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Intercultural communication

The interpreting profession in Ancient Egypt

By June 29, 2021August 6th, 202140 Comments6 min read45,161 views

Remember Joseph speaking to his brothers through an interpreter?

Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers

Academic interpreting often labors under the assumption that the profession was born in the early years of the 20th century. Billions of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, of course, know better. They first encounter an interpreter in the biblical story of Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob. Sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers, Joseph rises to become the deputy of the pharaoh by the grace of God. When the Israelites’ harvest fails, the brothers must travel to Egypt to buy grain. Joseph, who oversees the grain trade, recognizes them, but they do not recognize him. Joseph imposes a series of tests on his brothers to see whether they have repented. Eventually, he forgives them and the whole clan of Jacob moves to Egypt to share in Joseph’s good fortune.

One of the reasons the brothers did not recognize Joseph was that, as an Egyptian official dealing with foreigners, Joseph used an interpreter to communicate with foreign merchants. According to Genesis 42, 23 “[the brothers] did not realize that Joseph could understand them, since he was using an interpreter.”

Interpreting was institutionalized in the Egyptian bureaucracy

Trade was one of the domains that brought Egyptians into contact with speakers of other languages, as in the example of the Israelites. Diplomacy was another area and captive taking yet another. To cope with the intercultural communication demands raised by Egypt’s considerable external dealings in Africa and the Middle East, ancient Egyptians instituted the role of interlingual mediator in their bureaucracy (Kurz, 1985, 1986; Salevsky, 2018).

Some of the earliest evidence for Egyptian interpreting practices comes from the tombs of the princes of Elephantine, which date from the 3rd millennium BCE. The princes of Elephantine were the governors of the Nubian border province in the south of Egypt. Their titles included “secret advisor for all business concerning the south of Upper Egypt,” “steward of the southern lands of Upper Egypt,” and “the one who has brought back the produce of all foreign lands for his royal lord and who spreads the fear of Horus in foreign lands” (Chrobak, 2013).

In short, the princes of Elephantine were in charge of what was essentially a colony and regularly led raids further south, into what they called “the land of Yam.”

To communicate with their non-Egyptian subjects and contacts, they employed interpreters, as is apparent from another one of their titles: “overseer of dragomans” (Gardiner, 1915). “Dragoman” is a fancy word for “interpreter” (Hermann, 1956), and one I will write about next time.

Whether “dragoman” or “interpreter,” the exact meaning of the hieroglyph “wa” remains a matter of some debate (Falbo, 2016). The hieroglyph is an abstraction of a loincloth that was only used by foreigners or by people speaking a foreign language (Salevsky, 2018). The Egyptologist who first deciphered the inscriptions had already cautioned that it might refer to any “speaker of a foreign language” (Gardiner, 1915). As such the duties of the “interpreter” were probably not restricted to linguistic mediation only but were quite wide-ranging in maintaining various forms of contacts with foreigners (Chrobak, 2013).

The interpreter relief in the tomb of Horemheb

The interpreting relief from the tomb of Horemheb. The interpreter (in the middle) mediates between Horemheb (left) and foreign envoys (right) (Image credit: Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden)

A striking depiction of the work of an Egyptian interpreter can be found on a bas-relief in the tomb of Horemheb, which dates from the 14th century BCE. Horemheb was a general under the pharaoh Tutankhamun before he became pharaoh himself. The relief shows envoys from Libya, Nubia, and Syria prostrating themselves before Horemheb. According to the inscription, these foreigners are begging the Egyptians to send their armies and turn their countries into protectorates because the people there “live like animals in the wilderness” (Kurz, 1986).

One cannot feel but cynical about the age-old lies with which empires justify their exploits to themselves.

Between Horemheb and the envoys, we see an interpreter in action. It is a clever visual depiction of an essentially oral act: the interpreter is shown twice, once facing Horemheb and once facing the envoys. We can almost see him turn from one interlocutor to the other, as the image gives us a strong sense of the dynamism of the interpreting act.

