From Lapham's Quarterly:
Learning Sixteenth-Century Business Jargon
Writing, accounting, and expertise were all sought-after skills in English merchants conducting trade abroad in the sixteenth century, and all employees in this role would be expected to hold at least some level of competence in each of them. Something that could really set applicants apart was knowledge of languages.
Business was conducted in multilingual and cross-cultural environments and the need to communicate with merchants, manufacturers, brokers, and officials in markets across the world meant that mastery of languages, or even competence, was in great demand. Finding merchants able to operate in these different linguistic environments was not always easy, especially in trades where English was never likely to be helpful. The East India Company, for instance, was reliant on Spanish- and Portuguese-speakers to engage with Asian rulers, and “Richard Temple who had the Spanish tongue” was propelled to a position of great importance when he was appointed to act as an interpreter between Paul Canning and the Mughal emperor Jahangir in Agra.
Demonstrating the effective application of language in a business context, usually learned while merchants were living abroad during their training, could be a surefire way of obtaining a position. In the case of Mr. Brund, a merchant initially overlooked by the East India Company for the post of principal factor—or trade agent—his linguistic expertise was so widely admired that the corporation’s members protested the decision. Insisting that Brund was “a grave and discreet merchant and one which hath the Arabian, Spanish, and Portugal languages,” they argued that his exclusion could only mean the directors themselves misunderstood the demands of the trade. In the face of a linguistically fueled shareholder rebellion, Brund’s appointment was quickly confirmed at their next meeting.
Languages were held in such high regard due to their scarcity, and making sure that would-be traders really had the necessary skills to conduct negotiations in another tongue was not always easy. For example, when the East India Company sought to employ “writers skillful in the Dutch tongue” as representatives in the United Provinces, they were so disappointed by the initial applications that they sent a subsequent applicant, Edmond Baynham, a test to ascertain the quality of “his writing and speaking Dutch.”
Where possible, merchants sought to train skilled linguists from among members of their community. Efforts were made to provide instructional texts, such as William Strachey’s “dictionary of the Indian language for the better enabling of such who shall be thither employed” and Richard Hakluyt’s material for learning the rudiments of the Malay language that the East India Company thought would be “very fitting for their factors,” but these were probably not all that helpful. Companies tended to rely on language learning during apprenticeships instead, as this could be validated more easily through recommendations. For instance, John Major was apprenticed to John Guillam “to be instructed in the said art [of a merchant] and the French tongue.” Similarly, in order to obtain a loyal and English, but linguistically capable administrator for their activities in the Ottoman Empire, the Levant Company considered “whether it was not meet to breed up an Englishman in the ambassador’s house [in Constantinople] to be the secretary after Signor Dominico.” Other merchants obtained language skills and experience of living in different lands through less structured educational experiences. The London merchant Lewes Jackson, for instance, who left England in the Little Hopewell “bound for the Amazons,” found himself diverted to “Wyapoko” where he stayed for fifteen months before returning to England via Barbados.
Linguistic skill was respected, but it was the ability to communicate effectively that was essential for early modern merchants—and this was not just a matter of language. It was with this in mind that George Best wrote a detailed account of his travels to North America, offering advice about “how to proceed and deal with strange people” and detailing the ways “trade of merchandise may be made without money.” In different contexts, working with and accepting local commercial practices was important, such as in Massachusetts where Richard Foxwell “do cause myself to owe and stand indebted unto Francis Johnson” not cash but “one hundred twenty and five pounds of good marketable beaver.” It did not matter if these practices were not the ones merchants might have learned in England; when working in overseas markets, it was a merchant’s job to adapt and get the job done....
....MUCH MORE
