Book contents
- Multilingualism and History
- Multilingualism and History
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Multilingualism and Historical Amnesia: An Introduction
- 2 Greek Meets Egyptian at the Temple Gate: Bilingual Papyri from Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Third Century BCE–Fourth Century CE)
- 3 Language Shift, Attitudes and Management in the Roman West
- 4 Languages at War: Military Interpreters in Antiquity and the Modern World
- 5 How Multilingualism Came to Be Ignored in the History of Standard English
- 6 Multilingualism and the Attitude toward French in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
- 7 Why Colonial Dutch Failed to Become a Global Lingua Franca
- 8 How Unique Was Russia’s Multilingual Elite?
- 9 Language Ideology and Observation: Nineteenth-Century Scholars in Northwestern Siberia
- 10 Studying Historical Multilingualism in Everyday Life: The Case of the Habsburg Monarchy in the Nineteenth Century
- 11 Multilingualism and the End of the Ottoman Empire: Language, Script, and the Quest for the ‘Modern’
- 12 “Multilingualism Is Now a Must”: Discourses on Languages and International Cooperation at the Council of Europe
- 13 The Role of the Past in Language Revitalization
- 14 Historic Reenactments in Contemporary Spain: Fiestas de moros y cristianos
- 15 Multilingual Ghost Signs: Dissonant Languages in the Landscape of Memory
- Index
- References
4 - Languages at War: Military Interpreters in Antiquity and the Modern World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 April 2023
By
Edited by
Book contents
- Multilingualism and History
- Multilingualism and History
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Multilingualism and Historical Amnesia: An Introduction
- 2 Greek Meets Egyptian at the Temple Gate: Bilingual Papyri from Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Third Century BCE–Fourth Century CE)
- 3 Language Shift, Attitudes and Management in the Roman West
- 4 Languages at War: Military Interpreters in Antiquity and the Modern World
- 5 How Multilingualism Came to Be Ignored in the History of Standard English
- 6 Multilingualism and the Attitude toward French in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
- 7 Why Colonial Dutch Failed to Become a Global Lingua Franca
- 8 How Unique Was Russia’s Multilingual Elite?
- 9 Language Ideology and Observation: Nineteenth-Century Scholars in Northwestern Siberia
- 10 Studying Historical Multilingualism in Everyday Life: The Case of the Habsburg Monarchy in the Nineteenth Century
- 11 Multilingualism and the End of the Ottoman Empire: Language, Script, and the Quest for the ‘Modern’
- 12 “Multilingualism Is Now a Must”: Discourses on Languages and International Cooperation at the Council of Europe
- 13 The Role of the Past in Language Revitalization
- 14 Historic Reenactments in Contemporary Spain: Fiestas de moros y cristianos
- 15 Multilingual Ghost Signs: Dissonant Languages in the Landscape of Memory
- Index
- References
Summary
Recent scholarly interest in the figure of the interpreter has resulted in a wealth of studies of individual interpreting careers and interpretation practices in specific historical contexts. But, while it is common for present-day knowledge and personal experience of interpreting to inform historical case studies, or for historical examples to receive passing mention in accounts of the contemporary situation, a truly critically informed diachronic perspective is so far lacking. This chapter takes a comparative diachronic approach to the study of interpreting by comparing and contrasting the lives of military interpreters in diverse historic contexts. Rather than offering separate biographies, my aim is to show how structural factors affect the position and practices of interpreters across time and space. I will also show how experience in working with fragmentary evidence from one period (e.g., documents from the ancient Mediterranean world) can be used to inform research on interpreting in other historic contexts (e.g., British Army records from the First World War).
Keywords
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- Chapter
- Information
- Multilingualism and History , pp. 90 - 106Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023
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