Leonhard Bauer (mission teacher)

Leonhard Bauer (born May 9, 1865 in Niederstetten ; † November 19, 1964 in Shamlān , Lebanon) was a missionary teacher at the Syrian Orphanage in Jerusalem and a pioneer of Arabic dialectology .

Leonhard Bauer was born on May 9, 1865 in Niederstetten near Bad Mergentheim in Hohenlohe . His father, who was a farmer and weaver, sent him to the teachers' college in Künzelsau, not far away, after completing his schooling . After that, Leonhard Bauer worked for some time as a teacher and tutor. Soon, however, he awoke in the desire to be active in the evangelical mission and he traveled to Basel in a Mission Seminary , to prepare for his service. There, however, to his great disappointment, he was found not suitable for the tropics and had to return home without having achieved anything. At home he found a message that the Syrian Orphanage in Jerusalem was looking for a teacher for its teacher training college and he immediately applied for the position. On his 25th birthday in 1890, he was called to the teachers' college. He did not hesitate: three weeks later, at the end of May / beginning of June 1890, he arrived in Jerusalem.

After his arrival, Leonhard Bauer took over the German and French lessons in the teachers' seminar. He was also given the task of familiarizing himself with the Arabic language as quickly as possible . On the one hand, there was a lack of teachers for the compulsory Arabic lessons, on the other hand, the mission always attached great importance to preaching the Gospel in the respective national language (which, incidentally, has already done many a valuable service to linguistics ).

In 1891 he married Maria Schneller , the daughter of the school founder. This marriage resulted in three children, a boy died at an early age, one of the two daughters, Irmela , later took over the management of the girls' home in the Syrian orphanage from her mother.

The fact that Leonhard Bauer took his assignment seriously is proven by the textbook for practical learning of the Arabic language (written and Vulgar Arabic) , which was published as early as 1895 (and was produced in the workshops of the Syrian Orphanage ) , with which he gave his successors an initial set of tools. to familiarize yourself with Arabic. While in this first work he vacillates between standard and colloquial language, in the following he concentrates entirely on the spoken Arabic of his environment. In 1898 the first edition of his Grammar and Chrestomathie Das Palestinian Arabic (The Dialects of the Townspeople and the Fellachen) appears , which, like all subsequent editions, has the JC Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung in Leipzig as publisher on the title page, but also in Jerusalem was made. Gustaf Dalman wrote in his foreword to the second edition (1910): "I do not know that any living Arabic dialect could have found a more accurate and meaningful description of the details of its use of the language." That was to continue for several decades until Cantineau appeared , stay that way and still today, almost 100 years after the first edition was published, it is an indispensable source for anyone dealing with dialects of Palestine . Some things may seem outdated and imprecise at first glance, but the further you delve into the abundance of material, the clearer the work gains in contour, the more well-founded its information becomes, and in practice it proves a reliability that you can count on one is amazed how a completely unencumbered layman could produce this marvel in such a short time. Especially since Leonhard Bauer, as we know from the testimonies of his students, devoted himself body and soul to his first duty, teaching. In addition, he had numerous other obligations, in particular as an organist in the institution church and the daily house devotions in the morning and evening for the children of the institution (which he held in Arabic).

Also in 1898 his collection of Arabic proverbs appeared in the journal of the German Palestine Association . In 1899 he was appointed senior teacher and thus head of the teachers' college. In 1903 his book Volksleben in the Land of the Bible was published , which contains numerous proverbs, riddles, rhymes and folk songs in addition to the description of customs and traditions. In addition, until the end of his life he regularly wrote folklore articles in the magazine of the “Syrian Orphanage Association”, the messenger from Zion . Some of them also found their way into the journal of the German Palestine Association .

