Wolf Leslau
Encyclopedia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
.
Youth and Education
Leslau was born in KrzepiceKrzepice
Krzepice is a Polish town near Częstochowa, in Kłobuck County, Silesian Voivodeship.- Transport :Main road connections from the Krzepice include those with Wieluń and Częstochowa via the National Road ....
, a small town near Częstochowa
Czestochowa
Częstochowa is a city in south Poland on the Warta River with 240,027 inhabitants . It has been situated in the Silesian Voivodeship since 1999, and was previously the capital of Częstochowa Voivodeship...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. When he was a child his family was very poor, and after contracting tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
he usually had to keep a thermometer with him to monitor his body temperature, although the reasons for this are unknown. He was orphaned by the age of 10, and was raised by his brother, and received a yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
education.
To avoid military service in the Polish army, he gave up his Polish citizenship (becoming a stateless person) and emigrated to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, where he would engage in Semitic studies at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
until 1931. He then went to the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
to study under Marcel Cohen
Marcel Cohen
Marcel Samuel Raphaël Cohen was a French linguist. He was an important scholar of Semitic languages and especially of Ethiopian languages. He studied the French language and contributed much to general linguistics.- Life :...
. His studies included most of the Semitic languages
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
, including Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, Aramaic, Akkadian
Akkadian language
Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
, and Ethiopic.
War Years
Leslau was arrested by the French police and sent to an internment camp in the PyreneesPyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
where he spent the harsh winter of 1939-1940 with his wife and child. He was later moved to Camp des Milles
Camp des Milles
The Camp des Milles was a French internment camp, opened in September 1939, in a former tile factory near the village of Les Milles, part of the commune of Aix-en-Provence .-History:...
, a concentration camp near Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence
Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...
. However, with the assistance of an international aid group, he escaped with his family before the Nazis took over the camp in 1942. They escaped to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He later became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
He settled in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and received a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
to continue his studies of the Semitic languages in Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
. He traveled throughout the country, recording endangered Ethiopian languages. For one language, Gafat
Gafat language
The Gafat language is an extinct Semitic language that was once spoken along the Abbay River in Ethiopia. The records of this language are extremely sparse. There is a translation of the Song of Songs written in the 17th or 18th Century held at the Bodleian Library...
, Leslau was able to locate only four speakers. It became extinct shortly thereafter.
Career in Los Angeles and Fieldwork in Ethiopia
In 1955, he moved to Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, where he joined the faculty of University of California, Los Angeles. He was instrumental in establishing the Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Center for Near East Studies
UCLA Center for Near East Studies
The UCLA Center for Near East Studies is an academic institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. The Center "encourages, coordinates and integrates instruction and research in the humanities and the social sciences, business, law, medicine and the media, and in all languages essential...
.
Leslau specialized in previously unrecorded and unstudied Semitic languages
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
of Ethiopia. His first trip to Ethiopia in 1946 was funded by a Guggenheim fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
.
Recognitions and Retirement
In 1965 Leslau received the Haile Selassie Prize for Ethiopian StudiesEthiopian Studies
Ethiopian Studies refers to a multi-disciplinary academic cluster dedicated to research on Ethiopia within the cultural and historical context of the Horn of Africa. The classical concept of Ethiopian Studies, developed by European scholars, is based on disciplines like philology and linguistics,...
in Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...
from Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie. He held the position of Professor Emeritus at UCLA until his death at the age of 100
Centenarian
A centenarian is a person who is or lives beyond the age of 100 years. Because current average life expectancies across the world are less than 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. Much rarer, a supercentenarian is a person who has lived to the age of 110 or more, something only...
. He remained active in research and writing until his death. He learned to use a Macintosh computer at the age of 80.
Leslau died at a nursing home in Fullerton, California
Fullerton, California
Fullerton is a city located in northern Orange County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 135,161.It was founded in 1887 by George and Edward Amerige and named for George H. Fullerton, who secured the land on behalf of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway...
, in 2006.
Partial bibliography
- 1938: Lexique Soqotri (sudarabique moderne) avec comparaisons et explications étymologiques. Paris: Klincksieck.
- 1941: Documents tigrigna: grammaire et textes. Paris: Libraire C. Klincksieck.
- 1945: Short Grammar of Tigré. Publications of the American Oriental Society, Offprint Series, No. 18. New Haven.
- 1945: Gafat Documents: Records of a South-Ethiopic language. American Oriental series, no. 28. New Haven.
