German missionary and linguist
James Frederick Schön (1802, inOber Weiler – 30 March 1889, inChatham) was aGerman missionary and linguist who was active inSierra Leone. He also participated in theNiger expedition of 1841.[1][2]
After attending theBasel Seminary, Schön attended theChurch Missionary Society College in London;[1][3] he was ordained as a priest in 1832 and immediately went to Sierra Leone. He remained active with theChurch Missionary Society until 1853.[1][3]
He became a naturalized British subject in 1854.[3]
He became an expert on theHausa language and is credited with writing the first Christian material in Hausa when he translated theLord's Prayer in 1843.[4] He was awarded an honorary doctorate fromOxford University in 1884.[1][3]
His first wife was Anne Elizabeth Nyländer, the daughter ofGustavus Nyländer, another missionary and linguist.[3] They had one daughter, Annie Catherine, who married a CMS missionary named Edward Thomas Higgens.[5]
His second wife was Cordelia Jackson Irwine; he later married Elizabeth Catherine Drake, the widow of James White, another CMS missionary.[5] He and Elizabeth had nine children and also took in several other children includingSarah Forbes Bonetta.[5][6]
- Translations of seven Parables and Discources of our Lord Jesus Christ into the Sherbro Language of West Africa (1839)
- Journal of the Niger Expedition (1842)
- Vocabulary and Elements of Grammar of the Haussa Language (1843)
- Translations of Genesis, Exodus, the Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles into the Hausa Language (1857-1861)
- Grammar of the Haussa Language (1862)
- Dictionary of the Hausa Language (1876)
- Vocabulary of the Mende language (1884)[7]
- Magana Hausa: Hausa Stories and Fables (1885)[8]
His papers are archived at theUniversity of Birmingham.[1][9]
Samuel Ajayi Crowther
- ^abcde"Papers of James Frederick Schon".Mundus. Mundus Project. Retrieved25 August 2016.
- ^Forgotten Books websiteJournals of the Rev. James Frederick Schön and Mr Samuel Crowther, who, with the Sanction of Her Majesty's Government, accompanied the Expedition up the Niger in 1841, in Behalf of the Church Missionary Society (1842) (online copy)
- ^abcdeDictionary of African Christian Biography website,Jakob Schon
- ^Biblical Studies website,A History Of The Hausa Bible: 1980 Edition, article by Musa A. B. Gaiya, published in The Africa Journal of Evangelical Theology (1993), page 55
- ^abcJames Family Tree website,Reverend James Friedrich Schon
- ^Black Presence website,Sara Forbes Bonetta
- ^ABE Books,Vocabulary of the Mende language, retrieved February 20, 2024
- ^ABE Books,Magana Hausa: Hausa Stories and Fables', retrieved February 20, 2024
- ^UK National Archives website,Schon, James Frederick, (fl 1833-1846), Missionary to West Africa, retrieved February 20, 2024