Sadly, it is today impossible to get a full view of the complete interpreting scene because in the 19th century the relief was broken up into pieces and sold to European tourists. The three pieces that make up the interpreter relief are today housed in museums in Berlin, Leiden, and Vienna (Kurz, 1986).

Training an interpreter corps

The records suggests that, for the longest time, Egyptians could not be bothered to learn foreign languages themselves (Hermann, 1956). In an eerie resemblance to today’s English monolingual mindset, they felt that for an Egyptian, speaking Egyptian was just fine. It was non-Egyptians who had to adjust and become bilingual by learning Egyptian.

Despite their strong sense of superiority, they did no want to leave the business of interpreting in the hands of foreigners. Therefore, they systematically created an interpreter corps of people who were not only bilingual but also Egyptian in culture and tastes. At least since the Middle Kingdom (2040 to 1782 BCE), they did this by bringing sons of foreign royal families to Egypt at an early age so that they could learn the Egyptian language and be socialized into the role of interlingual mediators (Kurz, 1986).

Only when the Egyptian empire began to decline, did Egyptians themselves start to learn foreign languages. From the 6th century BCE, Egyptian boys were sent to live with Greek families so that they could become bilingual in Greek. The Greek historian Herodotus reports that, by the 4th century BCE, their descendants had congealed into an interpreter caste, whose status ranked between that of merchants and seafarers (Kurz, 1986).

Interpreting gives way to multilingualism

By then, the power of the pharaohs had waned, and Egypt had become a multilingual polity. With the Persian conquest of 525 BCE, Aramaic replaced Egyptian as the language of the state, and with Alexander’s conquest in 332 BCE, Greek became the dominant language (Thompson, 2009).

Multilingual Cleopatra

When the pharaohs’ power had been assured, they could leave the pesky work of intercultural communication to others. Not so Cleopatra, the last pharaoh, with whose death in 30 BCE 5,000 years of Egyptian empire came to an end. In addition to Egyptian and Greek, she knew at least seven other languages. According to Plutarch’s Life of Antony (27, 3-4), “in her interviews with Barbarians she very seldom had need of an interpreter, but made her replies to most of them herself and unassisted, whether they were Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes or Parthians.”

References

Chrobak, M. (2013). For a tin ingot: The archaeology of oral interpretation. Przekładaniec: A Journal of Literary Translation, Special Issue 2013, 87-101.
Falbo, C. (2016). Going back to Ancient Egypt: were the Princes of Elephantine really ‘overseers of dragomans’? The Interpreters’ Newsletter, 21, 109-114.
Gardiner, A. H. (1915). The Egyptian Word for “Dragoman”. Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 37, 117-125.
Hermann, A. (1956). Dolmetschen im Altertum. In K. Thieme, A. Hermann, & E. Glässer (Eds.), Beiträge zur Geschichte des Dolmetschens (pp. 25-59). Munich: Isar Verlag.
Kurz, I. (1985). The rock tombs of the princes of Elephantine: Earliest references to interpretation in Pharaonic Egypt. Babel, 31(4), 213-218.
Kurz, I. (1986). Das Dolmetscher-Relief aus dem Grab des Haremhab in Memphis: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Dolmetschens im alten Ägypten. Babel, 32(2), 73-77.
Salevsky, H. (2018). The Origins of Interpreting in the Old Testament and the Meturgeman in the Synagogue. The Bible Translator, 69(2), 184-198. doi:10.1177/2051677018786366
Thompson, D. J. (2009). The Multilingual Environment of Persian and Ptolemaic Egypt: Egyptian, Aramaic, and Greek Documentation. In R. S. Bagnall (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of papyrology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199843695.013.0017

Ingrid Piller

Author Ingrid Piller

Dr Ingrid Piller, FAHA, is Distinguished Professor of Applied Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Her research expertise is in bilingual education, intercultural communication, language learning, and multilingualism in the context of migration and globalization.

