Karl Wilhelm Isenberg

Karl Wilhelm Isenberg (5 September 180610 October 1864), spelt or known by names Carl Wilhelm Isenberg, Charles William Isenberg, C. W. Isenberg, Carl W. Isenberg or Charles Isenberg, was a German Church Missionary Society missionary and linguist to East Africa and Western India.

Isenberg compiled a dictionary and comprehensive grammar of the Amharic language, including several vocabularies in the Afar and Oromo languages. He also translated the Anglican Book of Common Prayer into Marathi and Amharic and assisted revisions of Bible translations into those languages. He was related to Hermann Hesse. at the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a plumber, but he taught himself languages and joined the Basel Mission in 1824. After finishing his education, he worked for some time as a teacher of Biblical Greek. Having trained at the Basel Mission seminary in Switzerland and received Anglican orders, he was transferred to Church Missionary Society (CMS) in 1832. Later on, he was ordained by the Church of England.

From 1838, he and fellow missionaries faced resistance from the native priesthood, especially due to the different beliefs and practices of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church that were described in blunt terms that the Orthodox Christian clergymen found offensive. In March 1838, unwilling to accept Gobat's advice over the location of the mission, Isenberg was expelled from the country due to his inability to reach any accommodation with Ethiopian Orthodoxy clergymen. In 1839, he along with his new fellow missionaries Johann Ludwig, Krapf, and Carl Heinrich Blumhardt removed the mission station to Shoa, Ethiopia, where he spent for four months before leaving for London; later, he was responsible for the mission's expulsion from Ethiopia in 1843 forever. In 1842, when Isenberg returned to Shoa, his mission was refused entry, forcing him to turn his attention to Tigray again. However, his expulsion in June 1843, effectively ended CMS activities in Ethiopia.

Works Grammar of the Amharic language. Dictionary of the Amharic language. Dictionary of the Amharic Language in Two Parts, Amharic and English, and English and Amharic. Regni Dei In Terris Historia Amharic. Londini : Impensis Ecclesiae Anglicae societatis ad religionem Christianam in Africa et Oriente expandendam institutae, 1841 Journals of the Rev. Messrs. Isenberg and Krapf, missionaries of the Church missionary society: detailing their proceedings in the kingdom of Shoa, and journeys in other parts of Abyssinia, in the years 1839, 1840, 1841, and 1842. Vocabulary of the Galla Language. Abyssinia and the Evangelical Missions. 1844.