When Europeans first arrived in America how did they learn the Indians language?

[Vikingen]

Well, the first Europeans that arrived in the Americas were the Vikings. And they did settle - or at least tried to.

But they disappeared after few years. On of the theories is that they were wiped out by Indians. But that is just a theory, could have been other reasons - but it is a real mystery why the Vikings disappeared in such an environment that was really to their favor. My guess is that they were killed by Indians.

Typically, Vikings did try to interact with the locals after initial contact. The Vikings that settled Newfoundland were probably not in a position to carry on with the aggressive warfare they were know for in Europe.

I would imagine that if there was any contact between Indians and Vikings they would have traded goods - and they would have communicated by signs. The Vikings would hardly have any use of learning any Indian language. But the Vikings were great opportunists - they did anything that was needed to get an advantage.

[redguard57]

Hand signs, inflection, body language. After that, the same way anybody learns any language. You immerse yourself and after a few months you get a lot of it down.

The missionaries picked up the Native languages pretty quick. Some, like John Eliot, even created an alphabet and translated the Bible into his trans-literation of Algonquian.

[CrazyDonkey]

Originally Posted by Amer'Indian Warrior

Some learned Native Indigenous tongues the rest thought it was a language of savages. Smdh.

There were pidgin and trading jargons, which tended to include words from two or more languages. For instance:

http://www.washington.edu/uwired/out...y_Abridged.pdf

Note that the in the Chinook Jargon, the word for "Indian" was si'-wash, a word frequently found in Jack London's novels referring to native characters ("Siwash Joe", "Siwash Mary", etc.). Seattle had a minor league baseball team called the "Siwashes" in the early 20th century. You might think that Siwash was a Native American word, but you'd be wrong - its origin was the French word, savage.

[mordovar]

Dominicans prepared dictionaries and they learned indian languages very easely, and they were used to study languages.