How did the Muslims and Christians communicate in the Crusades?

Question

Was there a common language they both understood?

Answer 1

No, there was no common language. It's probable that the crusaders hired the equivalent of a native guide to help them on their journey, and that person may have translated for them. But the crusaders would have only been fluent in their native tongues and in Latin, the vernacular of the Church of Rome.

Answer 2

The Muslims were very educated people and I'm sure they would have had interpreters who spoke the same language as the Crusaders.

I'm fascinated as to how the Crusaders managed to communicate properly and quickly between themselves, as they would have been made up of all sorts of different nationalities. Obviously they would also have had interpreters, but how do you get fast communications across on the battlefield I wonder ?

What a strange comment below! Priests were scholars who were expected to know several languages.......so they were interpreters then! Yes - Latin and Hellenic Greek were common languages across scholars in Europe...but the ordinary fighting man wouldn't have known these languages would he?

Answer 3

Hellenic-Greek and Latin were Universal languages and people were surprisingly more multilingual in ancient times, there existed a polyglot language peculiar to sea-traveling folk which encompassed the entire Mediterranean - - - trade literally made The World go around. Language was not as much of a problem as attitude; arrogance, dogmatic thoelogy all played a part in driving a wedge between the cultures. Part of that arrogance continues to this day/ Westerners rarely made an effort at learning Arabic. They ridiculed those who argued that Arabic was poetic & capable of expressing profound thoughts, they were quick to impose their languages, refusing to learn or speak Arabic and in turn the Arans/Moslems figured, hey, be stupid, we'll learn your language and you won't ever understand what 'we' say among ourselves.

Peace.....

PS // Argh all this prattle about interpreters // augh - - - Priests were expected to be Scholars, scholars know many languages, any large body of troops had several Priests on hand and once again Latin and Hellenic Greek were Universal ....

Answer 4

They would have had translators on either side, people that lived in the region and spoke both languages, or spoke one language and another common to the other side.

The muslims were quite advanced at that time, they likely had people that knew most languages.

Answer 5

No. They just killed each other as often as possible. Much more communication was unnecessary.

Chow!!

Answer 6

actually they went into internet forums and called each other names.

Answer 7

yes - "Hack, hack hack" (by sword)