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Babies communicate with cries and body movements that seem to be universal. Adults also have common gestures that are understood by all peoples. Holding the hand partially closed forming a cup shape and moving it toward the mouth will generally be understood as a desire for drink. Moving a hand towards the mouth as if holding something between the fingers will convey a desire for food. A tilt of the head and a hand gesturing toward something can mean 'what's that'?
As far as expressing the desire for gold, once they've seen the avaricious gleam in the eyes of the Spaniards at the site of gold, the natives knew what their visitors wanted very quickly.
The problem came when the natives had no treasure and didn't have a clue what the Spaniards were after. Then came the slaughter.
Ditto for other cultures and other treasure.
Yeap i figured on that they used hand gestures in most instances however i'm thinking of for example the letter that the Roman Emperor Valentinian III sister Honoria sent to Attila ( the Hun) asking for his help so she could escape her brother and the senator she was to be married too and i'm thinking how could they understand what the content was as they didn't read latin and she couldn't write in hunnish.
Yeap i figured on that they used hand gestures in most instances however i'm thinking of for example the letter that the Roman Emperor Valentinian III sister Honoria sent to Attila ( the Hun) asking for his help so she could escape her brother and the senator she was to be married too and i'm thinking how could they understand what the content was as they didn't read latin and she couldn't write in hunnish.
Border dwellers tend to be bilingual, but there's also trade. There's no language barrier tall enough to keep an interested buyer and seller from communicating. Moving from pointing and gesturing to abstract ideas like "I can bring two dozen more next Wednesday, but the price will be higher" goes fast when there's a profit motive.
As for letters, literacy was limited, so scribes would be employed to read and write communications, often in several languages. Attila, not being stupid, would have scribes and interpreters at his court. Trusted messengers would see to it that important letters didn't fall into the wrong hands, and those would quite often be polyglots as well.
Before Attila, Roman Empire and the Huns coexisted for quite a while. IIRC, Flavius Aetius (the guy who defeated Attila) spent time with the Huns as a hostage.
Plus I'm sure there were Germanic tribes that had sufficient contact with the Huns to intermediate.
Before Attila, Roman Empire and the Huns coexisted for quite a while. IIRC, Flavius Aetius (the guy who defeated Attila) spent time with the Huns as a hostage.
Plus I'm sure there were Germanic tribes that had sufficient contact with the Huns to intermediate.
Foolish of me as i should know better as Aetius is one of my historical idols and i do know about his upbringing with them as i've studied him extensively .
Anyway i have the jest about how they communicated when they first encountered peoples of another land.
I recall watching Terry Jones' series The Barbarians some time ago, and it's amazing just how small Europe turned out to be. Tribal peoples traveled extensively throughout Europe, and would have to pick up an understanding of each other's languages.
I read somewhere that it's believed that since the Huns, for instance, were actually a tribe composed of peoples from several different lands and languages, that they may have used Gothic as their "common" tongue, just as different peoples of the Roman Empire would have used Latin as a common tongue, retaining their own native speech within their separate section of the empire. There's probably something on Wiki about it.
We think that in ancient times people were insular, but apparently they got around quite a bit, and it would have been a smart idea to learn the languages of your neighbors.
Here is something I'm a bit confused about. One thing that characterized Rome in its Republican period was its uncanny ability to raise massive armies out of their seemingly endless supply of manpower. This can be seen in their wars against Pyrrhus, Carthage, Cimbri and Teutons, Spartacus and others. Rome could lose large armies in the field and still raise new ones.
Towards the later days of the Empire Rome seems to have lost that ability and was seemingly one defeat away from collapse. Battle of Adrianople, for example, was a severe blow from which the Empire never fully recovered. Also, Rome was forced to hire mercenaries to protect their borders. This is somewhat counter intuitive since Roman Empire was much bigger, and therefore should have had a larger pool of manpower than the Republic. I know Rome was experiencing social an economic problems but it still had probably tens of millions of people. A little strange that its defenses became so fragile
Intuitively, one would think that Columbus was inspired by what Galileo had theorized. But in fact, Columbus and Magellan had already proved the world was round, and there were already settlers at Jamestown, before Galileo was persecuted for the heresy that, among other things, the world was round.
The Popes were already raking in the gold from the unhappy Americans on the other side of the round earth, why did they get so bent out of shape at Galileo's confirmation of that obvious detail?
Now, I'm not losing any sleep over these and I guess I'm puzzled by more basic things...like the Easter Island heads...what was that about?
Stonehenge.
Stone formations throughout the UK.
Indian pyramids in North America.
Just how much into North America did the Vikings get?
What really did kill the dinosaurs?
The purpose of various ancient giant figures carved into the earth or built with stones throughout the world.
What did happen to the Anasazi?
Much more recently, where did Amelia Earhart end up?
Lots of theories on the above, and some of them are probably right, but still just theories.
Here is something I'm a bit confused about. One thing that characterized Rome in its Republican period was its uncanny ability to raise massive armies out of their seemingly endless supply of manpower. This can be seen in their wars against Pyrrhus, Carthage, Cimbri and Teutons, Spartacus and others. Rome could lose large armies in the field and still raise new ones.
Towards the later days of the Empire Rome seems to have lost that ability and was seemingly one defeat away from collapse. Battle of Adrianople, for example, was a severe blow from which the Empire never fully recovered. Also, Rome was forced to hire mercenaries to protect their borders. This is somewhat counter intuitive since Roman Empire was much bigger, and therefore should have had a larger pool of manpower than the Republic. I know Rome was experiencing social an economic problems but it still had probably tens of millions of people. A little strange that its defenses became so fragile
Here's my thought ....
During it's early kingdom and republic years it came close several times to losing some key battles that would have probably never allowed it to grow but they fought against enemies that were always about their same size in population during that certain time era and so they were never really out numbered nor did they have vastly huge numbers to overwhem an entire army until the days of Augustus going all the way forward to Trajan as i guess you could say that they just got damn lucky to constantly win their wars to slowly allow them to take on new territory. Also those early empirial days they had a vast selection of superior warrior class peoples i.e. the Gauls and Iberians to fight for them however at the ending of the empire these peoples had either died out or were inbreded with the numerous Germanic peoples that had migrated west during it's last several centuries.
However like all empires in do time they all self collapse as this empire was no different as centuries of over farming the lands (food shortages), shortage of raw materials, consuming more than they could produce in goods and services and the constant migration of peoples changed the makeup as the ''Romans'' were outnumbered some 25 to 1 in their own empire by the late 300's to 400's as the outer regions mostly became Germanized and sought self automony (sound familiar).
As for the Battle of Adrianople at that time in 378 A.D. heck they were already contracting as Constantine I chose to move the capitol in the early 300's to create Constantinople in the east (Thracia Province) as he and others knew it was just a matter of time before it imploded. I'm surprised that it lasted some 100 years more to 476 A.D. infact even the conquering Goths wouldn't take Italy or Rome in which they sacked as they knew it was a basket case there and eventually migrated to Spain (Kingdom of the Visigoths).
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