Languages of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottomans had three influential languages: Turkish, spoken by the majority of the people in Anatolia and by the majority of Muslims of the Balkans except in Albania, Bosnia, and various Aegean Sea islands; Persian, initially used by the educated in northern portions of the Ottoman Empire before being displaced by Ottoman Turkish; and Arabic, used in southern portions of the Ottoman Empire; Arabic was spoken mainly in Arabia, North Africa, Mesopotamia and the Levant. Throughout the vast Ottoman bureaucracy Ottoman Turkish language was the official language, a version of Turkish, albeit with a vast mixture of both Arabic and Persian grammar and vocabulary.
Dragoman of the Porte
In the Ottoman Empire, the existence of official interpreters or dragomans (from the Italian rendering "drog[o]man" of Arabic "tardjumān", Ottoman "terdjümân") is attested from the early 16th century. They were part of the staff of the "reis ül-küttab", who was responsible for foreign affairs within the Imperial Council. As few Ottoman Turks ever learned European languages, from early times the majority of these men were of Christian origin—in the main Austrians, Hungarians, Poles, and Greeks. 
In 1661, the Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü appointed the Greek Panagiotis Nikousios as Chief Dragoman to the Imperial Council. He was in turn succeeded in 1673 by another Greek, Alexander Mavrocordatos. These men began a tradition where almost all subsequent Grand Dragomans of the Porte were of Greek origin or Hellenized as members of a small circle of Phanariote families, such as the Mavrocordatos, Ghica, or Callimachi clans. Many of the Phanariotes had previously served in the staffs of the European embassies in Constantinople. Nikousios, for instance, had previously (and for a time concurrently) served as translator for the Austrian embassy.