Scintill]

In the time of the 1500s-1600s when European countries first travelled to Asian countries by ship, they had to communicate in some way with the inhabitants.
Ofcourse after settling, a new generation will come that's raised with both languages, solving the issue. But what do you do in the phase between?

How do you for instance teach the first translator if he/she only knows his own language? Do you start from the very basics with "this. is. apple. this. is. book", or is there a global language when it comes to trading?

What do you think, how does communication start when neither side knows the other language?

[Wayward Vagabond]

i think there is a lot of pointing at first

[SKG_Scintill]

Sure, but how do you go from pointing to understanding eachother?
It's not like people get skilled at pointing.

[ScylaX]

I don't know, let's find out !

[Wayward Vagabond]

Originally Posted by SKG_Scintill

Sure, but how do you go from pointing to understanding eachother?
It's not like people get skilled at pointing.

that is when you either adopt their language or teach them yours.

ive actually had to do this is and when im the one visiting i try to learn their language at least the basic things. if i have a pen and paper i draw what it is that im looking for or need.

[Winrar]

I think pointing is just the stepping stone so that you understand a few words. From there you can make out sentences just from a couple words. When I speak to my family or grandmother they only speak Ukrainian, I can understand a bit more than I can speak, but when they talk I make sense of a few words and piece them together to know what they're asking or telling me.

[Cavernio]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin
From there you should be able to reference jump to your hearts content, trying to find real knowledge and good theories from people who study this stuff. You can also just read up about linguistics in general too.

I don't have any knowledge about such things except from a psychological perspective, which is also pretty slim.

"It's not like people get skilled at pointing."
Well, sign language exists, and can theoretically exist just as easily as spoken language. I imagine it doesn't because we all have functioning voices that we can use while using our limbs for other things.

When it comes to trading back in the day, you'd visibly see the goods you were trading, so I wouldn't think it'd be that important to even know nouns. Future trades would be hard to negotioate anyways, what with how long it took to travel anywhere. Gestures and angry or happy sound and looks go a long way.

If I were trying to teach a non-native speaker I'd start with nouns and basic verbs. You wouldn't even need to learn verb tenses, just nouns or some way of conveying past, present, future, ongoing or conditional events. Numbers and quantity would be important, but all the nuances of a proper language wouldn't be necessary for trading really.

Translators jobs back in the day would no doubt involve conveying important cultural differences, somthing that modern day translators definitely aren't trained to do.

You wouldn't need traditional kinds of settlers to learn languages either. There was plenty of violence before the renaissance period in Europe and Asia, so plenty of intermingling of cultures and languages. All it would take is a woman to be married/matched to an invading man, raped or consensual, who would no doubt raise her kids using her native language, since that might be the only one she knew.

[Mourningfall]

I've worked in environments for years where there have only been a small handful of people who speak English as their first language, and no matter what the country they came from the first step is always to create an understanding, "using pidgin and common hand gestures" basically, rinse and repeat. Always repeat.
Starting extremely basic, almost as though you're trying to talk to a dog (although while trying to avoid a condescending tone), and once you feel they've gained a thorough understanding of the information you're trying to purvey, you introduce new words and concepts using the same process.
Sounds slow and it sounds frustrating, but when in a foreign country people are a hell of a lot more keen to be able to communicate effectively.
Most people pick it up pretty quickly, some I've worked with for years and really
only seem to know a handful of phrases. Varies from person to person.

[Arkuski]

Well in Pocahontas it seemed to work out just fine

[UserNameGoesHere]

Ask yourself how did you learn your first language? Were you born knowing? If not, then you must have learned somehow. I imagine learning an undocumented language to be similar to learning your first language.