Sigismund Koelle

Sigismund Wilhelm Kölle (July 14, 1820 – February 18, 1902) was a German missionary in Sierra Leone, where he became a pioneer scholar of the languages of Africa. He published a major study in 1854, Polyglotta Africana, marking the beginning of serious study by Europeans of African languages.

Life

After training in a missionary house in Basel, Switzerland, Kölle transferred in 1845 to the Church Mission Society based in London. From 1847 he lived and worked in Sierra Leone, the British protectorate established in West Africa for liberated slaves.

Kölle taught at Fourah Bay College.[1] There he collected linguistic material from many African languages, some of it from freed slaves such as Ali Eisami, a Kanuri man. Kölle's major work, Polyglotta Africana (1854), is considered the beginning of the serious study of a large range of African languages by European scholars.

References
  1. Fyfe, Christopher (1972). Africanus Horton, West African Scientist and Patriot. Oxford University Press.


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