Man that is a loaded question. It’s the whole butterfly effect when regarded to history.

You can always ask these questions, but at a point it is too much. It’s like asking “What would have happened if World War One didn’t occur?” Well perhaps World War Two wouldn’t have occurred, but could a different war had occurred? We wouldn’t know and we could argue for days and get nowhere.

Every single event in history made the world today. The better question to ask is how did each event lead to new technologies and how did they lead to new events, rather than asking what would have happened if something didn’t occur. If William the Conqueror had not conquered Britain would the Anglo-Saxons be in power? We could continue to ask the questions but we wouldn’t know because more events would occur after that which would continue to reshape the world.

So yes, you can ask them, but the question is, should you?

There are so many amazing studies on this. They actually used for the most part Native translators. It was the natives that often spoke more than one language because of the tribes always being so near to each other and consistently having to make alliances as well as war.

La Malinche is a great example of this. Although her origins remain murky she is suspected of speaking 3 native languages, Chontal Maya, Yucatec Maya, and Nahuatl, as well as Spanish. By being exposed to only new languages one will be forced to learn them. This happened to La Malinche when she was put into Cortez’ hands.

A common misconception is that the Spanish had no native help, when in reality Cortez used the already messed up relationships between the native groups to take down the Aztec Empire, which had conquered them. While there were Spanish interpreters, many were also native.