Evangelium Matthaei, translatum in linguam Gallarum. Auctore Rev.do. J. L. Krapf, missionario. Ankobari, regni Shoarum capitalis.
[The Gospel according to Matthew, translated into the language of the Galla. Authored by Rev J. L. Krapf, missionary, (with the help of Barkii) in Ankobar, the capital of the Kingdom of Shewa.] [London: R. Watts] 1841.
Source: Google Books [* Vienna Univ. Library]
Smidt’s evaluation
Wolbert Smidt states (in Early Writing in Oromiffaa):
“When the Protestant missionary Krapf established himself in Ankobär, in 1839 he immediately began a Bible translation; he hired the Galaan Oromo Barkii (“Berki”) from “Kum Dengai”, with whom he produced translations of [John 1-5,] St. Matthew […], St. Mark, Genesis and Epistles to the Romans in Latin script (Krapf 1839; 1841; 1872; 1874).
- [Web editor:] Note that the translations published in 1872 (Genesis) and 1874 (New Testament books) were probably completely new, as Krapf had submitted the translations drafted in 1841 to his mission organization at the time, the Church Missionary Society in London.
It is known from missionary archives that these translations were actually used for preaching (at least in missionary stations of the “Apostles Road” where young freed Oromo were taught [and travelers stepped by …; p. 70]. The transliteration used was rather approximate (e.g., the consonants q and ḍ [in Qubee: dh] were confused with k and d), but vowel length is already, at least partially, taken into account. The lexicon shows Gәʿәz and Amharic influence.”
- [Web editor:] The probable reason is that the source of the translation was most likely the Amharic New Testament and the Pentateuch, which Thomas P. Platt published in 1829 and 1837 [the Pentateuch was reprinted unchanged in the Amharic Bible published in 1840 (but revised in the second edition, 1844).
Reference
Smidt, Wolbert. “Early Writing in Oromiffaa”, in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 4, edited by Siegbert Uhlig in cooperation with Alessandro Bausi, 69-70. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010.
Notes
St Chrischona missionary Johann Ulrich Rickli distributed this Oromo translation of the Gospel of Matthew in Egypt during the 1860s. For further details, read “Herzen gewinnen – auf die eine oder andere Art” or “História da Família Rickli no Brasil”.
Krapf and Barkii’s translation of Matthew is the basis for the grammatical treatise, F. Schmidt, “Abriss der Schoagallagrammatik”, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 22 (1968): 225-48. [OpenData, Halle Univ.]