During the First World War, the Syrian orphanage was temporarily confiscated by the English occupation and Leonhard Bauer had to move with his family to Germany, where he worked as a teacher at the middle school in Metzingen / Württ. found a job. When the institute was returned to the mission in 1921, he was one of the first to be on hand to rebuild teaching. During this time, the dictionary of Arabic colloquial language was created , which appeared in the Syrian Orphanage in 1930 and, as a German-Arabic dialect dictionary, has remained unrivaled to this day.

In 1939, when the war broke out, many German employees left the institution and returned to Germany. Leonhard Bauer stayed with his family in Jerusalem because he did not expect that a 75-year-old would be interned. But it turned out differently. In September 1939 he was taken to a detention center in Akko , where he became blind in one eye as a result of poor placement. In November 1939 he was allowed to return to Jerusalem and briefly carried out his duties as a teacher until the Syrian orphanage was finally cleared and closed by the English administration in the spring of 1940. Until 1948 he lived with his family in various internment camps. In 1946 his wife died at the age of 86. When he was released in April 1948, the situation in the country was extremely tense. Leonhard Bauer and his daughter Irmela found refuge in Ramallah with the Christian family of a former employee of the Syrian orphanage (there is still a small Protestant community in Ramallah today). When the situation there became increasingly critical due to the influx of refugees from Jaffa , Lyd and Ramleh and the bombing of the city by the Israeli air force, he decided, like hundreds of thousands of others during this time, to flee to Lebanon . In August 1948, at the age of 83, he and his daughter Irmela arrived in Shamlān, on a foothill of the Lebanon Mountains 25 km southeast of Beirut . Here, after the turbulent past ten years, he was able to calm down and resume his studies. In 1955 Anton Spitaler visited him and suggested a revised new edition of the dictionary, as Leonhard Bauer had in the meantime collected a great deal of new material. With the support of his daughter Irmela, he completed this work and was able to see the second edition published by Harrassowitz-Verlag in Wiesbaden in 1957, when he was 93 years old. Leonhard Bauer died on November 19, 1964 in Shamlān and was buried in Beirut. Humility, diligence and a deep religiosity have shaped his life.

Fonts

• Textbook for practical learning of the Arabic language (written and Vulgar Arabic). Publishing house of the Syrian Orphanage, Jerusalem (commissioned by HG Wallmann in Leipzig), 1897.
• Popular life in the land of the Bible. HG Wallmann, Leipzig 1903, 2nd edition 1903.
• The Palestinian Arabic. The dialects of the townspeople and the fellahs. Grammar, Exercises and Chrestomathy. Hinrichs, Leipzig 1910, 4th edition 1926, photomechanical reprint of the 4th edition: Leipzig 1970.
• Arabic proverbs. In: ZDPV - magazine of the German Palestine Association. 21, 1898, pp. 129-148.
• Dictionary of Palestinian Arabic: German-Arabic. HG Wallmann, Leipzig; Syrian Orphanage, Jerusalem 1933. The second edition was published under the title:
• German-Arabic dictionary of the colloquial language in Palestine and Lebanon. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1957.
• Israel's future. Ev. Karmel Mission, Nördlingen, no year (1952); 2nd edition: Franz, Metzingen o. J. (1952).
• In addition, other - also dialectological and folklore - articles in Der Bote aus Zion, the magazine of the Syrian Orphanage Association in Jerusalem.

Different publication dates or titles mentioned in the article relate to private prints of the Syrian Orphanage that have not entered the market.

literature

• Hermann Schneller: Senior teacher Leonhard Bauer †. In: The Messenger from Zion. 80th Jg., H. 1, 1965, pp. 6-16.
• Hans Dieter Haller: Leonhard Bauer (1865 to 1964). In: Ders .: Pegasus in the country: writers in Hohenlohe. Baier, Crailsheim 2006, ISBN 3-929233-62-2 , pp. 160-165.

Web links

• Literature by and about Leonhard Bauer in the catalog of the German National Library
• “He spoke Arabic as perfectly as his Hohenlohe dialect!” By Fritz Mündlein