Refugees fleeing persecution supplied skilled translators to the Ottoman empire

Evidence

Another group who find it expedient and convenient to learn a language are refugees: those who flee from one world to another. There were considerable numbers of refugees who fled from Christian Europe to the lands of Islam in the Middle Ages and the early modern period; there were very few who went in the opposite direction. Among these refugees from Europe were many Jews, notably those who came after the expulsion from Spain in 1492. Some of them learned Turkish and were able to make themselves useful to the Turkish empire in a variety of ways. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 157

Categorization

• XREF: Refugees as linguistic middlemen — connects to Milgrom’s inter-community traders and to how outsiders serve as brokers between worlds.