Throughout history, especially during the Age of Exploration, there must have been plenty of times when two peoples met each other for the first time, and whose languages had never been translated to each other. How did scholars or ordinary citizens from both peoples go about understanding each other?
there must have been plenty of times when two peoples met each other for the first time, and whose languages had never been translated to each other.
Not as much as you may think. /u/Iphikrates has a write-up on why usually in history, separate cultures were familiar with some mutual secondary language they could communicate to each other with. We do have a FAQ section about cross-cultural communication and lingua francas for more info, including some examples of what happened in the rare situations where such mutual familiarity wasn’t the case. While more can be said if anyone wishes to add something new, here are some highlights:
How did conquistadors come to be able to communicate with Native Americans by /u/anthropology_nerd (hosted on /r/badhistory)
How did the first Portuguese explorers communicate with the Indians? by /u/terminus_trantor