Among the people employed at Bent's Fort were interpreters William Guerrier and John Smith. These men bridged the gap between Indian and English speakers. Lieutenant Abert noted Guerrier as the Cheyenne translator at Bent's Fort in 1845 and said "A long residence amongst them (Indians) had enabled him to repeat all their graceful and expressive gestures." Smith was described by Lewis Garrard in 1846 as "...adept in the knowledge of Cheyenne tongue." Lieutenant Abert noted that Smith "...speaks the Cheyenne language better, perhaps, than any other white person in the country."

Years spent amongst the tribes had provided these white traders an opportunity to learn both spoken words and signs, though their interpretation was sometimes considered poor by the Indians. At the urging of Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, interpreters traveled with Chiefs to places like St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Washington. John Smith accompanied Southern Cheyenne leaders to the White House three times, interpreting before Presidents Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses Grant.

During his stay at Bent's Fort, Lieutenant James Abert wrote that he spent "several hours in the daily study of (the Cheyenne) language" and "found the English alphabet sufficient to represent all the sounds they utter ..." He believed the difficulty In learning Cheyenne was due to "the habit the Indians have of swallowing the last syllable of every word, so that many persons would hardly notice... and therefore omit it when attempting to speak ... and are not understood by the Indians." He observed the Cheyenne "numerical terms are beautifully arranged, each one of the digit[s] [are] expressed by the different name, and the tens ... by affixing certain terminations to the digits."