I've been reading a lot about Mesoamerican culture in old reddit posts today, and became curious about communication between the Aztecs and the Spanish who had just arrived. How did they learn to communicate? Did the Europeans some sort of standard system in place for learning a new language when they encountered an unknown people? Did everybody just point at things until everyone knew the same words? Did they have linguists on board the ships?

In my head, the question sprang from the interactions between the Aztecs and the Spanish, but I am also curious as to how this was handled throughout larger swaths of history.