- Also known as
-
Roy C Abraham
-
primary name: Abraham, Roy C
- Details
- individual; military/naval; British; Male
- Life dates
- 1890-1963
- Biography
- Roy Clive Abraham; expert in African languages. Served in Army 1914-23 (whence his military rank of Captain), taking a late degree in Arabic and Persian at Oxford in 1924. Worked in administrative service of Nigeria 1924-1944, initially posted to Bauchi, based in Jos/Naraguta, in 1924. In 1926 made tour of the Bolewa of the Gombe area to study the language (the largest Bolewa group there are the Fika). Later appointed Nigerian Government Anthropologist, when worked on the Tiv. Later seconded to work on African languages. Lecturer in Amharic at Oxford 1948-51. After retirement returned to Nigeria to work on a dictionary of modern Yoruba.
Donated a collection of jewellery from Bauchi in Nigeria to the Museum in 1928 (Af1928,1013.1 to 31: his first initial was misread in the acquisition register as H)). This collection must have been put together in the summer of 1926. In 1932 formed a collection of material from the Tiv, which was given to the BM by the local Administration (Af1932,0516.1 to 41: see AOA Ethdoc 241).
- Bibliography
- Obituary by Robert G Armstrong in ‘The Journal of West African Languages’, I 1964, pp.49-53.
Philip J Jaggar, ‘RCA, A biographical profile and list of writings, ‘African Languages and Cultures’, Supplement, No. 1,1992, pp.1-4.
‘Bibliography of RCA, linguist and lexicographer’, compiled by P E H Hair in ‘The Journal of West African Languages’ II 1965, pp.63-66.
African Languages and Cultures. Supplement, No. 1, Papers in Honour of R. C. Abraham (1890-1963) (1992): this includes a paper by John E Lavers on ‘R C Abraham, the Bolewa and Bolanci’ (which includes a list of the villages that he visited there in 1926).
(wrote)
The Tiv People (Lagos 1933)
(with Mai Kano) ‘A dictionary of the Hausa language (1949)
The language of the Hausa people (1959)
