JOHANN HEINRICH KALLENBERG

JOHANN HEINRICH KALLENBERG (January 12, 1694-July 16, 1760)

            He was a theologian and missionary, as well as a Christian lexicographer of Yiddish, born in Molschleben bei Gotha, Germany.  He was professor of Oriental philology at Halle University.  He created at his university a “Jewish Institute” in 1728 or 1729, in which he introduced (apparently, the first time in history) the subject of the Yiddish language.  His books include: Kurtze Anleitung zur Jüdischteutschen Sprache (Short instruction in the Judeo-German language) (Halle, 1733), 8 pp.; Jüdischteutsches Wörterbüchlein (Judeo-German dictionary) (Halle, 1736), 192 pp.  The Anleitung was republished twice (1738, 1749).  The dictionary came out a second time in 1765.  Kallenberg discusses in the Anleitung the fusion character of Yiddish.  The dictionary differentiates itself from other Christian lexicographic compilations of Yiddish of the same era mainly in that the Yiddish words (mainly drawn from the Semitic component of Yiddish) are represented in the Jewish alphabet.  The missionary interests of the author can be seen in the dictionary itself—“krist” (Christ), for example, is translated into Yiddish as “our Messiah” (p. 21).  Kallenberg translated into Yiddish portions of the New Testament and published a goodly number of missionary pamphlets in Yiddish.  He died in Halle.

Sources: Elozer Shulman, Hashiloaḥ 4 (1898), pp. 222-23; Ber Borokhov, Di biblyotek fun dem yidishn filolog (The library of the Yiddish philologist), in Pinkes (Warsaw) 17-18 (1913); Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; F. C. B. Avé-Lallemant, Das deutsche Gaunerthum (German thievery), vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1862), pp. 200, 221-22; Sh. Noble, in Jewish Book Annual (New York) 19 (1961/1962), pp. 18-19.

Dovid Katz