Cahagne, Louis-Taurin (tr.). John 1:1‒14 and Luke 1:26‒2:20 in Oromo.
- Published in Philipp Paulitschke. Harar: Forschungsreise nach den Somāl- und Galla-Ländern Ost-Afrikas (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1888), 545‒46:
Source: Google Books
Introduction to the volume
English translation
Language Samples of the [Oromo] Dialect of Harar
[p. 542] The materials for the study of the Afan ilm’orma, i.e., the language of the [Oromo], have recently flowed very abundantly to science. The fact that they originate from men who have worked among the [Oromo] for many years and have learned the language of this people completely gives them great value.
It can rightly be said that the material which Bishop Taurin Cahagne, apostolic vicar of the [Oromo] (known in Abyssinia and Shewa only as Abûna Jakôb), published in his gospel translations Wangelium nagaa kan G.- K. Jesus Kristos qedus Mateos aka kitabe Abuna Jakobi episkopos Adramittaf, vikarios apostolikos bia Oromo afan Oromo kann hike (Paris 1880), as well as the one that Prof. Ettore Viterbo published in the 3rd volume of Antonio Cecci’s Da Zeila alle frontiere del Cafa (Rome 1887) under the title Grammatica della lingua oromonica and in the two vocabularies comprising 298 double-column octavo pages in the same work, which for the most part [p. 543] contains the posthumous linguistic notes of the French missionary Léon des Avanchers and the engineer Chiarini, is sufficient for a thorough study of the [Oromo] language. Viterbo’s studies are also based on Cardinal Massaja’s Lectiones grammaticales pro missionariis qui addiscere volunt linguam amaricam seu vulgarem Abyssiniae nec non et linguam oromonicam seu populorum Galla nuncupatorum [Grammatical lessons for missionaries who wish to learn the Amharic or vernacular language of Abyssinia, as well as the Oromo language of the peoples called Galla] (Paris 1867).
Scholars thus have at their disposal both reliable texts and a vocabulary and phrasebook that has been precisely collected in the land of the [Oromo] itself. This should be emphasized because Karl Tutschek had only unreliable and limited material at his disposal when he compiled his Dictionary of the Galla Language (Munich 1844), whereas Ludwig Krapf, according to Cardinal Massaja, Léon des Avanchers, Chiarini and Cecchi (see note on page 5 of the third volume of Cecci’s above-mentioned book), in his translation of the Gospel of Matthew (Ankober 1841) and in his Vocabulary of the Galla Language (London 1842), made erroneous statements about the [Oromo] language, which is not spoken in the way that Krapf codified it.
Here I include only two widespread folk songs which I heard from the [Oromo] at Bubassa, south of Harar. The blatant obscenity of the content—a characteristic feature of poetry of this kind—precludes any reproduction of its translation.
With the special permission of Bishop Cahagne, the first chapter of the Gospel of John and two chapters of the Gospel of Luke are also reprinted here in the [Oromo] variety of Harar, together with a German transcription and accentuation marks, from a corrected copy of the aforementioned out-of-print Gospel translation and explanation, presented to me by the bishop in Harar. The extensive exegesis of these Gospel passages in [Oromo], which the Apostolic Vicar included in footnotes to his translation, has been omitted.
German original
Source: Google Books