David Bellos: the world's first fully elaborated writing system was in place to train language interpreters - Sumerian to Acadian

We are now talking about bilingual tablets. No not technology. Ha! Tablets, real tablets! Ancient stuff.

But just like now, new tech always goes to the richest. So who used these bilingual tablets? Priests, astronomers, mathematicians, and yes, interpreters. So interpreters have been using tablets for 5000 years.

Bellos: Greek: metaforos: shape changer, transfer of meaning
incidentally this can be construed as transfer of meaning between languages, changing the place of one thing for another @LinguaGreca

Greeks thought of non-Greek speech as gibberish, basically like the barking of dogs. This is where we get the barbarian word. Barbas

Bellos: Greece, from which we learned almost everything in every area has nothing to teach us about the history of our profession.

The linguistic culture of Rome was really quite different. They were into bilingualism. Rome valued Greek, a language that was not their own. Elite Romans also learned Greek. School in ancient Rome was all about that, learning Greek and then translating works into Latin.

Rome needed linguistic intermediaries to manage their empire. Its structure was based on citizenship, not skin colour or language diversity. Learning Latin was the key to social advancement. Did you know 6 Roman emperors were black?

L2 Latin speakers were fixers, go-betweens and negotiators. These L2 speakers were slaves. So the origin of the interpretus word is from slaves.
When educated ppl translated they used the verso word which means to turn. In French when you translate into French it's version

The Roman idea of translating into Latin was to adapt to make a Latin version, not to make a precise form of the Greek original. PS Rome translated nothing from other languages, only from Greek.

Slaves were interpreters and L2 Roman speakers were translators.

Now we are going to jump forward 1000 yrs.
Ottoman empire, Anatolia
Ottoman turks took over, 4th century they eliminated the Greeks & subjugated Egypt
They held Persian culture in high esteem and adopted Arabic script for writing their own language.
Ottoman turkish became king

In this domain, bilingualism was the norm. They demanded tribute and asked for people to send one of their sons to be slaves in Istanbul. These people were called language boys. They became trilingual, Ottoman turkish, Persian and their original language. They were terps.

None of the languages of the Ottoman empire were usable with states to the west since their languages were not known over in western Europa.

The language boys were taught to translate Ottoman Turkish into Italian to communicate with Venice. Their special skills put them in a separate, higher caste. Their trade quickly became hereditary. Translators were the sons and grandsons of Greek and Catholic translators.

From the 14th to the 17th C Phenariates were the exclusive keyholders for international diplomacy, and these were the ones who came from the hereditary what have you. They were the dragomans and were largely indistinguishable from Ottoman diplomats.

The downside to being part of this special, privileged class, well one dragoman was hanged in the 1820s because of diplomacy failures. Dragomans were permanently suspected of acting on behalf of foreign powers. They mostly worked to not upset the sultan.

The Ottoman empire become ostracized because of all the adapting no one trusted the dragomans.
French became a new intermediary language. In 1699 the French founded a language school. École des truchements d'Orient.

Say thank you to the fates that you weren't an Ottoman dragoman. Your job is hard but chin up the Ottoman experience is a one off because they were a hereditary caste of language specialists.

And here is the advice from Horace, ancient poet:
Don't translate Greek literally like a fidus/slavish interpres.
(If you want to become a good poet)