A chief clerk, secretary, or official interpreter working for a European business or government office in India during the colonial period.
From Hindi do (two) + bash (speech, language), meaning 'an interpreter of two languages.' The word entered English from Anglo-Indian colonial vocabulary in the 18th-19th centuries, reflecting the role of bilingual intermediaries.
Dubashes were the essential human bridges between colonizers and colonized—they learned English, Hindi, legal terminology, and cultural subtleties, sometimes wielding more practical power than the British officials who technically outranked them.
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