Roy Clive Abraham (16 December 1890,

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– 22 June 1963,

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) was a key figure in African language scholarship during the twentieth century. He worked for over thirty years on a wide range of disparate languages.

Education

University College School University College School, also known as UCS, is a private day school in Frognal, Hampstead, London, England. The school was founded in 1830 by University College London and inherited many of that institution's progressive and secular views. ...

Clifton College Clifton College is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in the city of Bristol in South West England, founded in 1862 and offering both boarding school, boarding and day school for pupils aged 13–18. In its early years, unlike mo ...

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* Various establishments in Germany From 1923 to 1924 he was at

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. He received a first-class honours degree in Arabic and Persian; he asked to be examined in Ethiopic, but no examiner was available. He took a certificate in anthropology from

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in 1927, and a diploma in (classical) Arabic from the

School of Oriental 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 ...

in 1930.

Career

He was granted a temporary commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Infantry (he was assigned to the

East Surrey Regiment The East Surrey Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1959. The regiment was formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 31st (Huntingdonshire) Regiment of Foot, the 70th ( ...

) on 22 January 1915. He relinquished his commission on appointment to a cadetship at the

Royal Military College, Sandhurst The Royal Military College (RMC) was a United Kingdom, British military academy for training infantry and cavalry Officer (armed forces), officers of the British Army, British and British Indian Army, Indian Armies. It was founded in 1801 at Gre ...

on 19 January 1916. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant on the Unattached List for the Indian Army on 16 August 1916. He was attached to the 1st battalion, 109th Infantry on 10 November 1916. By late 1918 he was acting as Assistant Censor, Rangoon. He was appointed an Assistant Embarkation Staff Officer on 1 November 1919. He was promoted Captain 20 August 1919 and retired on 5 October 1922. From 1925 to 1944, he worked for the administrative service of the northern provinces of Nigeria. He researched the local languages, and assisted George Percival Bargery to compile the latter's monumental and authoritative

Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa * Hausa language, spoken in West Africa * Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states * Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse See also ...

-English Dictionary, published in 1934. In his ''Principles of Hausa'' (1934), Abraham simplified Bargery's six-tone system to the correct three-tone system for Hausa. In this period, he also published ''The Grammar of Tiv'' (1933) and ''The Principles of Idoma'' (1935), the first detailed linguistic description of an eastern Kwa language. Abraham's grammars and dictionaries represented major descriptive and analytical contributions to the study of African languages. In 1941–42, he taught Hausa to soldiers in the Royal West African frontier force. Later in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he served in Ethiopia, teaching Amharic and Somali; he was also based in Kenya, South Africa, France, and Italy, and with the British military mission in Moscow, being promoted to major. In 1945, Abraham was awarded a Leverhulme research fellowship to research the languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea (including Amharic and Ge'ez). In 1946 he failed to succeed Bargery as lecturer in Hausa at the School of Oriental and African Studies. However, in 1948 he was appointed to a new lectureship in Amharic; he also taught Tigrinya and began research into

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

, Oromo, and Somali. His ''Dictionary of Hausa'' was published in 1949 and ''The Principles of Somali'' in 1951. He retired in 1951. In 1952, Abraham embarked on a study of Yoruba. His ''Dictionary of Modern Yoruba'' appeared in 1958. His linguistic work was based on fieldwork conducted amongst a number of groups of people:

, Tiv, Idoma, Oromo,

Somalis The Somali people (, Wadaad's writing, Wadaad: , Arabic: ) are a Cushitic peoples, Cushitic ethnic group and nation native to the Somali Peninsula. who share a common ancestry, culture and history. The Lowland East Cushitic languages, East ...

, Yoruba, and

Berbers Berbers, or the Berber peoples, also known as Amazigh or Imazighen, are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arab migrations to the Maghreb, Arabs in the Maghreb. Their main connec ...

. A commemorative volume in honour of his outstanding contribution to the understanding of African languages was published in 1992.

References

* Oxford

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* R. G. Armstrong, ‘Roy Clive Abraham, 1890–1963’, Journal of West African Languages, 1/1 (1964), 49–53 * P. E. H. Hair, ‘A bibliography of R. C. Abraham - linguist and lexicographer’, Journal of West African Languages, 2/1 (1965), 63–66 * P. J. Jaggar, ed., Papers in honour of R. C. Abraham (1890–1963) (1992)

Education

Career

References

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