Yohanna Barnaba Abdallah

Yohanna Barnaba Abdallah (died 1924) was a clergyman and historian of the Yao people of central Africa.

He was born in northern Mozambique, and ordained as an Anglican priest at Likoma Cathedral in 1898. After a brief stint at Zanzibar, he took up residence at the Unangu station on the east side of Lake Malawi, eventually spending most of his career there. He made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1905.

Abdallah was noted as a scholar of the Greek language and of the Bible, but his chief claim to fame is his Chikala cha Wayao, a seminal study of the Yao people and Yao language. It was translated by Meredith Sanderson and published in 1919, and republished in 1973.

References

Owen J. M. Kalinga and Cynthia A. Crosby, Historical Dictionary of Malawi, 3rd ed. (Scarecrow Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8108-3481-2), p. 1

Authority control	WorldCat Identities VIAF: 5097823 LCCN: n89628217 ISNI: 0000 0000 7981 9721 GND: 187189986 SUDOC: 052511995 BNF: cb135598078 (data)

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