Dawit Amanuel (1862–1944) is noted in
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
n and
Eritrea
Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...
n ecclesiastical history as being the main translator of the New Testament in the
Tigre language, published in 1902. (By local custom, he is properly referred to as "Dawit".) In 1877, at about the same time as his father converted from the
Ethiopian Orthodox Church
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church ( am, የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, ''Yäityop'ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan'') is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Chris ...
to Islam, Dawit became the first evangelical believer from among the
Mänsa people.
Dawit was educated at Gäläb at a school run by the
Swedish Evangelical Mission. There, he worked on Scripture translation, for some years together with
Tewolde-Medhin Gebre-Medhin
Tewolde-Medhin Gebre-Medhin (1860–1930) was a pastor, educator and translator, originally from the town of Tseazega Eritrea in the Horn of Africa. He was ordained as a deacon in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in 1872. (By local custom, he ...
. In addition to translating, Dawit began a Tigre dictionary and collected many Tigre songs and proverbs. Many of these were later published by the German scholar
Enno Littmann
Ludwig Richard Enno Littmann (16 September 1875, Oldenburg – 4 May 1958, Tübingen) was a German orientalist.
In 1906 he succeeded Theodor Nöldeke as chair of Oriental languages at the University of Strasbourg. Later on, he served as a profess ...
. Dawit was also active serving the church as a pastor and evangelist and was ordained in 1925. Senait Wolde Mariam showed that Dawit was not given full credit for his contributions, some Swedes being given disproportionate credit.
[Senait Wolde Andemariam. 2013. Who should take the credit for the Bible translation works carried out in Eritrea? ''Aethiopica'' 16: 102-129]
Online access to article
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Cited references
* Arén, Gustav. 1978. Evangelical Pioneers in Ethiopia. Stockholm.
* Littmann, Enno. (1910–15). Publications of the Princeton expedition to Abyssinia, 4 vols. in 4, Leyden.
* Unseth, Peter. 2005. "Dawit Amanu’el," ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'' vol. 2, edited by Siegbert Uhlig, p. 114. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz
online access
References
1862 births
1944 deaths
Ethiopian translators
Ethiopian Lutherans
Converts to Protestantism from Oriental Orthodoxy
Converts to evangelical Christianity
Translators of the Bible into Tigre
Place of birth missing
Ethiopian evangelicals
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