Linguister

1666, letter from William Acworth, in Siam, to George Oxenden of the British East India Company, cited in John Anderson, English Intercourse with Siam in the Seventeenth Century, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1890, p. 105, […] the Portuguese very privatly gives information […] that it [the murder] was done by one of my people and by my order[;] this young man whom they accused was my linguister […]

1701, trial of William Kidd, in Carrie J. Harris (ed.), State Trials of Mary, Queen of Scots, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Captain William Kidd, Chicago: Callaghan, 1899, p. 183, Mr. Coniers: What did you take from this ship? [Robert] Brad[inham]: Capt. Kidd took out Parker, and a Portuguese for a Linguister. Mr. Coniers: A Linguister, What do you mean by that? Brad.: An interpreter;

“[…] He can talk to the Pawnee, and the Konza, and the Omawhaw, and he can talk to his own people.” “Ay, there are linguisters in the settlements that can do still more. But what profits it all? The Master of Life has an ear for every language!”

Though he [Geoffrey Chaucer] did not and could not create our language (for he who writes to be read does not write for linguisters), yet it is true that he first made it easy […]

the linguister, whose work it is to make clear to his fellow Africans the wishes and commands of officers and crew

One day a linguister, a native commission agent, arrived in a trading canoe, and stated that […] a prince some way up the river […] had [said] […] that if I sent him five longs and five gallons of rum he would […] let my trade pass.

A “chief linguister” went along in order to act as a broker for the ship’s captain or supercargo.