Before we had google translate and all of this stuff to do it for us, how did we originally translate one language to another? I mean, before we had “english to french” dictionaries and all of that.
In: Other
Well, translation dictionaries have existed for a long time, much longer than either English or French. The Roman Emperor Claudius was known to have an Etruscan<->Latin dictionary, and he lived from 10BCE to 54CE. Similarly, the Mahavyutpatti existed in 9th century Tibet and translated Tibetan and Sanskrit.
When it comes to spoken language from ages ago, it was a matter of immersion and trial-and-error. You point at a stool, and say “Stool”, then have someone do the same. Eventually you get to the point where you can begin constructing sentences.
Latest Answers