Genesis in Oromo (1872)

The First Book of Moses Called Genesis
Translated into the Galla Language. /

Maxaafonnii kakuu moofaa;
Maxaafii jalqabaa kan Musee, Maxaafii kan Uumamaa.
Jagan Ilma Leeqaa kan hiike,
Luwiis Kiraaphiif nama Garmaniyaa (Niimsaa) attamuudhaaf kan qajeelche kan qopheesses ganda Korintaaliitii.

English translation of the Oromo title:
  • Books of the Old Testament.
    The first book of Moses, Genesis.
    Translated by Jagan, a man from Leeqaa.
    Edited and prepared for printing by Ludwig Krapf
    a Germany (Nimsa) man, at Korntal.

Printed at the expense and by the request of the British and Foreign Bible-Society in London. At the Mission-Press of St. Chrischona, near Basle, Switzerland. 1872.

Notes

(1) The Oromo title should be improved as follows:

Macaafota kakuu moofaa
Macaafa jalqaba Museen caafe, Macaafa Seera Uumamaa:
Kan hiikee Jagan nama biyya Leeqaati.
Maxxansaaf akka ta’utti kan qajeelchee qopheesse Luwiis Kiraaphiif nama biyya Jarmanii (Niimsaa), ganda Korintaaliiti.

(2) Krapf and Barkii had drafted an Oromo translation of the book of Genesis in 1841. According to the Preface of Franz Praetorius, Zur Grammatik der Gallasprache (Berlin 1893), the manuscript was titled:

  • “Kan Moshē dura kitabne, oriti dalōta kan čeddame.
    Translated from the original into the Galla language, 1841.”

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.

Paul de Lagarde’s copy of Krapf and Barkii’s translation of the book of Genesis into Oromo is now located in the Library of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft in Halle:

Transliteration into Qubee and English translation
by Sadirak Taasisaa.