More posts by Ingrid Piller

Join the discussion 40 Comments

  • Hana says:

    This article was very interesting. In fact, translators play more than just delivering language. Professional and highly skilled translators help make things even more seamless in business and critical policy decisions. This is also why I have a longing for this field. In this article, it was very fun to find out how similar and influenced this appearance to our current society through stories about Egyptian culture and hieroglyphics in the past. If you look at the origins of the world’s language, surprisingly, most of the world is made from Egyptian hieroglyphics. This accounted for more than 90 percent, and some languages are said to have originated from or artificially invented from Chinese Gapgol script. Hunminjeongeum (Hangul) used in Korea is almost the only artificially invented case. Therefore, it is difficult to learn, but on the other hand, I feel proud. Even in many documentaries and articles, it is still interesting and unbelievable to me how this letter became the basis of scientific language as it is now.

  • Shiyi.ke says:

    As we all know, the ancient Egyptians created hieroglyphs- the original format of linguistically writing.Hieroglyphs evolved from pictorial writing and are one of the oldest fonts. Unlike phonetic writing, pictographic writing belongs to ideographic writing. Due to the inherent properties of pictographs being complex and difficult to learn, they were gradually replaced by Pinyin characters that were easier to learn and initially master in most areas. Pictographs come from pictorial characters and are the most primitive method of creating characters. The pictorial nature is weakened and the symbolic nature is enhanced. Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sumerian, ancient Indian, Chinese oracle bone inscriptions, and stone inscriptions were independently produced from the simplest pictures and patterns in primitive society.

  • Chocomilk says:

    From the previous course taken last semester, I was able to read a paper that impacted me so much that I did my project based on it. It was titled “Power in face-to-face interpreting events” written by ,Ian Mason and Wen Ren. Although translators did not have direct power as in the case of kings and rulers, they had the power of delivering critical messages that will impact the diplomacy of the country. From Dr. Piller’s article, I am amazed that historical evidence supports the existence and role of translators/interpreters during the ancient times. It is also fascinating that Egyptian children were sent abroad to learn Greek at an early age, which is quite similar to Korean parents sending their children to study abroad (mostly to learn English) – referred to as “parachute kids.” Even ancient people had sent off children for education. What’s more amazing is that these interpreters were trained for their job even in the ancient Egyptian era. These are reflections why linguistics and language are one of the most important aspects of life, in the ancient era as well as modern.

    • Thanks, Chocomilk! Sending children away to learn languages is, indeed, not uncommon throughout history. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, some sons of the upper classes were sent to Constantinople so that they would learn Turkish in preparation for diplomatic service. The sons of the lower classes, by contrast, were exchanged among minority families so that they would become multilingual with the expectation of upward social mobility. The former were called “Sprachknaben” (“language boys”), the latter “Tauschkinder” (“exchange children”)

  • Correctly and wisely identified several times in the comments is the duration over millennia of the role of interpreters, of the importance of their work and the status derived from it —- and yet, despite their skills and the financial support of Shahs, Caesars, Czars and Kaisers inadequate communicating persists precisely because rulers and leaders rely on third parties. It’s no coincidence that Merkel and Putin get on together OK: she’s fluent in Russian. Perhaps the worst misquote or misunderstanding occurred when Khrushchev’s interpreter (in)famously over stated the Premier’s nuance one day in Warsaw. Wikipedia details the confusion re Comrade’s K’s “We will bury you” and “We will outlast you”. “It’s because I love you”, as in the Master’s Apprentices back in the day, not because your linguists, and it’s because Ingrid so admired Abdul Baha’s input that I post now the rest of his same paragraph on the lingo issue referenced earlier in this thread:

