--- title: Trade: why people swap, and the great trade routes — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Trade: why people swap, and the great trade routes», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Mei's friend says the Silk Road was one long road like a motorway. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / Trade: why people swap, and the great… # Trade: why people swap, and the great trade routes Lesson 70 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 24 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/0/) — Mei's friend says the Silk Road was one long road like a motorway. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/1/) — Charlie reads that pepper was worth its weight in gold. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/2/) — Amina from Mali says Mansa Musa was the richest man ever, innit. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/3/) — Some of this is true, some is stretched. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/4/) — What really happened: the Silk Road was a web of many routes, few traders went the whole way, and goods passed from hand to hand; even the name was made up in 1877. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/5/) — Spices were dear in medieval Europe but not usually worth as much as gold. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/6/) — Mansa Musa really did carry so much gold to Cairo in 1324 that its price there reportedly fell. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/7/) — Think of Josh and Leo swapping football stickers: Josh has loads of Messi, Leo has loads of Ronaldo, and after the swap both are happier. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/8/) — That is the heart of trade: both sides can win. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/9/) — Trade is older than cities. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/10/) — Sharp volcanic glass called obsidian travelled hundreds of kilometres over 10,000 years ago. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/11/) — Later, Indian Ocean sailors rode the monsoon winds, which Hassan's uncle from Kenya calls «proper clever», and merchant towns like Lübeck joined the Hanseatic League. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/12/) — Today most goods cross the sea in steel boxes all the same size, and one T-shirt may grow in India and be sewn in Bangladesh. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/14/) — Obsidian, a sharp volcanic glass, was traded over long distances more than 10,000 years ago, before the first cities. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/16/) — Mansa Musa ruled the Mali Empire; on his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 he gave away so much gold in Cairo that its value there reportedly fell. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/17/) — West Africa traded gold for salt across the Sahara by camel, and cities like Timbuktu became rich centres of learning. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/18/) — Indian Ocean sailors timed their voyages with the seasonal monsoon winds, linking East Africa, Arabia, India and Southeast Asia; Swahili cities like Kilwa and Mombasa grew rich. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/19/) — From the 1200s the Hanseatic League linked trading towns around the Baltic and North Seas, such as Lübeck, Bergen and Novgorod, trading fish, furs and grain. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/20/) — The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul was started in the 1450s and is one of the oldest and biggest covered markets in the world. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/21/) — Spices were expensive in medieval Europe but not usually worth their weight in gold, and they were not used to hide rotten meat. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/22/) — In 1817 the economist David Ricardo explained that countries gain by doing what they do best and trading, like swapping spare stickers. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/23/) — In 1956 Malcom McLean started using standard shipping containers; today about four in five tonnes of world trade go by sea. - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/24/) — Many things are made in several countries: cotton grown in one, cloth made in another, clothes sewn in a third and sold in a fourth. - [25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/70-trade-why-people-swap-and-the-great-trade-routes/25/) — Fairtrade labels began in the late 1980s to promise farmers fairer prices; how much they help is debated. - ← previous: [Rights won step by step: freedom, votes and children's rights](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/69-rights-won-step-by-step-freedom-votes-and-children-s-rights/) - next →: [What trade carried: tomatoes, tea, horses, words, religions and diseases](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/71-what-trade-carried-tomatoes-tea-horses-words-and-diseases/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)