Edward Ullendorff (25 January 1920 – 6 March 2011) was a British scholar of
Semitic language
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic,
Amharic, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew, Maltese, Modern South Arabian languages and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by mo ...
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, Germany, to an upper-class, secular Jewish family. His parents had planned to travel to
Zurich
Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...
for his birth so that he could obtain Swiss citizenship, but he was born earlier than planned. His father was a wholesale merchant who died shortly before Edward's 15th birthday. He was educated at the Graues Kloster in Berlin, a prestigious grammar school with focus on classical languages where Ullendorff excelled in Latin and Greek.
Fascinated by Jewish liturgy, he taught himself Hebrew, served as a
cantor
A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. Cantor as a profession generally refers to those leading a Jewish congregation, although it also applies to the lead singer or choir director in Christian contexts. ...
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" . '' Ismar Elbogen to attend lectures on Hebrew, Bible and Talmud studies at the Berlin
Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums
Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, or Higher Institute for Jewish Studies, was a rabbinical seminary established in Berlin in 1872 and closed down by the Nazi government of Germany in 1942. Upon the order of the government, the nam ...
. After his ''
Abitur
''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...
'' graduation, Ullendorff fled from the increasing persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany to Palestine in September 1938 (two months before the ''
Kristallnacht
( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...
'' pogroms) with the help of the Youth Aliyah organisation, leaving his family behind.
In Jerusalem, he attended the
Hebrew University
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. It is the second-ol ...
, studying in particular with the semitologist Hans Jakob Polotsky whom Ullendorff regarded as his academic master. He completed a
Master of Arts
A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...
degree in Semitic philology in 1941 as the university's first graduate in this subject. Thanks to his knowledge of Semitic languages, he joined the British Military Administration in Eritrea, examining documents in
Amharic
Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...
and Tigrinya for the British Censorship. While in Asmara, he married Dina Noack in 1943, whom he had known since his student days in Jerusalem and whose family also came from Berlin. From 1945 to 1946, Ullendorff served as assistant political secretary of the British military administration in Eritrea. In this capacity, he initiated the ''Eritrean Weekly News'', the first Tigrinya-language newspaper, recruiting the future Eritrean independence fighter Woldeab Woldemariam as an editor.
After the end of the Second World War, Ullendorff returned to Jerusalem, where he worked as the Hebrew University's registrar and then for the British mandate administration, processing compensation payments for victims of terrorist attacks. This made him a target of the Zionist-revisionist
Irgun
The Irgun (), officially the National Military Organization in the Land of Israel, often abbreviated as Etzel or IZL (), was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandatory Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of th ...
and he was once kidnapped by this organisation. After Israel's independence in 1948, Ullendorff went to England, where he taught Arabic to colonial service cadets at the Oxford Institute of Colonial Studies. At the
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
Ullendorff completed his
DPhil
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
dissertation about ''The relationship of modern Ethiopian languages to
Geʽez
Geez ( or ; , and sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as Classical Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic language. The language originates from what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Today, Geez is used as the main liturgical langu ...
'' (Classical Ethiopic) under the supervision of G. R. Driver in 1951.
In 1950 Ullendorff was appointed lecturer, and in 1956 Reader in Semitic Languages at the
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...
. From 1959 to 1964 he served as Professor of Semitic Languages and Literatures at the
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...
. In 1964, Ullendorff was appointed to a foundation chair for Ethiopian Studies at the
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...
(SOAS) created especially for him, being the first chair for this discipline worldwide. When Judah Segal retired in 1979, Ullendorff succeeded him in the chair of Semitic Languages at SOAS. On his own retirement in 1982, the University of London appointed him
Professor Emeritus
''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus".
...
of Semitic Languages and Ethiopian Studies. To Ullendorff's regret, however, no successor was appointed to either chair.
In 1971, Ullendorff served as president of the Society for Old Testament Study.
Ullendorff's wife Dina provided lifelong support for his academic research and translated Mélanie Oppenhejm's book ''Theresienstadt: Survival in Hell'' under her own name. Dina Ullendorff died in 2019.
Edward Ullendorff died on 6 March 2011 in Oxford, aged 91.
Ark of the Covenant
According to local legend, the original
Ark of the Covenant
The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, was a religious storage chest and relic held to be the most sacred object by the Israelites.
Religious tradition describes it as a wooden storage chest decorat ...
Axum
Axum, also spelled Aksum (), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire.
Axum is located in the Central Zone of the Tigray Re ...
,
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
. In a 1992 interview, Ullendorff stated that he personally examined the ark held within the church in Axum in 1941 while a British army officer. Describing the ark there, he described it as a "Middle- to late-medieval construction, when these were fabricated ad hoc."
Honours
In 1965, Ullendorff was elected a Fellow of the
British Academy
The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...
(FBA), serving as the academy's vice-president from 1980 to 1982. He was chosen for the 1967 Schweich Lecture on Biblical Archaeology which he gave on the subject of "Ethiopia and the Bible". The Ethiopian emperor
Haile Selassie
Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen or ''Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles#Lij, Lij'' Tafari; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles, Rege ...
honoured Ullendorff with the ''Haile Selassie International Prize for Ethiopian Studies'' in 1972. He repeatedly met with the monarch, who was overthrown in 1974 and assassinated the following year. Ullendorff translated and edited Haile Selassie's autobiography, which was published in 1976. In 1998, the
Accademia dei Lincei
The (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed"), anglicised as the Lincean Academy, is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy. Founded in ...
elected him as a foreign member, being one of only a few British scholars in that academy.
After Ullendorff's death, the British Academy created the ''Edward Ullendorf Medal'' in 2012 which is awarded annually for "scholarly distinction and achievements in the field of Semitic Languages and Ethiopian Studies."
Selected works
*''Exploration and Study of Abyssinia. A Brief Survey'' (1945)
*''The Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. A Comparative Phonology'' (1955)
*''Hebraic-Jewish Elements in Abyssinian (Monophysite) Christianity'' (1956)
*''An
Amharic
Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...
Chrestomathy'' (1965)
*''The Challenge of Amharic'' (1965) An inaugural lecture delivered on 28 October 1964
*''The Ethiopians: An Introduction to Country and People'' (1966)
*''Ethiopia and the Bible'' (1968) Schweich Lectures of
The British Academy
The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy
A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, th ...
(1967). Oxford University Press.
*Is
Biblical Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...
and Her Special Envoy'' (1979), with David L. Appleyard, Girma-Selassie Asfaw
*''The Hebrew Letters of
Prester John
Prester John () was a mythical Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Church of the East, Nestorian patriarch and king who was said to rule over a Christian state, Christian ...
Chrestomathy
A chrestomathy ( ; from the Ancient Greek 'desire of learning', from 'useful' + 'learn') is a collection of selected literary passages (usually from a single author); a selection of literary passages from a foreign language assembled for stu ...
'' (1985)
*''The Two Zions : Reminiscences of Jerusalem and Ethiopia'' (1988). Oxford University Press.
*''From the Bible to Enrico Cerulli A Miscellany of Ethiopian and Semitic Papers'' (1990)
*''From Emperor
Haile Selassie
Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen or ''Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles#Lij, Lij'' Tafari; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles, Rege ...
to H. J. Polotsky Collected Papers IV: An Ethiopian and Semitic Miscellany'' (1995)
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
*
Who's Who
A Who's Who (or Who Is Who) is a reference work consisting of biographical entries of notable people in a particular field. The oldest and best-known is the annual publication ''Who's Who (UK), Who's Who'', a reference work on contemporary promin ...