    “We know very well today that the Assyrians are not Arabs, that the Copts, Syrians, Chaldeans and Egyptians are not Arabs. Each one of these nations belongs to its own sphere of nationality, but, as they all began to study the Arabic language, making it a vehicle of intercommunication, today, they are all considered as one. They are so united that it is impossible to break this indissoluble bond. [so it had been and did remain more or less until Sykes-Picot and the LN, 1919] Today in Syria there are many religious sects, such as Orthodox, Mussulman, the Dorzi, Nestorians and so on. As they all speak Arabic they are considered as one; if you ask any one of them, he will say – I am an Arab, though in reality he is not. Some of them are Greeks, others are Jews etc. In short, there are many different nations and religions in the Orient that are united through the benefit of a common language. In the world of existence an international auxiliary language is the greatest bond to unite the people… Just as in the Orient a common language created common interests between the various nations, likewise, in this age a universal auxiliary language would unite all the people of the world. [Mumma mia] The purpose of my remarks is, that, in the world of humanity, the greatest influence which will work for unity and harmony among the nations is the teaching of a universal language. Every intelligent man [mutatis mutandis: ‘woman’, i.e. ‘all persons’] will bear testimony to this and there is no further need of argument or evidence.”

    ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Esperanto banquet, Hotel Moderne, Paris, Feb 1913 (Well known is what ensued 18 months later; many listened, few reacted!

    • Thanks, Paul! Why does English not do the trick then?

      • Ingrid: ‘Thanks, Paul! Why does English not do the trick then?’ It does the trick for me as an old white male native speaker with lots of money to spend abroad in airports and hotels but it’s colonial-imperial history and its racist-sexist structure have understandably rendered it unpalatable for lots of people. Expounding would go too much in to the spiritual nature of human beings on a platform primarily linguistic imo. I’ve had a good run thanks to u Ingrid.

        Briefly though, at a practical level: For world peace to become real several fundamental principles based on justice and equity need to be in place, for example: a universal education system that is fair to all genders and an auxlang, which usurps no one’s mother tongue, which is easy to learn and to teach and preferably taught at primary school. In the recent past neither French nor Russian were suitable as fair lingua francas because they served only an elite.

  • Anaid says:

    Thanks, Professor Pillar, for sharing this article with us. It is fascinating to see how translators have played a crucial role in facilitating business and political decisions. Also, how the Egyptian culture was in the past and how similar it is with our actual society.

    Nowadays, English is considered the Franca language to facilitate commercial transactions and political or humanitarian agreements in many countries, for example, between the United States and South America or humanitarian help in the middle east. The COVID-19 and the recent events in Afghanistan are examples of how crucial the role of translators and interpreters is in our society. However, in many cases, the profession of a translator or interpreter is not given its value. Which is unfair.

  • Yuxuan Zhang says:

    Yes, trade can link countries together, especially in today’s world. As globalisation needs business corporations, people from different countries cooperate with each other to satisfy own requirements and to promote own business benefits. In this case, interpreters and translators play a crucial role in business development. They need to do language meaning transfer to help their clients understand contracts, business documents, business communication etc. Not only business development, but also language culture contact needs interpreters and translators, otherwise, how people can understand other countries’ cultures? I saw a comment relates to electronic translation such as Google Translation, I totally agree with the idea that electronic translation cannot replace interpreters and translators. I used to study Chinese to English translation and interpreting, and I tried to use Google Translation to translate a text, consequently, there were many grammar mistakes, and word choices are inappropriate, there was no cohesion among each sentence. Google Translation is more likely to translate word by word, rather than considering the whole context, which will definitely cause wrong information and incoherent sentences. In this case, how trade and culture communication can achieve successfully? But translators and interpreters are humans, who have awareness to think about these potential problems to avoid these happen, and that’s why we can now clearly understand a translated text if this text was translated by a professional translator.

  • Ness says:

    Thank you for such an interesting article!
    It’s so funny to me to think about the story of Joseph, which was my favourite Bible story back in school, and realise just now that there was an interpreter involved in it thanks to your article. I guess the interpreter’s role was irrelevant to my religion class teachers. I don’t remember seeing an interpreter in the many TV depictions of this story I used to watch as a child in Easter for many years.

    It is interesting to learn how Egyptians’ ethnocentric view led them to consider that learning another language was a “burden” they did not care for (which you have interestingly compared with the current English monolingual mindset) and that they finally had to carry upon their shoulders when their power started to be diminished. Nowadays being bilingual and plurilingual is seen by most people as synonym of skillfulness and even social status (in some cultures).