- 1950: Ethiopic Documents: Gurage. New York: Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, no. 14.
- 1951: Falasha Anthology. Yale Judaica Series, vol. 6. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. (ISBN 0-300-03927-1)
- 1956: Étude descriptive et comparative du Gafat (éthiopien méridional). Paris: Klincksieck, xx + 277 p.
- 1958: Ethiopic and South Arabic contributions to the Hebrew lexicon. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 76 p.
- 1958: The verb in Harari. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, x + 86 p.
- 1965: An Amharic Conversation Book. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (ISBN 3-447-00553-X)
- 1965: Ethiopians speak. Studies in cultural background. Part 1: Harari. Near Eastern Studies, no. 7. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- 1965: An annotated bibliography of the Semitic languages of Ethiopia. The Hague: Mouton.
- 1966: Ethiopians Speak: Studies in Cultural Background. Part 2: Chaha. University of California Publication. Near Eastern Studies, no. 9, 219 p.
- 1967: Amharic Textbook. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (ISBN 3-447-00554-8)
- 1968: Ethiopians Speak: Studies in Cultural Background. Part 3: Soddo. University of California Publications. Near Eastern Studies, vol. 11.
- 1969: Hebrew Cognates in Amharic. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (ISBN 3-447-00555-6)
- 1973: English-Amharic Context Dictionary. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, xviii + 1503 p. (ISBN 3-447-01482-2)
- 1976: Concise Amharic Dictionary. (Reissue edition: 1996) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. (ISBN 0-520-20501-4)
- 1979: Etymological Dictionary of Gurage (Ethiopic). 3 vols. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. (ISBN 3-447-02041-5)
- 1981: Ethiopians Speak: Studies in Cultural Background. Part 4: Muher. Äthiopistische Forschungen, no. 11. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. (ISBN 3-515-03657-1)
- 1982: Gurage Folklore: Proverbs, beliefs, and riddles. Studien zur Kulturkunde, no. 63. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. (ISBN 3-515-03513-3)
- 1983: Ethiopians Speak: Studies in Cultural Background. Part 5: Chaha and Ennemor. Äthiopistische Forschungen, no. 16. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.
- 1987: Comparative dictionary of Ge‛ez (Classical Ethiopic) : Gǝ‛ǝz-English/English-Gǝ‛ǝz with an index of the Semitic roots. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, xlix + 813 p.
- 1988: Fifty Years of Research: Selection of articles on Semitic, Ethiopian Semitic and Cushitic. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, xlv + 503 p. (ISBN 3-447-02829-7)
- 1989: Concise dictionary of Gǝ‛ǝz (Classical Ethiopic). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 247 p.
- 1990: Arabic Loanwords in Ethiopian Semitic. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (ISBN 3-447-03000-3)
- 1992: Gurage Studies : Collected Articles. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, xxix + 744 p. (ISBN 3-447-03189-1)
- 1995: Reference Grammar of Amharic. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden. (ISBN 3-447-03372-X)
- 1997: Ethiopic Documents: Argobba. Grammar and dictionary. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (ISBN 3-447-03955-8)
- 1999: Zway Ethiopic Documents. Äthiopistische Forschungen, no. 51. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (ISBN 3-447-04162-5)
- 2000: Introductory Grammar of Amharic. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, xix + 232 p. (ISBN 3-447-04271-0)
- 2001: (with Thomas L. Kane) Amharic Cultural Reader. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (ISBN 3-447-04496-9)
- 2004: The Verb in Mäsqan as Compared with other Gurage Dialects. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. (ISBN 3-447-04905-7)
Festschriften
- Segert, StanislavStanislav SegertStanislav Segert was a prominent scholar of Semitic languages and one of the foremost authorities on North-West Semitic languages.-Life:...
& András J. E. Bodrogligeti (eds.), Ethiopian Studies: Dedicated to Wolf Leslau on the Occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, November 14, 1981 by friends and colleagues. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1983, xii + 582 p. (ISBN 3-447-02314-7). - Kaye, Alan S. (ed.), Semitic studies in honor of Wolf Leslau on the occasion of his 85th birthday, November 14, 1991. 2 Vols. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz 1991, lxviii. + 1719 p. (ISBN 3-447-03168-9).
- Hudson, Grover (ed.), Essays on Gurage Language and Culture: Dedicated to Wolf Leslau on the Occasion of His 90th Birthday, November 14, 1996. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1996, 239 p. (ISBN 3-447-03830-6).