Dragoman

A dragoman was an interpreter, translator, and official guide between Turkish-, Arabic-, and Persian-speaking countries and polities of the Middle East and European embassies, consulates, vice-consulates and trading posts.

Deriving from the Semitic quadriliteral root t-r-g-m, it appears in Akkadian as "targumannu," in Ge'ez (Classical Ethiopic) as ትርጓም (t-r-gw-m), and in Aramaic as targemana.

The profession tended to be dominated by ethnic Greeks, including the first Ottoman Dragoman of the Sublime Porte, Panagiotis Nikousios, the official interpreter for the Divan (Imperial Council) of the Sultan, and his successor Alexander Mavrocordatos.

[5] With unanswered correspondence accumulating, the chief naval instructor, one Ishak Efendi, took over the position and became a pioneer in translation of Western scientific literature into Turkish, a task for which he had to create an entirely new vocabulary.

The dragomans had scholarly language training in Persian, Arabic and Turkish since they were translators, interpreters, authors and were very open to the material and fashionable intricacies of the Ottoman culture.

An 18th-century Venetian ambassador described the dragomans as ‘the tongue that speaks, the ear that hears, the eye that sees, the hand that gives, the spirit that acts, and on whom the life and success of every negotiation may depend.

He was attached to the embassy of Charles Marie François Olier, marquis de Nointel, a Parisian who was a councilor to the Parlement of Paris, and a French ambassador to the Ottoman court, 1670 to 1679.