    Thinking about the current role of interpreters in society, my mind immediately goes to thinking about how WWI and WWII generated the need to have quality linguistic services in order successfully participate in war scenarios and then, with the creation of the UN, to reduce the gap among nations, facilitate their interaction and advance towards the solution of global and transcendental political issues.

    REFERENCE: http://lalinternadeltraductor.org/n9/historia-interpretacion.html

    • Thanks, Ness! When I was in primary school and we learned the story of Joseph, I asked the teacher why the brothers did not recognize Joseph. It seemed quite incredible to me that brothers would not recognize each other. The teacher responded that the brothers did not recognize Joseph because he spoke through an interpreter (in German “durch einen Dolmetscher”). As it so happened, as a little child, I had no idea what a “Dolmetscher” (“interpreter”) might be but imagined some kind of curtain or screen. So, I imagined Joseph hiding behind a curtain for the longest time, and only at university, when one of our professors mentioned how interpreting appears in the bible, did I realize that I must have had misunderstood something all those years earlier … linguistic and cultural understanding can be tenuous in the best of times. As Milan Kundera says, we proceed in a fog …

  • Jeff says:

    Thank you for the article Ingrid!
    I think the correlation between modern English and ancient Egyptian is fascinating. As someone who grew up in America in a mono-linguistic setting, I feel I can relate with the ancient Egyptians. However, what I realized from reading the article is that unlike modern-day English-speaking countries, ancient Egyptians considered interpreters and cultural mediators as highly valued and visible members of society (demonstrated by the relief in the tomb). Today, in English-speaking countries, modern interpreters are more hidden in society despite their significance to international trade and commerce. For example, many people give little thought to the fact that their smartphone was made in China with parts sourced from all over the world. Most of the complex linguistic and cultural mediation required to create such a device happened behind closed doors. It would be nice to see modern-day language and cultural facilitators be more celebrated and acknowledged for their important role in supporting our modern society.

    • Thank you, Jeff, for this important point! I think that our erasure of linguistic and cultural mediation is quite harmful as it makes understanding across languages and cultures seem easy and something that “just happens” without any effort, planning, or care …

  • Frances Tran says:

    Thank you for your sharing. I feel surprised when knowing that Ancient Egyptians used interpreters and didn’t learn any languages but they still had special position in history.
    I think the concept of interpreters are cultural brokers that is no longer correct. A research said the interpreters must have cultural knowledge to conduct effectively their role as the bridge of communication of those who share the idea in the different language (Firmansyah, 2014). But nowadays, with the development of technology, especially Translation apps, people can communicate with each other. I have read a piece of news about a couples who are from different countries, the husband is American and the wife is Vietnamese. They shared that they communicate through the Google translate because the wife can’t speak English but they still understand each other. In this case, we can see there is no need of interpreters but this couple still understand and live together.
    Another example, now there are a lot of YouTubers share their videos about making foods, or about their daily life. Some of those, the YouTubers speaker their first language but there are a lot of viewers who don’t understand what YouTubers say but they still understand the culture of the YouTubers.
    From above examples, it seem that the technology is becoming linguistic and cultural brokers to help people connect each other from far distance. However, I still like the human interpreters, similarly ebook and paper book, I like paper book more because it is tangible and real. Furthermore, the technological linguistic and cultural brokers have role separately, not connect as same as interpreters in the history who play role in both linguistic and cultural brokers.

    Reference:
    Firmansyah. Y, (2014), The Importance of Cultural Awareness to Liason Interpreter, Penggembala Rindu Blog, https://penggembalarindu.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/the-importance-of-cultural-awareness-to-liason-interpreter/

    • Thanks, Frances, for your interesting comment! Maybe all those of us who have regular access to Google Translate and YouTube etc. just live in the same capitalist global consumer culture, which underlies the kind of understanding you suggest?

