The word dragoman which is the name of this blog is a bit outdated, especially in its original meaning as an interpreter. The dragoman was the official interpreter of a Western country with a Middle Eastern power and vice versa. The dragomans were trained in France at École des Jeunes de Langues, ancestor of the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations, INALCO in Paris.
This word was borrowed from Arabic ترجمان /turjumān/ "interpreter" from the root ترجمة /tarjama/ "translate".
It remained a place name : Драгоман Dragoman, a small city in Bulgaria, and familly names such Tordjman and Tuđman /tudjman/ as in the case of Franjo Tudjman, first Croatian president.
In French language we kept the sentence par le truchement de "through, via something or somebody"
A dragoman introduced the Persian envoy Mirza Mohammed Reza Qazvini to Napoleon in a painting of Francois Mulard
