Heinrich August Jäschke (17 May 1817 in

Herrnhut Herrnhut ( Sorbian: ''Ochranow''; cs, Ochranov) is an Upper Lusatian town in the Görlitz district in Saxony, Germany, known for the community of the Moravian Church established by Nicolas Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf in 1722. Geography It is ...

– 24 September 1883) was a German

Tibetologist Tibetology () refers to the study of things related to Tibet, including its history, religion, language, culture, politics and the collection of Tibetan articles of historical, cultural and religious significance. The last may mean a collection of ...

missionary and Bible translator. From 1857 to 1868 he was missionary of the

Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine , image = AgnusDeiWindow.jpg , imagewidth = 250px , caption = Church emblem featuring the Agnus Dei.Stained glass at the Rights Chapel of Trinity Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States , main_classification = Proto-Pro ...

(the

Moravian Church The Moravian Church ( cs, Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination, denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohem ...

or Moravian Brethren) in Kyelang, Lahaul District and

Spiti Spiti (pronounced as Piti in Bhoti language) is a high-altitude region of the Himalayas, located in the north-eastern part of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The name "Spiti" means "The middle land", i.e. the land between Tib ...

in North India. Jäschke has been called "the most distinguished linguist in the whole history of the

" by James Hutton in his ''A History of the Moravian Missions'' (1923).

Early life and career

Heinrich August Jäschke was born on May 17, 1817 in

, Germany. He attended Moravian schools, where he stood out for his remarkable gift for learning new languages. His ties to Moravian schools continued in adult life as he taught in various schools in Germany and Denmark. In 1847, he became co-director of the Moravian boarding schools in Niesky, Germany. The following year, he was ordained.

Tibetan Mission

Jäschke's gift for language made him an ideal choice for the Moravian mission in Western Tibet. So in 1856 Jäschke joined two missionaries, Wilhelm Heyde and Eduard Pagel, in what is today northern India.

Works

''A Tibetan-English Dictionary''
(1881) *''New Testament in Tibetan''

Honours

In 1870, botanist

Federico Kurtz Federico Kurtz, also known as Fritz (1854–1920), was a German-Argentine botanist. Biography Fritz Kurtz was born in Berlin and earned his doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1879. He relocated to Córdoba, Argentina, and in 1884, took ...

named a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants t ...

s from Central Asia (belonging to the family

Gentianaceae Gentianaceae is a family of flowering plants of 103 genera and about 1600 species. Etymology The family takes its name from the genus ''Gentiana'', named after the Illyrian king Gentius. Distribution Distribution is cosmopolitan. Characteristi ...

), as '' Jaeschkea'' in his honour.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jaeschke, Heinrich August 1817 births 1883 deaths Translators of the Bible into Tibetan Tibetologists German Protestant missionaries People from Keylong People from Herrnhut 19th-century translators Moravian Church missionaries Protestant missionaries in India German expatriates in India Missionary linguists People related to Lahaul and Spiti district