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51-471: Polyglotta Africana is a study published in 1854 by the German missionary Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle (1823–1902), in which the author compares 280 words from 200 African languages and dialects (or about 120 separate languages according to today's classification; several varieties considered distinct by Koelle were later shown to belong to the same language). As a comparative study it was a major breakthrough at

102-521: A Kanuri man. Koelle's major work, Polyglotta Africana (1854), is considered the beginning of the serious study of a large range of African languages by European scholars. In 1849, when Koelle had been in Freetown for just over a year, he was asked to investigate a report that speakers of the Vy, Vei, or Vai language were using a script of their own invention. Koelle made a 7-week trip to Vailand to meet

153-718: A Church of England clergyman. One of Constantine's sons, Sir Harry Philpot Koelle (1901–1980), was to become a vice-admiral in the British Navy. His descendants pronounce the name as "Kelly". Church Mission Society The Church Mission Society ( CMS ), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society , is a British Anglican mission society working with Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission partners during its 200-year history. The society has also given its name "CMS" to

204-699: A Turkish friend, Ahmed Tewfik, who had helped him translate the Anglican prayer book into Turkish. Koelle was released after a few hours, but Tewfik was imprisoned and sentenced to death. After pressure from the British Government, Tewfik was sent into exile on the island of Chios, and eventually escaped to England, where he was baptized in 1881 into the Anglican church in a ceremony in St Paul's, Onslow Square London, witnessed among others by Koelle's father-in-law, Archdeacon Philpot. However, it seems that he

255-492: A book is a map of Africa showing the approximate location, as far as it could be ascertained, of each language, prepared by the cartographer August Heinrich Petermann . It was Koelle's aim not to use any previously published material on the languages he was writing down, but to achieve uniformity by having one person using a single phonetic system for every language. The orthography he eventually chose, after discussions in London,

306-418: A few years earlier during a long vacation he had made a similar such list, of just 71 languages, and that in making the present list he had learnt from that experience. The actual list (the spelling is Koelle's) is as follows: As the list of languages and countries below shows, most of Koelle's languages came from West Africa. This is mainly because the majority of the slaves themselves who were intercepted by

357-410: A long vacation he had made a similar such list, of just 71 languages, and that in making the present list he had learnt from that experience. Included with a book is a map of Africa showing the approximate location, as far as it could be ascertained, of each language, prepared by the cartographer August Heinrich Petermann . The value of the list is not merely linguistic, since the work not only includes

408-542: A number of daughter organisations around the world, including Australia and New Zealand, which have now become independent. The original proposal for the mission came from Charles Grant and George Udny of the East India Company and David Brown , of Calcutta , who sent a proposal in 1787 to William Wilberforce , then a young member of parliament , and Charles Simeon , a young clergyman at Cambridge University . The Society for Missions to Africa and

459-844: Is accredited by Durham University as part of the Church of England's Common Awards . In 2015 there were 70 students on the course, studying at certificate, diploma and MA level. In October 2012, Philip Mounstephen became the Executive Leader of the Church Mission Society. On 31 January 2016 Church Mission Society had 151 mission partners in 30 countries and 62 local partners in 26 countries (this programme supports local mission leaders in Asia, Africa and South America in "pioneer settings" ) serving in Africa, Asia, Europe and

510-787: Is therefore exactly 200, divided into four columns of 50 languages each. Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle Sigismund Koelle was born in Cleebronn in the Württemberg region of southern Germany. In his Württemberg origin he resembles his contemporaries Johann Ludwig Krapf (born 1810) and Johannes Rebmann (born 1820), who also worked as linguists and missionaries for the Church Missionary Society, but in East Africa. Another CMS missionary born in Württemberg

561-579: The Basel Seminary. The Church Missionary Society College, Islington opened in 1825 and trained about 600 missionaries; about 300 joined the CMS from universities and about 300 came from other sources. 30 CMS missionaries were appointed to the episcopate , serving as bishops. The CMS published The Church Missionary Gleaner , from April 1841 to September 1857. From 1813 to 1855 the society published The Missionary Register , "containing an abstract of

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612-617: The Church of England , and its first women general secretary, Diana Witts . Gillian Joynson-Hicks was its president from 1998 to 2007. In 1995 the name was changed to the Church Mission Society . At the end of the 20th century there was a significant swing back to the Evangelical position, probably in part due to a review in 1999 at the anniversary and also due to the re-integration of Mid Africa Ministry (formerly

663-576: The Church of England Zenana Missionary Society was absorbed into the CMS. Notable general secretaries of the society later in the 20th century were Max Warren and John Vernon Taylor . The first woman president of the CMS, Diana Reader Harris (serving 1969–1982), was instrumental in persuading the society to back the 1980 Brandt Report on bridging the North-South divide . In the 1990s CMS appointed its first non-British general secretary, Michael Nazir-Ali , who later became Bishop of Rochester in

