Alice Werner

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Alice Werner (born June 26, 1859 in Trieste , † June 9, 1935 ) was a writer, poet and professor of Swahili at the University of London .

Life

She was one of seven children in the family of Harriett and Reinhardt Joseph Werner. For the first 15 years of her life, Werner traveled extensively with her family and grew up in New Zealand, Mexico, the USA and various European cities until the family finally settled in Tonbridge, England, in 1874. During visits to the British Central Africa Protectorate (now Malawi ) in 1893 and the colony of Natal in 1894, she learned Zulu (language) and Afrikaans . From 1911 to 1913 she traveled to British East Africa on a scholarshipand there she met the poet and scholar Muhammad Kijumwa al-Bakry, from whom she received manuscripts on Swahili literature and then began to familiarize herself with the history and literature of the region. After SOAS University of London opened in 1917, she began teaching there as a lecturer. In 1919 she wrote her doctoral thesis with the title Introductory sketch of the Bantu languages - but this she did not give up until 1929, after which she received her doctorate from the University of London.

In 1922 she became professor of Swahili and Bantu languages ​​and held the British Isles' first professorship in this subject. She developed a language diploma for Swahili (1924), also the first diploma of its kind. After her resignation she received the Silver Medal of the African Society .

Werner's editions of Utendi wa Ayubu (The Life of Job), published in the Dar es Salaam Newspaper, became the first Swahili epics to reach wide audiences in Europe and the East African coast. Her best known work is Myths and Legends of the Bantu (1933).

Works

  • A Time and Times (poems) (1886)
  • O'Driscoll's Weird (1892)
  • The Humor of Italy (1892)
  • The Humor of Holland (1893)
  • The Captain of the Locusts (1899)
  • Chapinga's While Man (1901)
  • Native Races of British Central Africa (1906)
  • "Introduction" to Jamaican Song and Story: Annancy Stories, Digging Sings, Ring Tunes, and Dancing Tunes , ed. Walter Jekyll (1906)
  • The Language Families of Africa (1915)
  • A Swahili History of Pate (1915)
  • Introductory Sketch of the Bantu Languages (1919)
  • The Swahili Saga of Liongo Fumo (1926)
  • A First Swahili Book (1927; written with MH Werner)
  • Swahili Tales (1929)
  • Structure and Relationship of African Languages (1930)
  • The Story of Miqdad and Mayasa (1932)
  • Myths and Legends of the Bantu (1933)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Werner, Alice (1859-1935), teacher of Bantu languages ​​| Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved September 17, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Werner, Alice (1859-1935), teacher of Bantu languages ​​| Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved September 17, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Werner, Alice (1859-1935), teacher of Bantu languages ​​| Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved September 17, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Werner, Alice
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Writer, poet and university lecturer
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Trieste
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 1935