A history of interpreting

We dont know the exact date by which language as such was first invented, but it is
safe to assume that shortly after signs and gestures no longer sufficed for decent
communication the first interpreters came along to facilitate understanding between
the speakers of already different tongues. It is from Ancient Egypt that the oldest
references to interpreters have survived. Several reliefs show interpreters at
work. An epitaph for one Prince of Elephantine from the 3rd century BC refers
to a headman interpreter. As is also documented by other sources at that time
interpreters already were a regular element of public service and are listed by
Herodot as one of the professional associations in Egypt. Interpreters provided
their services in the administration, in trade, in religious life, and in the armed
forces.
The ancient Greeks and Romans likewise regularly availed themselves of the services
of interpreters who at that time naturally only provided chuchotage and escort
interpreting (with no booths for simultaneous interpreting as yet in sight). Caesar, for
instance, in The Gallic Wars referred to the provision of habitual interpreters and
Cicero established the eternal rule that only silly interpreters provide literal
translations. Interpreters were needed primarily because only very few Romans and
Greeks stooped to learn the languages of the peoples they had conquered, something
they regarded as beneath their dignity. Thus the use of interpreters also carried a
political dimension with Roman reasons of state requiring them even where not
necessarily needed in order to demonstrate Roman superiority, a fact repeatedly
stressed by Valerius Maximus in his writings. At the time, however, interpreters were
seldom highly respected. Most of them were slaves, prisoners of war, or hailed from
border areas, i.e. people whose loyalty could not always be taken for granted. The fact
that they spoke foreign tongues in ancient thinking placed them in the proximity of
those who communicated with the gods while in trance or of healers discussing
illnesses with demons. The Roman Emperor Caracalla, for instance, is reported to have
allied himself with the rulers of the peoples he conquered and tried to get them to
march against Rome in the event of his assassination. As these negotiations were
witnessed only by the interpreters they were slaughtered right after negotiations were
completed.
In medieval times, however, the interpreting profession was highly valued. Interpreters
greatly highly admired and even ended up as members of the courts. In addition to the

important part they played at international negotiations in times of war as well as

peace, on trade expeditions, and the crusades interpreters were also vital for the spread
of Christianity. They were employed in monasteries staffed by monks of a multitude of
different nationalities and origins, at councils and synods, and accompanied
missionaries and preachers to far-away lands. Attempts were made to come up with
universal languages often based on the kabala -, but by the end of the day the use of
interpreters remained the only effective method of communication between peoples of
different tongues. The era of the great discoveries overseas and the expansions into
Africa were other heydays for the interpreting profession. The Arabic and Hebrew
interpreters originally on board, however, proved little useful on the occasion and soon
Columbus & Co began to employ the services of captured natives who were taught the
conquerors languages to be used as interpreters on later expeditions or, alternatively,
the services of fellow conquerors who had been taken prisoners and later released by
the natives whose languages they had learnt during their imprisonment. Canada had
resident interpreters, French natives who had settled with the Hurons and Iroqueans
and were deemed more trustworthy than the Red Indians. These interpreters were
essential for developing trade relations between the French and the natives.
Things took a similar course upon the exploration and prozelytisation of the Asian
continent. To facilitate communication with Chinese officials and intellectuals the
missionaries translated both the works of Western scientists and Christian texts. And
the 17th century saw one interpreter embark on an astonishing career Constantin
Phaulcon, a Greek, who after having started off as a ships boy, learnt English, French,
Portuguese, and Siamese, joined the East-Indian Company where he quickly advanced
to the highest ranks, and ended up as Prime Minister at the court of the King of Siam.
Meanwhile in Europe French was becoming the lingua franca of the diplomatic world
thanks to Frances predominant political power and as a result demand for interpreters
suffered a decline. This development, however, in many countries was less than
popular. Due to long-standing hostilities with France the Habsburg Emperor Leopold I
preferred Italian over French as the language generally spoken at his court. The
Ottoman rulers likewise refused to use French and Latin in their contacts with
European countries. Either court therefore trained its own interpreters. Constantinople
for this purpose set up the Dragoman School and in Vienna Empress Maria Theresia
founded the Oriental Academy, later rebaptised Diplomatic Academy and still in
existence today. Interpreters continued to be heavily used by missionaries and
tradesmen, generals and revolutionaries, emperors and conquerors, while diplomats up

to WW I mainly relied on French. At the Paris Peace Conference which followed the
First World War, however, negotiators requested the possibility to also use other
languages and ended up employing the services of consecutive interpreters. The time
between the two World Wars saw the speedy evolvement of a considerable number of
large international institutions including the League of Nations and the International
Labour Organisation ILO. This naturally translated into a larger number of high-level
international meetings thus multiplying the need for interpreters and their services. At
first consecutive interpreting was chosen, i.e. interpreters made notes in a specifically
developed type of shorthand while the speaker was still going on and rendered the
statements in the target language from a rostrum after the speaker had finished.
Needless to say that in doing so they took almost as long, which extended meetings
unbearably and ridded them of all spontaneity. Soon efforts were made to develop a
new interpreting method that would be less time-consuming and more advantageous
for everyone involved simultaneous interpreting. Simultaneous interpreting was
developed almost at the same time both in the US and in the Soviet Union providing a
direct connection between speakers and interpreters who in turn render the translation
simultaneously for the audience. This to start with involved a hugely complicated
system of cables, microphones, and headsets. At first it was not overtly popular with
interpreters who feared being condemned to perform a demeaning task, repeating word
by word what they were hearing without the time to reflect about what they had heard
and rendering it in elegant style. The Americans commissioned Colonel Leon Dostert,
a former interpreter of General Eisenhowers, with the development of a simultaneous
interpreting system. There was little Dostert could fall back on to in the process except
for the experiments by the interpreter Andrea Kaminker who had developed his own
system for French radio using it to translate Hitlers first major speech in 1934.
Roughly at the same time the IAO also used a so-called simultaneous telephony
system, which, however, also fell short of proving a great success.The new
interpreting method proved indispensable at the Nuremberg Trials which were
translated into English, French, Russian, and German. The interpreters were sitting
right next to the accused working in three teams of 12 each according to a strict
schedule: while Team A would do a 45 minute stint, Team B was listening in in the
room next door. After a break roles were reversed. Team C meanwhile had half a day
off. Simultaneous interpreting not only made it possible to considerably cut the time
required in the process, but also greatly improved the quality and exactness of the
information delivered. That was the beginning of the triumph of simultaneous

interpreting over consecutive which it has almost completely replaced. By now

consecutive interpreting is limited to very special occasion only, such as dinner
speeches or special events where no interpreting systems are available or can be
installed. In 1947, for instance, the United Nations adopted Resolution 152 making
simultaneous interpreting a permanent service. Today the United Nations provides
simultaneous interpreting to and from English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and
Arabic. The European Union offers simultaneous interpreting in all of its 23 official
languages, which translates to a couple of hundred possible language combinations
and makes conference planning a highly tricky affair, often to be managed only by
computers.As for interpreting itself, efficient though they may be, computers can
never really understand language in all its nuances and subtle variations. Languages
are the living expressions of cultures, of social settings, traditions and the history of
the peoples who speak them, a reflection of the characters and moods of the speakers,
their social backgrounds, and their intentions. Only the brain of a human interpreter is
fit enough to fully grasp the multi-faceted manifestations of the combinations of these
characteristics in a foreign tongue in the respective context and render them correctly.