714-569: The Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg and had trained at the Berlin Seminary . The name Church Missionary Society began to be used and in 1812 the society was renamed The Church Missionary Society . In 1829, the CMS began to send medical personnel as missionaries. Initially to care for the mission staff, these missionaries could also care for the physical well-being of local populations. Dr. Henry Graham

765-545: The Ruanda Mission ). The position of CMS is now that of an ecumenical Evangelical society. In 2004 CMS was instrumental in bringing together a number of Anglican and, later, some Protestant mission agencies to form Faith2Share, an international network of mission agencies. In June 2007, CMS in Britain moved the administrative office out of London for the first time. It is now based in east Oxford. In 2008, CMS

816-520: The African slave trade in the 19th century. Of the 210 informants, there were 179 ex-slaves (two of them women), while the rest were mostly traders or sailors. An analysis of the data shows that typically Koelle's informants were middle-aged or elderly men who had been living in Freetown for ten years or more. Three-quarters of the ex-slaves had left their homeland more than ten years earlier, and half of them more than 20 years before; and three-quarters of

867-566: The British Navy and taken to Sierra Leone were from that region. Another factor was that the number of different languages in West Africa is greater than in some other parts of Africa. For example, Cameroon alone is said to have 255 different languages. One area missing is the Swahili coast of Kenya and Tanzania, apparently because slaves intercepted there were taken not to Sierra Leone but to Zanzibar . Koelle's language names are given in

918-686: The British protectorate established in West Africa for liberated slaves. Koelle taught at Fourah Bay College , which was founded by the Church Missionary Society in 1827. "He was a Semitic scholar, and started a Hebrew class at Fourah Bay; and very soon African youths, the children of liberated slaves, could be seen reading the Old Testament in the original." While in Sierra Leone he also collected linguistic material from many African languages, some of it from freed slaves such as Ali Eisami ,

969-637: The East (as the society was first called) was founded on 12 April 1799 at a meeting of the Eclectic Society , supported by members of the Clapham Sect , a group of activist Anglicans who met under the guidance of John Venn , the Rector of Clapham . Their number included Charles Simeon , Basil Woodd , Henry Thornton , Thomas Babington and William Wilberforce . Wilberforce was asked to be

1020-569: The Middle East. In addition, 127 mission associates (affiliated to Church Mission Society but not employed or financially supported through CMS) and 16 short-termers. In 2015–16, Church Mission Society had a budget of £6.8 million, drawn primarily from donations by individuals and parishes, supplemented by historic investments. The Church Mission Society Archive is housed at the University of Birmingham Special Collections. In Australia ,

1071-577: The Society had entered 103 women, unmarried or widows, on its list, and the Annual Report for 1886–87 showed twenty-two then on its staff, the majority being widows or daughters of missionaries. From the beginning of the organisation until 1894 the total number of CMS missionaries amounted to 1,335 (men) and 317 (women). During this period the indigenous clergy ordained by the branch missions totalled 496 and about 5,000 lay teachers had been trained by

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1122-404: The book was imitated from a well-known work called Asia Polyglotta (1823) by the German scholar Julius Klaproth . In the introduction Koelle tells us that he wanted a selection of words that would be simple enough for each informant to be interviewed on a single day, and for this reason he omitted pronouns, which would have taken much longer to elicit. He adds that a few years earlier during

1173-461: The branch missions. In 1894 the active members of the CMS totalled: 344 ordained missionaries, 304 indigenous clergy (ordained by the branch missions) and 93 lay members of the CMS. As of 1894, in addition to the missionary work, the CMS operated about 2,016 schools, with about 84,725 students. In the first 25 years of the CMS nearly half the missionaries were Germans trained in Berlin and later from

1224-411: The ex-slaves had left their homeland more than ten years earlier, and half of them more than 20 years before; and three-quarters of the informants were over 40 years old. Another interesting facet of the book is the manner in which the informants had been made slaves. Some had been captured in war, some kidnapped, some sold by a relative, others condemned for a debt or sentenced for a crime. Included with

1275-581: The first president of the society, but he declined to take on this role and became a vice-president. The treasurer was Henry Thornton and the founding secretary was Thomas Scott , a biblical commentator. Many of the founders were also involved in creating the Sierra Leone Company and the Society for the Education of Africans . The first missionaries went out in 1804. They came from

1326-490: The groups which he set up correspond in a number of cases to modern groups: Although Koelle's was not the first such study comparing different African languages, (for example, a missionary called John Clarke had produced a similar work in 1848, and still earlier Hannah Kilham had produced her Specimens of African Languages, Spoken in the Colony of Sierra Leone in 1828), yet in its accuracy and thoroughness it outclassed all