  • Xiaowen Xu says:

    Interpretation in China as a profession can be traced back to the Zhou dynasty, and the main role of these interpreters are to communicate with various minorities around China. However, systematic and large-scale translation occurred in China only after Buddhism was introduced into China. And Shi Dao An (314-385) is one of the most influential and important translators in the transmission of Buddhism. Dao An raised a famous translation theory called “five losses and three difficulties” when he was doing translation, and this is the first time that Chinese Buddhism translators began to think about the question that: should the translation be the same as the source text (translate word to word), or should they consider the cultural and social influence in the target text before doing the translation, and adapt the translation accordingly? I found Dao An’s translation theory quite fascinating because he had made a lot of efforts trying to keep the translation both accurate and aesthetical. We know that some words are not fully equivalent between two languages, however, his translation of Buddhism sutras was not only accurately expresses the meaning of source text, but also very understandable and concise to the Chinese audiences. Dao An has acted as an important role in propagating Buddhism to China from foreign cultures.

    Reference:

    J. Munday. (2016). Introducing Translation Studies. (4th ed.). Routledge.

    Xuanmin Luo & Hong Lei. (2004). Translation theory and practice in China, Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, 12(1), 20-30.

  • Tram (Sarah) says:

    How lovely to learn about Egypt and the practice of interpreting back in the day. I must say interpreters hold an integral part in our lives, thousand years ago in Egypt or in today’s globalization context where people need to communicate constantly in many domains. As the world is getting more involved in technologies and automation, there are plenty of browsers, namely Google Translate, Imtranslator, Translateme, that we can use to translate one language to another. Hence, more and more people incline to devalue this profession. So, can those machines someday replace the role of an interpreter? Personally, such browsers bring along convenience to people. Nevertheless, these tools only deliver “words”, not the spirit of speakers. For that reason, I think a true interpreter required both professional as well as cultural knowledge, as the ancient Egyptian trained their interpreter corps bilingually and culturally. Yet, we are talking about the human race, so who knows how far can we go and how would this matter change in the future.

    • Thanks, Tram! Automated translation is widely overrated … the quality of automated translation continues to be poor, even for well-researched pairs of widely used languages …

  • Suyeon says:

    It is very intriguing to learn that an interpreter’s role was indispensable for dealing with intercultural communication even when ancient Egypt traded with other foreign countries. From this article, l have learned that ancient Egypt used to hire foreigners to interpret their business dealings, but from the middle kingdom BCE, they established an interpreter corps of people originally from other countries, but raised primarily in Egypt with a deep understanding of culture and tastes of Egypt. Clearly, they recognized the importance of understanding culture when it comes to interpreting.

    In contrast to the methodology of training an Egyptian interpreter corps, the Joseon dynasty (Korea) trained their corps of interpreters by importing a small group of teachers to raise an elite corps of Koreans in English. Once the Korean-American Treaty had been signed in 1882, King Gojong wanted to raise elite officials with English skills so he invested money into Yugeong Gongwon (1886), public English education institutions, and employed three highly-educated native speakers from the United States. However, it did not succeed because students, selected by the government from among the families of highly ranked officials and privileged backgrounds, tended to lack both discipline and any strong motivation to study English. On the other hand, around the same time, there were private English education schools established by missionaries such as Baejae Hakdang (1885) and the Ewha Hakdang (1886). As these mission schools accepted students from any background or gender, its academic outcomes were successful. Some graduates would spend time in English speaking countries, to learn western culture.
    we can see that the need for cultural understanding was recognized by both Egypt and Korea, but I think the Egyptian method was likely to have been more advantageous in achieving a high level of accuracy and appropriacy in interpreting since the trainees learn the language at earlier age and they are already well aware of the culture.

    Reference
    Cho, J. (2017). English Language Ideologies in Korea: Interpreting the Past and Present. Springer.

  • Ian P says:

    Hey Ingrid,

    It was very interesting to learn about Egypt and its historical language patterns! I never knew that Egyptians did not feel motivated to learn other languages and instead just focused on non-Egyptians to become bilingual to suit their needs. Personally, I think it was a good thing that Egypt shifted from being monolingual to multilingual. I can’t even think how challenging it must have been for an interpreter in the timeframe BCE when these languages were evolving and some of them are not even officially recognised. What I find so interesting is that even up to this current day, we use language and interpreters to communicate in everyday life; for example, through trade agreements, journalism, politics, and so on. Despite being so open to other languages and learning them, up to this day, this practice remains a vital part of our lives .

