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

They had translators, learned the local languages and made the locals learn their own language (although not in case of the Dutch specifically, they’ve generally kept their own language to themselves in the Indies).

To establish a basic vocabulary, just pointing at stuff and saying words is very simple and works well enough. Or you can recruit/capture someone who already has some understanding of the language to skip that stage.