While I can now visit Vietnam and communicate with some locals in English, what dangers faced someone who got lost in a foreign country? When did it start to be common that people speak other languages as well?
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Ancient Romans didn’t travel to China, it was too far and crossed too many different empires and terrains. They were aware of eachother from stories and goods that drifted across trade routes, but a single traveler wouldn’t complete the entire route.
When people did travel it was a whole operation with expensive logistical support and security and local guides and interpreters. If you traveled far you may have needed several interpreters to get from Gallic to Greek to Persian in the likely event you couldn’t find someone who spoke both Gallic and Persian.
Peasants simply didn’t travel, and the merchants and diplomats that did would bring large entourages.
Travelers need guides, to help them navigate unfamiliar terrain, to introduce them to the people they need to meet with, and to translate around language differences.
Today the idea of just flying to a place where you don’t know the geography isn’t a thing, with ubiquitous maps and smartphone apps; and language translators. That wasn’t the case for the 12K years of human history before the year 2000.
When Lewis and Clark went up the Mississippi, they had a young native girl named Sacagawea with them, and she would translate as best she could, plus her presence alleviated initial fears.
Many of the tribes they encountered were eager to trade furs for knives and hatchet heads made of steel.
Dont quote me on this, but i looked it up a few months ago and from what I remember its two things:
1) In case you are travelling by land (basically in euroafroasia), the change in language a gradient. So you basically make people from the region between the two places youre travelling between either teach your men the language or act as interpreters themselves
2) A lot of pointing and gestures and people on both sides learning each others languages to act as interpreters
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