  • Monica says:

    For me, this interesting piece about the role of historical interpreters as mediators between cultures highlights the fact that the work of translators and interpreters is easily overlooked. I imagine that the role of an interpreter in the biblical story of Joseph generally goes unnoticed by many, even by those familiar with the text. Another example where interpreters were integral and for which there is now a significant body of current research is the role of military interpreters, especially during WWII. Military conflict always involves language encounters both during conflict and in the aftermath (a good example here is the critical role of interpreters during the 1945/46 Nuremberg Trials). However, despite the importance of interpreters particularly during times of crisis (see COVID pandemic), their role is often overlooked and undervalued.

  • Adam Cameron-Taylor says:

    The idea that the Egyptians did not feel the need to learn the languages of those around them is fascinating and it is in some ways mirrored in the European settlement of Australia. One of the largest groups in the settlement was not from an English speaking environment but instead came from areas where the majority language was Irish. Once in the Australian colonies they were forced to survive in a language that was not their own and had a great need for interpreters to intervene for them in their dealings with authority.

    Reference

    Dymphna Lonergan (2003) An Irish-centric View of Australian English,
    Australian Journal of Linguistics, 23:2, 151- 159.

  • Jay says:

    Thank you for sharing such an intriguing blog about interpretation as a profession.
    I find Egyptian monolinguals quite interesting and relatable because similar situation was practiced by the people in the subcontinent after the invasion of British. In the beginning the people of the subcontinent were not ready to learn, interpret and practice English in curriculum and communication. Later, Sir Syed Ahmed khan encouraged the people to learn English and translated the major works of art and sciences in the local language (Urdu and Hindi). https://theprint.in/theprint-profile/sir-syed-ahmad-khan-for-whom-educational-reform-way-of-life/306520/
    He inaugurated a number of institutes in the subcontinent so that the people could learn and add the English language in their curriculum. The acquisition and interpretation of English as a second language was bureaucratically and academically important for the people of the subcontinent.

  • Brynn says:

    Fascinating history, and I am most interested in this line: “….they did this by bringing sons of foreign royal families to Egypt at an early age so that they could learn the Egyptian language and be socialized into the role of interlingual mediators.” What must THIS have been like for those boys who surely must have felt not completely accepted as an Egyptian but also not belonging to the culture to which they were born? This certainly parallels how many multilingual people feel today when they act not only as a linguistic interpreter but also a type of ambassador between two cultures. I would also be interested to know how these Egyptian interpreters were viewed by the general Egyptian public. It’s also amazing that Cleopatra knew as many languages as she did. Do we have any evidence of other women/girls acting as interpreters during this time?

    • Great questions – unfortunately, I don’t have an answer to any of them … other than to say that the Spanish colonizers kidnapped Native American youths to train them as interpreters, and the Ancien Regime or the Austro-Hungarian Empire sent youths (jeunes de langues; Sprachknaben) to Istanbul so that they would learn the languages of the Ottoman Empire and could later serve as diplomats …

  • Kim says:

    This history is extremely interesting!
    Despite having read the Bible, I did not realize that interpreters existed back then. If I had not learned about this story, I would not have recognized that the person in the middle in the carving on the tomb is an interpreter.
    It has just occurred to me that I had never wondered about how the profession start to come about, or when interpreters started to exist.

    One thing that stood interesting to me was the fact that Egyptians did not want to leave the business of interpreting in the hands of foreigners, hence creating a group who were bilingual and also quite “fond of the Egyptian culture and taste”.
    We often say, interpreters need to understand the culture of the language in order to fully or accurately deliver messages because there are more to languages than words and meanings. Culture is a huge part that makes up a language. Egyptians back then had the same idea! In order for mediators to accurately handle two languages and pass on the culture, mediators themselves had to know the cultures of the languages they spoke.
    I think that having this profession back in the days would have played a huge role in making multilingualism something common. Despite having many contacts with other language and culture through trade and diplomacy, having one of your own people speak several different languages could have influenced individuals to start learning different languages, resulting in a diversified society.

