Bernhard Bischopinck

Bischopinck coat of arms since 1406

Bernhard Bischopinck (born January 31, 1690 (or 1692 ) in Borken / Westphalia , † approx. 1746 in Mangalore , India ) was a theologian and Jesuit . He worked as a missionary and linguist in India.

Life

Bernhard Bischopinck comes from the old aristocratic hereditary family Bischopinck from Münster and grew up in Borken / Westphalia, where his father was a geographer. On May 24, 1708 he entered the Jesuit order and in 1722 his profession took place.

In 1726 he traveled to the Jesuit province of Malabar in southern India , where he acquired knowledge of Malayalam and was then sent on missionary trips. Later he taught philosophy and theology at the college in Ambalakad ( Kerala ), one of the most important missionary stations of the Jesuits in South India, in which since 1665 the Jesuit seminary previously housed in Cochin was located. There he became vice-rector and Ambalakad developed into an important research center for Indian languages. The Jesuit printing press there enabled the publication of works in Tamil and Malayalam. Together with Anton Pimentel , Bischopinck helped Johann Ernst von Hanxleden , who was also working in Ambalakad, with the creation of his " Dictionarium Samscredamico-Lusitanum " and added Hanxleden's grammar and a self-written catechism in Malayalam to it. In his letters, Bischopinck reported extensively on the Jesuit mission in South India.

Bernhard Bischopinck died in Mangalore around 1746.

Works

• Dictionarium Malabaricum et Samscredamico-Lusitanum, cui praefixa est grammatica P. Ern. Hanxleden, et in fine addita catechesis christiana lingua malabarica , Rome, Bibl. Propaganda Fide
• Letters , printed in: Joseph Stöcklein, Der neue Welt-Bott, IV, 2, 1755: July 27, 1732 (No. 601); Der neue Welt-Bott, V, 2, 1758: undated (No. 739).

literature

• Carlos Sommervogel , Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus , Brussels-Paris, 1890–1910, I, col. 1510
• Joseph Dahlmann, Linguistics and the missions, Freiburg i. Br. 1891, 9-10
• Anton Huonder, German Jesuit missionaries of the 17th and 18th centuries , Freiburg i. Br. 1899, 175
• GTMackenzie, Christianity in Travancore , Trivandrum 1901, 66, 67, 79
• Anton Huonder, Johann Ernest Hanxleden , The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VII, 1910
• Robert Streit / Johannes Dindinger, Bibliotheca Missionum , Freiburg i. Br. 1918, VI, 310-311
• Domenico Ferroli, The Jesuits in Malabar , Vol. II, Bangalore 1951, 294.
• Julia Lederle:  Bernhard Bischopinck. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 20, Bautz, Nordhausen 2002, ISBN 3-88309-091-3 , Sp. 213-214.