1377-518: The informants were over 40 years old. Another interesting facet of the book is the manner in which the informants had been made slaves. Some had been captured in war, some kidnapped, some sold by a relative, others condemned for a debt or sentenced for a crime. Another work researched and written by Koelle in Sierra Leone was the Grammar of the Bornu or Kanuri Language , also published in 1854. Koelle

1428-563: The informants who contributed to this work came from West Africa, but there were also others from as far away as Mozambique . One area that was lacking was the Swahili coast of Kenya and Tanzania , since it seems that slaves from this region were generally taken northwards to Zanzibar and Arabia rather than southward towards America and Brazil. The pronunciations of all the words were carefully noted using an alphabet similar, though not identical, to that devised by Karl Richard Lepsius , which

1479-583: The inventor of the script, and wrote an account of his journey which was published later that same year. In mid 1850, Koelle spent a few weeks in the Gallinas district of Vailand, and from November 1850 to March 1851 he worked again in the Cape Mount district. By July 1851 he had completed his Vai grammar, and it was published by the Church Missionary Society in 1854. The second great linguistic work carried out by Koelle during his five years in Sierra Leone

1530-482: The left-hand column of the table below: some of the diacritics (such as the dot beneath ẹ and ọ, and the acute accent) have been omitted. The groupings are Koelle's own. The larger groups are subdivided by Koelle into smaller groups, which are not shown in the table. Names in square brackets such as [Aku] are subheadings of a group of languages, and do not themselves have any words. The number of languages or dialects represented on each double-page spread of Koelle's book

1581-532: The others and still proves useful today. The Polyglotta Africana was the second work carried out by Koelle during his five years in Sierra Leone, the first being a grammar of the Vai language in 1849. The idea of this was to use the fact that Sierra Leone was a melting pot of ex-slaves from all over Africa to compile a list of 280 basic words (a sort of early Swadesh list ) in some 160 languages and dialects. These were then grouped as far as possible in families. Most of

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1632-433: The principal missionary and bible societies throughout the world". From 1816, "containing the principal transactions of the various institutions for propagating the gospel with the proceedings at large of the Church Missionary Society". During the late 19th and early 20th century, the CMS maintained a training program for women at Kennaway Hall at the former "Willows" estate where the training program started. Kennaway Hall

1683-473: The same language. This information, combined with a census of Sierra Leone conducted in 1848, has proved invaluable to historians researching the African slave trade in the 19th century. Of the 210 informants, there were 179 ex-slaves (two of them women), while the rest were mostly traders or sailors. An analysis of the data shows that typically Koelle's informants were middle-aged or elderly men who had been living in Freetown for ten years or more. Three-quarters of

1734-503: The sound of "judge" or "church" (apparently confusing these two), and n followed by a dot ( n˙ ) for the "ng" sound of "sing". When Koelle learnt of Lepsius's alphabet in 1854, he made immediate use of it in his Kanuri grammar, in which he wrote: In the introduction Koelle tells us that he wanted a selection of words that would be simple enough for each informant to be interviewed on a single day, and for this reason he omitted pronouns, which would have taken much longer to elicit. He adds that

1785-482: The time. Koelle based his material on first-hand observations, mostly with freed slaves in Freetown , Sierra Leone . He transcribed the data using a uniform phonetic script. Koelle's transcriptions were not always accurate; for example, he persistently confused [s] with [z] and [tʃ] with [dʒ] . His data were consistent enough, however, to enable groupings of languages based on vocabulary resemblances. Notably,

1836-508: The translator P. A. Benton adds in a footnote: "I cannot agree. Koelle seems to me to be extraordinarily accurate." After 1853, Koelle, who had become ill by the end of his stay in Sierra Leone, never returned to West Africa. For a time he continued his linguistic researches, in particular on questions of standard orthography, in connection with the Standard Alphabet which was being discussed in 1854 by Karl Lepsius . In 1855 he

1887-509: The use of as few diacritics as possible. Koelle, however, sought a more accurate phonetic system, and added diacritics. He retained seven of the eight vowels of Venn's system ( i, e, ẹ, a, ọ, o, u , omitting ạ as in "but") but added length marks, a dot for nasalisation, and an accent to indicate the prominent syllable. (Unlike in Lepsius's alphabet, the dotted ẹ and ọ are open not closed sounds.) He modified Venn's alphabet by writing dṣ for

1938-463: The words themselves, arranged with all the languages spread out on two facing pages for each group of three English words, but Koelle also added a short biography of each informant, with geographical information about their place of origin, and an indication of how many other people they knew in Sierra Leone who spoke the same language. This information, combined with a census of Sierra Leone conducted in 1848, has proved invaluable to historians researching

