How did old trade Empires communicate with each other?

Question

Things like the Dutch spice trade. How did they set up these trading routes half way across the world from each other with no translators?

In: 13

Answer 1

How long do you think the “no translator” thing lasted? The real way that stuff worked historically was mostly someone from one culture marrying/buying/taking a woman from the other culture then you teach the kid both languages and then in 7 years you have a generally good translator. People weren’t retraining adults in language schools. You just intermarry and you get people who can speak both languages for free in less than a decade.