Hiob Ludolf
Job Ludolf (or Leutholf or Job Ludolph; * June 24, 1624 in Erfurt, † April 8, 1704 in Frankfurt am Main ) was the founder of Ethiopian studies, a subregion of the Oriental Studies ( now part of the field of African Studies ). In diplomatic services of the Duke Ernst the Pious of Saxe- Gotha in 1649 he stayed at the papal court in Rome and served the Duke House as a royal tutor.
Job Ludolf comes from one of the leading council of Erfurt families who had come among other things, by the Waidhandel to wealth and prestige. He completed his studies in Erfurt and suffering, where he mainly dealt in deviation from the intended curriculum with oriental languages , with 20 years, he created a grammar of Amharic language. He then traveled to France and England.
On a trip to Rome, where he should look for some lost documents for Queen Christina of Sweden, he met in Rome in 1649 a black African theologians from Abyssinia, Abba Gorgoryos know.
As Ludolf later entered the service of Duke Ernst the Pious of Saxe- Gotha and Arnstadt, the prince invited the Abba to Gotha, where he arrived on 10 June 1652. Ludolf and Ernst the Pious studied all the available books and reports on Abyssinia, they found in the collections of the famous Gotha library. They prepared an extensive list of questions that they presented to the guest. The Duke was particularly interested in the legendary Prester John. In several months Ludolf and the Abba worked together to develop a Ge'ez dictionary and made detailed descriptions of the religious and cultural conditions in Abyssinia to.
Duke Ernst was fascinated by his African guest of honor and offered him lifelong support. Together, plans were made for an expedition into the unknown Ethiopia, which should start in 1663. However, since Abba Gorgoryos was killed on his way back to Africa at a maritime disaster in the Mediterranean lacked the small group that spoke of Ludolfs talented pupil Johann Michael Wansleben, a Thuringian was led from Sömmerda, the " local " guide.
Wansleben, who had also learned the Arabic and Persian language, first traveled to Lower Egypt, to get used to and his companions to the African climate and the local customs and traditions. We spent a whole year in Egypt, then Wansleben broke off to continue his journey to Upper Egypt. He traveled back to his collected materials in Egypt to Italy, the expedition had failed.
Ludolf had acquired next to his research of the Gotha court as a royal tutor merits. After the death of his first wife Ludolf devoted himself in Frankfurt äthiopistischen his studies, but returned several times back in the diplomatic service of the dukes of Gotha and tried epistolary contact with Ethiopia to take. In addition, he stood in the rain intellectual exchange with the leading scholars of his time. Job Ludolf's works were 200 years as a scientific standard.
His nephew Heinrich Wilhelm Ludolf was also a linguist, he dealt with the Russian.
Works
- Lexicon Aethiopico - Latinum ( a dictionary of classical Ethiopian language Ge'ez ), 1st edition, London 1661 ( Roycroft ), ed. Johann Michael Wansleben, 2nd ed Frankfurt am Main 1699 ( Zunner )
- Lexicon Amharico - Latinum ( the first dictionary of Amharic ), Zunner, Frankfurt am Main 1698
- Historia aethiopica, o.V., Frankfurt q.s. 1681