1989-775: Was Karl Gottlieb Pfander (born 1803), who was Koelle's colleague in Constantinople. After training in the Basel Mission , a missionary seminary in Basel , Switzerland, Koelle transferred in 1845 to the Church Missionary Society based in London; after further training in Islington he was ordained by the Bishop of London, Charles Blomfield . From December 1847 to February 1853 he lived and worked in Sierra Leone ,

2040-464: Was a violent reaction from the Turkish government and several Turkish converts were arrested. Pfander and Weakley were forced to leave Constantinople, while Koelle remained behind for a few more years. When the Church Missionary Society withdrew from the city in 1877, he stayed on there for a time as an independent missionary, until in 1879 he too was forced to depart, after being arrested, together with

2091-844: Was acknowledged as a mission community by the Advisory Council on the Relations of Bishops and Religious Communities of the Church of England. It currently has approximately 2,800 members who commit to seven promises, aspiring to live a lifestyle shaped by mission. In 2010 CMS integrated with the South American Mission Society (SAMS). In 2010 Church Mission Society launched the Pioneer Mission Leadership Training programme, providing leadership training for both lay people and those preparing for ordination as pioneer ministers. It

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2142-463: Was considerable debate over the possible introduction of a doctrinal test for missionaries, which advocates claimed would restore the society's original evangelical theology. In 1922, the society split, with the liberal evangelicals remaining in control of CMS headquarters, whilst conservative evangelicals established the Bible Churchmen's Missionary Society (BCMS, now Crosslinks ). In 1957

2193-484: Was engaged on this at intervals from 1848 to 1853, working for several hours a day with an informant called Ali Eisami Gazirma (also known as William Harding). Eisami also provided the material for another work, African Native Literature , which consists of proverbs, fables, descriptive accounts, and historical fragments in the Kanuri language. Of Koelle's grammar, a later researcher, A. Von Duisburg, wrote: However,

2244-416: Was lacking was the Swahili coast of Kenya and Tanzania , since it seems that slaves from this region were generally taken northwards to Zanzibar and Arabia rather than southward towards America and Brazil. The pronunciations of all the words were carefully noted using an alphabet similar, though not identical, to that devised by Karl Richard Lepsius , which was not yet available at that time. The name of

2295-622: Was not that of Karl Richard Lepsius (as is sometimes claimed), since it had not yet been published, but was based on a short document issued in 1848 by Henry Venn of the Church Missionary Society entitled Rules for Reducing Unwritten Languages to Alphabetical Writing in Roman Characters With Reference Specially to the Languages Spoken in Africa . The aim of this was to produce a simple practical system of orthography for teaching purposes with

2346-469: Was not yet available at that time. The name of the book was imitated from a well-known work called Asia Polyglotta (1823) by the German scholar Julius Klaproth . The value of the list is not merely linguistic, since the work not only includes the words themselves, but Koelle also added a short biography of each informant, with geographical information about their place of origin, and an indication of how many other people they knew in Sierra Leone who spoke

2397-847: Was sent to Egypt, but remained only a short time; he moved on to Haifa in Palestine in the same year. In 1856 he was awarded the Volney Prize of 1,200 francs by the French Academy of Sciences for his work on the Polyglotta Africana . In 1859 he was posted by the Church Missionary Society to Constantinople ( Istanbul ) to join Karl Gottlieb Pfander , who had gone out the year before. Together with another missionary, R. H. Weakley, he had some success in converting Turks to Christianity. However, in 1864, there

2448-521: Was the Polyglotta Africana . The idea of this was to use the fact that Sierra Leone was a melting pot of ex-slaves from all over Africa to compile a list of 280 basic words (a sort of early Swadesh list ) in some 160 languages and dialects. These were then grouped as far as possible in families. Most of the informants who contributed to this work came from West Africa, but there were also others from as far away as Mozambique . One area that

2499-499: Was the Church Missionary Society training center for female missionaries. The training center was called "The Willows", under the Mildmay Trustees, until having been bought by the Church Missionary Society in 1891. Elizabeth Mary Wells took over the presidency in 1918 of Kennaway Hall. During the early 20th century, the society's theology moved in a more liberal direction under the leadership of Eugene Stock . There

2550-404: Was the first CMS Medical missionary when he was sent to Sierra Leone and shifted the focus from care of the mission staff to assistance for local people. In 1802 Josiah Pratt was appointed secretary, a position he held until 1824, becoming an early driving force in the CMS. The principal missions, the founding missionaries, and the dates of the establishment of the missions are: Up to 1886

2601-476: Was unhappy with his new life and after being sent to Egypt in 1883 he eventually voluntarily gave himself up again to his captors in Chios. Sigismund Koelle died in London in 1902. After returning from Africa, Koelle married Charlotte Elizabeth Philpot (1826–1919), the daughter of an English archdeacon. They had seven children. One of them, Constantine Philpot Koelle, born in Constantinople in 1862, later became

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