Kan Moshē dura kitabne, oriti dalōta kan čeddame: [The First Book of Moses called Genesis] Translated from the original into the Galla language [by Krapf and Barkii in Ankober in] 1841.
- Manuscript copied by Paul de Lagarde in London in 1851:
Manuscript from the estate of Franz Praetorius at the Library of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft in Halle. Ref. code: DMG Yi 135 II C (1)
Note
Paul de Lagarde copied this manuscript in “the London mission house” in 1851 and submitted it to Franz Praetorius in May 1884.
- Krapf was a missionary for the Church Missionary Society (CMS) from 1836 to 1856. The CMS rented offices in Salisbury Square in the City of London (its headquarters had only been in Oxford since 1966). Praetorius, therefore, most likely found the Oromo translation of the book of Genesis on the premises of the CMS (and not the London offices of the British & Foreign Bible Society).
- The original manuscript seems lost; it is absent from the online catalogue of the CMS Archive at the University of Birmingham.
This translation is one of the sources that Praetorius used for his Oromo grammar (Berlin 1893).
Further reading
The First Book of Moses Called Genesis. Translated into the Galla Language. Edited by J. L. Krapf. St. Chrischona: Mission-Press, 1872. [View online]
Praetorius, Franz. Zur Grammatik der Gallasprache. Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1893. [Digitale Sammungen]