linkster

1. (dialectal, obsolete) An interpreter; a person who understands more than one language.Examples: "1645, John Winthrop, journal entry, in James Savage (ed.), The History of New England from 1630 to 1649, New York: Arno Press, 1972, p. 237, There was one Redman suspected to have betrayed their pinnace, for he being linkister, (because he could speak the language,) and being put out of that employment for his evil carriage, did bear ill will to the master […]"; "1725, Tobias Fitch, journal entry, in Newton D. Mereness (ed.), Travels in the American Colonies, New York: Macmillan, 1916, p. 197, I then Called for the White man and made him give in the Indean Tongue the same words that he heard spoke in the Square by the head men, which by my Lingister agreed with what he Told me in English."; "1835, John Howard Payne, letter to a relative, in Charles M. Hudson (ed.), Ethnology of the Southeastern Indians: A Source Book, New York: Garland Publishing, 1985, p. 185, I asked a linkister the meaning of a song the Indian was singing with such glee. The black linkister laughed, and was reluctant to explain;"dialectalobsolete

2. (obsolete, by extension) In West and Central Africa, a bi- or multilingual agent or broker facilitating trade between Europeans and non-Europeans.Examples: "1885, R. Wright Hay, “West Africa” in The Missionary Herald, 1885-1886, 1 March, 1886, p. 104, Upon it [the peninsula] are built four trading houses—two English, one German, and one Portuguese—which serve as depôts for the produce purchased and brought down from the interior by ‘linksters,’ or native middlemen."; "“All this,” continued Massala, “shall be set down in writing, and you shall read it, and the English lingster shall tell it straight to us.”"broadlyobsolete