    • Thank you, Kim! Raising young people to become interpreters is not restricted to the Egyptians. Other examples include the Spanish invaders who sometimes abducted young Native Americans so that they could be trained to be bilingual, or Western European powers of the Enlightenment Period sending young boys to be educated in Istanbul so that they would learn the language(s) of the Ottoman Empire. These young people were known as “jeunes de langues” (“language youths”) or “Sprachknaben” (“language boys”) in French and German.

    • The unity in diversity referenced by Kim is perhaps best evident in the role played by Arabic – until the dissolution of the Ottoman empire about a century ago which is roughly when Sir Abdul Baha Abbas KBE weighed in: “No doubt you are aware that in the past ages a common language shared by various nations created a spirit of interdependence and solidarity among them. For instance, one thousand three hundred years ago there were very many divergent nationalities in the Orient. There were Copts in Egypt, Syrians in Syria, Assyrians in Musel, Babylonians in Bagdad along the river Mesopotamia. There existed between these nations divergence of opinion and hatred, but as they were slowly brought near to one another, finding common interests, they made the Arabic language a common vehicle of speech among them. The study of this common language by all made them as one nation….”

  • Gegentuul says:

    Really enjoyed reading it! Thanks!
    This also reminded me of the trade between sub-Saharan people and Arabs, who don’t meet each other in person to get what they need. Rather, the sub-Saharans just go to a place and choose what they need and in turn they leave what they have brought from their own towns. How did they know which object is of same value with the thing they have brought? The author, if I remember correctly, implied that there were mediators who set up values for each objects once in a while, and these mediators are most likely translators. (Golden Rhinoceros)

  • DRAGOMAN & DRAGOMANS
    No comments?

    But, a zillion believers in the Abrahamic religions will find “The interpreting profession in Ancient Egypt” fascinating and, dare I say it, even revelatory. It’s one of your best essays, Ingrid, and this by far IMO is your most astute paragraph and forthright observation ever:

    ‘The records suggests that, for the longest time, Egyptians could not be bothered to learn foreign languages themselves (Hermann, 1956). In an eerie resemblance to today’s English monolingual mindset, they felt that for an Egyptian, speaking Egyptian was just fine. It was non-Egyptians who had to adjust and become bilingual by learning Egyptian. Only when the Egyptian empire began to decline, did Egyptians themselves start to learn foreign languages.’

    Said paragraph, along with one additional sentence that opens your ensuing paragraph, are altogether so good that I made an Esperanto translation which I posted yesterday to the chat group of the Universal Esperanto Association – with members in 125 countries and an eventual readership of between one and two million souls. (Most subscribing Esperantists read English as they’re polyglots, translators and linguists in the main.) Naturally I included attribution and a link to Language on the Move along with a note, not really necessary given that the USA didn’t exist in pharaonic times, explaining that my translation is merely an attempt at humour that points to the irony of how few are the Baha’i leaders in Chicago and New York who engage Dr. Zamenhof’s auxlang of world peace despite Abdul Baha’s encouragements that urge Baha’is to study Esperanto irrespective of its unpopularity in his era or ours.

    ‘La antikvaj kronikoj sugestas, ke longegan tempon influhavaj bahaaj estroj en Usono 😀 ne povus strechi sin por lerni fremdajn lingvojn (Hermann, 1956). En timiga simileco al la hodiaŭa unulingva pensmaniero angla, ili sentas, ke por usonano kaj por chiuj nacioj, paroli la anglan entute sufichas. Nepre estu ne-usonanoj, kiuj devas adaptiĝi dum la tuta vivo kaj iĝi dulingvuloj per absoluta absorbado de la angla, preferinde la usona varianto. Nur kiam la imperio de Walls street komencis malkreski, bahaaj estroj en Chicago kaj Nov-Jorko mem ek-konsideris la zamenhofan lingvon.’

    Google Translate provides gratis a passable, and ever improving, Esperanto to English rendering.

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