Johann Ludwig Krapf
Johann Ludwig Krapf ( born January 11, 1810 in Derendingen, today's district of Tübingen, † November 26, 1881 in Korntal, now the district of Korntal in Stuttgart ) was a German Protestant missionary in East Africa, who was close to Pietism explorer, linguist and explorer.
Training
Krapf came from a relatively prosperous farming family and attended the Österberg school in Tübingen, which should prepare for university study. From May 1827 he was trained as a missionary in the Basel Mission, but she broke off after two years and studied instead from 1829 to 1834 Protestant theology in Tübingen. This is followed by two Vicariate points joined in Altburg at Calw and Wolfenhausen to Rottenburg am Neckar. Because of his pietistic sermons he was dismissed in 1836 and worked for a time as a private tutor.
Ethiopia 1837-1843
In 1836 he became a member of the English Church Missionary Society. On their behalf Krapf went to Abyssinia in 1837. Soon after his arrival at Adua in 1838 he was expelled at the instigation of a Catholic missionary and then went in 1839 to the Oromo (formerly called Galla ) in the province of Shoa. After a trip to Cairo in 1842, where he married a Basle in Alexandria him to return to Shoa was denied.
East Africa 1843-1855
In 1844 he founded in East Africa north of Mombasa, the first English missionary station among the Mijikenda, which he called in Kiswahili " Rabbai Mpya " ( " New Rabbai "). Here he began the translation of the Bible.
Most together with the missionary Johannes Rebmann, who stood him in 1846 to the side, he made several successful trips into the hinterland, so after Teita, Usambara, the Kikuyugebiet and to the Tana River.
In these expeditions into the interior of East Africa Rebmann discovered on May 11, 1848, the Western world Kilimanjaro and donut on December 3, 1849 Mount Kenya massif. In Europe, it gave the stories of the two missionaries and explorers that there are only about 350 km or 15 km south of the equator, ice and snow would be, but for years no faith. It is believed that donut the mountain gave the name when he asked local Akamba for the name and this kiinyaa (which supposedly ' mountain of the ostrich ' means, because the snow cap looked like the cap of a bunch ) it would have answered. Others say that the Kikuyu word 've kere - Nyaga gelautet ( White Mountain ). After the mountain the whole state was named later.
After Krapf and Rebmann had received repeated reports about the existence of a great inland sea, they put this knowledge down on a card for the Royal Geographical Society, and thus gave impetus to Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke's first trip to the interior of Africa (1857 and 1858 ) and the discovery of the large lakes in the headwaters of the Nile.
1855-1881
In 1855, he settled down for health reasons in the pietistic Korntal, where he later became his partner, Johannes Rebmann followed. In 1861 he accompanied two missionaries of the United Methodist Free Churches ( UMFC ) to East Africa, and in 1868 he was an English military expedition under Lord Napier as a national expert and interpreter. Above all, he spent his time in linguistic studies. So he translated in this time large parts of the Bible into Tigrinya, Oromo, Ampharisch and Ge'ez.
In 1881 he died in Korntal of a stroke. There he was buried. In his birthplace Derendingen a primary school and a road ( Ludwig Krapf Road ) is named after him.
Importance
Krapf as a linguist
Great importance has Krapf as a linguist. In Abyssinia Krapf collected manuscripts of the Semitic languages Ge'ez and Amharic. For the Faculty of Tübingen awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1842. He studied in Ethiopia Amharic and Tigrinya, two Semitic languages. In Tigrinya, he translated parts of the Bible. He wrote a vocabulary and translated parts of the Bible into Oromo ( Galla ), a ostkuschitische language. In East Africa, he published a vocabulary of the Maasai language and six other East African languages and several Bantu languages. He dealt with the Mombasadialekt Kiswahili and the language of the Mijikenda and was the first of these languages in written form, in which he used the Latin alphabet. In 1850 he published the first Kiswahili grammar and a dictionary of 1882 Kiswahili. In 1844, he translated parts of the Bible in Kiswahili and thus laid the foundation for Kiswahili as traffic and literary language of East Africa.
Krapf as a geographer and traveler Africa
Outstanding is its Rebmann and discovery of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. He sent numerous geographical reports of his travels inland to Europe, maps of lakes, of which one had told them, and speculation about the sources of the Nile. The material was indeed not very precise, but it aroused the curiosity of geographers and so gave rise to scientifically accurate exploration of the interior (1858 published in Stuttgart in his travels in East Africa in two volumes ).
Krapf as a missionary
As for the number of converted Africans, the successes Krapf and Rebmann were not very big. Its importance lies also in the pioneering work.
The Church of England considered Johann Ludwig Krapf as the father and founder of the Anglican Church in Kenya.
His house in New Rabbai is now a museum and part of the National Museums of Kenya. The building of the German Embassy in Nairobi is called " Ludwig Krapf - House ".
Writings (selection )
- Vocabulary of the Galla Language London 1842.
- Vocabulary of six East African languages . Kiswahili, Kinika, Kikamba, Kipokomo, Kihiau, Kigalla. Tübingen 1850.
- Outline of the elements of the Kiswahili Language, with special reference to the Kinika Dialect Tübingen 1850.
- Traveling in East Africa, performed in the years 1837 - 1855 Unchanged reprint of Stuttgart, straw, 1858, edited with an introduction. .. by Werner Raupp. Münster, Berlin: Lit, 1994 (African travel, 2).
- The Books of the Old Testament. Translation in Amharic Language. 3 vols, London 1871-73.
- Dictionary of the Swahili Language. London 1882.