Johann Philipp Fabrizius

Johann Philipp Fabrizius (born January 22, 1711 in Cleeberg , Hesse ; † January 23, 1791 in Madras , India ) was a German Protestant missionary in India, a Lutheran pastor in Madras and researcher and translator of the Tamil language .

Live and act

Fabrizius was one of eight children of Reinhard, a Hessian bailiff. From 1728 he studied law at the University of Giessen , where he was strongly influenced by the pietistic professor Jakob Rambach . In 1732 he became a private teacher with his brother in the place of his birth, and in 1736 a teacher at the orphanage in Glaucha near Halle an der Saale , where he also studied theology and was called to mission. He was ordained in Copenhagen on October 23, 1739, and he left for London on November 17, 1740 and arrived as an Evangelical Lutheran missionary of the Danish-Halle Mission on August 28, 1741 in Cuddalore, South India . From 1742 he lived and worked primarily as a parish pastor and preacher in the Vepery district in Madras, where he led a Tamil Lutheran congregation. He worked there for 30 years and his parish grew from 300 to 2,200 members. However, the tough competition between the colonial powers England and France also caused difficulties and emergencies in his life in India. In 1761, for example, armed forces of the British East India Company marched into the southern Indian city and French colony of Puducherry . A printing press was brought from there to Madras, and the printing press was given to Fabricius to print his writings and those of the Company. Shortly afterwards, a paper production facility was set up in Madras.

Thanks to his extraordinary talent for languages, he wrote a Tamil grammar and a Tamil-English lexicon and dictionary with 9000 Tamil words and expressions, which were printed in 1779 and which are still valid today. He also translated many hymns from German, and in 1774 a hymn book with 335 Tamil hymns was printed. Fabricius translated the New Testament into Tamil in 1750. He used the first translation by Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg from 1713 as a template. It was able to be printed in 1758, but it was not until the reprint of 1766 that his work was complete. In 1756 he began translating the Old Testament , and in the same year a first version of the Psalms was published. Only after his death in 1796 and 1798 was his translation of the Bible printed, a revised version of which is still in use today. His last years in Madras were also marked by mismanagement and indebtedness, as he had become a guarantor out of good faith. In 1778 he had to go to prison for this. Christian Wilhelm Gericke, who had taken over his work, was able to get Fabrizius released shortly before his death.

Works

• German-Tamil Hymnologies , 1763 (5 editions to 1791).
• A Malabar and English Dictionary , Madras 1779 (16 editions to 1972).
• The grammar for learning the principles of the Malabar Language, properly called Tamul or Tamulian Language , The English Missionaries of Madras, Vepery 1789, with Johann Christian Breithaupt .

literature

• Arno Lehmann:  Fabrizius, Johann Philipp . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 48, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, pp. 273-281.
• W. Germann, J. Ph. F. , 1865.
• W. Germann: Johann Philipp Fabricius, his fifty years of activity in the Tamulenland and the missionary life of the eighteenth century at home and outside .
• GL Plitt and Otto Hardeland: History of the Lutheran Mission , Leipzig 1894.
• Arno Lehmann: It all started in Tranquebar , Berlin in 1955.
• Hans Kirsten and Ida Näther: Our Lutheran Mission in India , Groß Oesingen 1984.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Arno Lehmann:  Fabrizius, Johann Philipp . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 48, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, pp. 273-281.
2. ↑ http://www.gaebler.info/india/daenisch-hallesche_mission.htm#fabricius