Addis Ababa June 12/2021 (ENA) The veteran Ethiopian
philologist and linguist of modern and ancient Ethiopian languages and
literature, Professor Getachew Haile, has passed away at the age of 90.
The professor was a philologist and linguist of
modern and ancient Ethiopian languages and literature, whose research and
publications help to preserve Ethiopian and Oriental Christian traditions.
Haile was the Regents Professor of Medieval Studies
and Cataloguer of Oriental Manuscripts at the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library
of St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, which supports, among
other projects, a landmark microfilming effort aimed at making ancient
literature more accessible for scholarly investigation.
He has cataloged more than 5,000 manuscripts and
published ten catalogues describing these Ethiopic manuscripts on microfilm.
Among the manuscripts are the oldest texts of
virtually every book of the Ethiopic Old Testament, including important
intertestamental books such as the Book of Enoch, which survived in its
entirety only in Ethiopia.
He has also written many articles on Ethiopian
studies.
He taught for over ten years at the Haile Sellassie
I (now Addis Ababa) University in Ethiopia, before he moved to the United
States in 1976. Haile was a corresponding fellow of the British Academy.
Copyright: ENA
