Africa in Translation: A History of Colonial Linguistics in Germany and Beyond, 1814--1945 (2012)
Pugach, Sara Elizabeth Berg (Author)
University of Michigan Press
Physical Details: x + 303 pp.
Language: English
The study of African languages in Germany, or Afrikanistik, originated among Protestant missionaries in the early nineteenth century and was incorporated into German universities after Germany entered the "Scramble for Africa" and became a colonial power in the 1880s. Despite its long history, few know about the German literature on African languages or the prominence of Germans in the discipline of African philology. In Africa in Translation: A History of Colonial Linguistics in Germany and Beyond, 1814--1945, Sara Pugach works to fill this gap, arguing that Afrikanistik was essential to the construction of racialist knowledge in Germany. While in other countries biological explanations of African difference were central to African studies, the German approach was essentially linguistic, linking language to culture and national identity. Pugach traces this linguistic focus back to the missionaries' belief that conversion could not occur unless the "Word" was allowed to touch a person's heart in his or her native language, as well as to the connection between German missionaries living in Africa and armchair linguists in places like Berlin and Hamburg. Over the years, this resulted in Afrikanistik scholars using language and culture rather than biology to categorize African ethnic and racial groups. Africa in Translation follows the history of Afrikanistik from its roots in the missionaries' practical linguistic concerns to its development as an academic subject in both Germany and South Africa throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sara Pugach is Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Los Angeles. Jacket image: Perthes, Justus. Mittel und Süd-Afrika. Map. Courtesy of the University of Michigan's Stephen S. Clark Library map collection.
...MoreReview Orosz, Kenneth J. (2014) Review of "Africa in Translation: A History of Colonial Linguistics in Germany and Beyond, 1814--1945". Central European History (p. 186).
Review Wokoeck, Ursula (2013) Review of "Africa in Translation: A History of Colonial Linguistics in Germany and Beyond, 1814--1945". American Historical Review (pp. 270-271).
Similar Citations
Article
Linne, Karsten;
(2003)
Aufstieg und Fall der Kolonialwissenschaften im Nationalsozialismus
(/isis/citation/CBB000740428/)
Article
Morgan J. Robinson;
(2023)
When a Wonder Is Not a Wonder: Swahili, Translation, and the Communication of Knowledge
(/isis/citation/CBB737008309/)
Book
Schröder, Wilfried;
(2002)
Ich reiste wie ein Buschmann: zum Leben und Wirken des Australienforschers Erhard Eylmann
(/isis/citation/CBB000470233/)
Article
Walther, Daniel J.;
(2013)
Sex, Public Health and Colonial Control: The Campaign against Venereal Diseases in Germany's Overseas Possessions, 1884--1914
(/isis/citation/CBB001213442/)
Article
Martin Kalb;
(2020)
Water, Sand, Molluscs: Imperial Infrastructures, the Age of Hydrology, and German Colonialism in Swakopmund, Southwest Africa, 1884-1915
(/isis/citation/CBB612807033/)
Thesis
Neill, Deborah Joy;
(2005)
Transnationalism in the Colonies: Cooperation, Rivalry, and Race in German and French Tropical Medicine, 1880--1930
(/isis/citation/CBB001560671/)
Article
Huijzendveld, Frans D.;
(2008)
Changes in Political Economy and Ecology in West-Usambara, Tanzania: ca. 1850--1950
(/isis/citation/CBB001031158/)
Chapter
Eckart, Wolfgang U.;
(2005)
From Questionnaires to Microscopes: Founding and Early Years of the Hamburg Institute of Nautical and Tropical Diseases
(/isis/citation/CBB000774979/)
Thesis
Pourciau, Sarah M.;
(2007)
Explications: Etymology as Language Science, 1822--1941
(/isis/citation/CBB001560819/)
Chapter
Burchardt, Lothar;
(2005)
The School of Oriental Languages at the University of Berlin---Forging the Cadres of German Imperialism?
(/isis/citation/CBB000774971/)
Article
Bastos, Cristiana;
(2007)
Medical Hybridisms and Social Boundaries: Aspects of Portuguese Colonialism in Africa and India in the Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001031043/)
Article
Howes, Hilary S.;
(2011)
“It Is Not So!” Otto Finsch, Expectations and Encounters in the Pacific, 1865--85
(/isis/citation/CBB001033726/)
Article
Bouterse, Jeroen;
Karstens, Bart;
(2015)
A Diversity of Divisions: Tracing the History of the Demarcation between the Sciences and the Humanities
(/isis/citation/CBB001551432/)
Article
Anna Echterhölter;
(2021)
Formative encounters: Colonial data collection on land and law in German Micronesia
(/isis/citation/CBB103562789/)
Article
Lisboa, Karen Macknow;
(2013)
Insalubridade, doenças e imigração: visões alemãs sobre o Brasil
(/isis/citation/CBB001420635/)
Article
Siiskonen, Harri Olavi;
(2015)
The Concept of Climate Improvement: Colonialism and Environment in German South West Africa
(/isis/citation/CBB001422580/)
Article
Hoogte, Arjo Roersch van der;
Pieters, Toine;
(2015)
Science, Industry and the Colonial State: A Shift from a German- to a Dutch-Controlled Cinchona and Quinine Cartel (1880--1920)
(/isis/citation/CBB001552560/)
Thesis
Kaplan, Judith R. H.;
(2012)
Language Science and Orientalism in Imperial Germany
(/isis/citation/CBB001560884/)
Article
Demhardt, Imre Josef;
(2009)
Paul Langhans und der Deutsche Kolonial-Atlas, 1893--1897
(/isis/citation/CBB001024650/)
Article
Sabea, Hanan;
(2008)
Mastering the Landscape? Sisal Plantations, Land, and Labor in Tanga Region, 1893--1980s
(/isis/citation/CBB001031159/)
Be the first to comment!