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:''For the town, see Dragoman, Bulgaria''
'Dragoman' designates the official title of a person who would function as 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. A dragoman had to have a knowledge of Arabic, Turkish, and European languages.
The position took particular prominence in the Ottoman Empire, where demand for the mediation provided by dragomans is said to have been created by the resistance on the part of the Muslim Ottomans to learn the languages of non-Muslim nations. The office incorporated diplomatic as well as linguistic duties — namely, in the Porte's relation with Christian countries — and some dragomans thus came to play crucial roles in Ottoman politics. The profession tended to be dominated by ethnic Greeks, including the first Ottoman Grand Dragoman Panayotis Nicosias, and Alexander Mavrocordato.
It became customary that most hospodars of the Phanariote rule (roughly 1711–1821) over the Danubian Principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia) would previously have occupied this Ottoman office, a fact which did not prevent many of them from joining conspiracies that aimed to overthrow Turkish rule over the area.

Contents

Etymology and variants

See also

References

Etymology and variants

In Arabic the word is ترجمان (''tarjumān''), in Turkish ''tercüman''. Deriving from the Semitic quadriliteral root ''t-r-g-m'', it appears in Akkadian as "targumannu," and in Aramaic as ''targemana''.
During the Middle Ages the word entered European languages: in Middle English as ''dragman'', in Old French as ''drugeman'', in Middle Latin as ''dragumannus'', and in Middle Greek δραγομάνος. Later European variants include the German ''trutzelmann'', the French ''trucheman'' or ''truchement'' (in modern French it is ''drogman''), the Italian ''turcimanno'', and the Spanish ''trujamán'', ''trujimán'' and ''truchimán''; these variants point to a Turkish or Arabic word "turjuman", with different vocalization. ''Webster's Dictionary'' of 1828 lists ''dragoman'' as well as the variants ''drogman'' and ''truchman'' in English.

See also

★ List of dragomans

References

★ Bernard Lewis, ''From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East'', Oxford University Press, London and New York, 2004

★ Philip Mansel, "Viziers and Dragomans," in ''Constantinople: City of the World's Desire 1453-1924'', London, 1995. pp. 133-162

★ Marie de Testa, Antoine Gautier, "Drogmans et diplomates européens auprès de la Porte Ottomane", in ''Analecta Isisiana'', vol. lxxi, Les Éditions ISIS, Istanbul, 2003

★ Frédéric Hitzel (ed.), ''Istanbul et les langues Orientales'', Varia Turca, vol. xxxi, L'Harmattan, Paris and Montreal, 1997