Carl Wilhelm Isenberg

Karl Wilhelm Isenberg (Barmen, September 5, 1806 – Stuttgart, October 10, 1864), spelt or known by names Carl Wilhelm Isenberg or Charles William Isenberg or C. W. Isenberg or Carl W. Isenberg or Charles Isenberg, was a German Church Missionary Society missionary and linguist to East Africa and Western India.

Isenberg compiled dictionary and comprehensive grammar of the Amharic language, including several vocabularies in Dankali and Galla language. He also translated the Anglican Book of Common Prayer into Marathi and Amharic language and assisted revisions of Bible translations into Amharic and Marathi. He was related to Hermann Hesse.

Coming from tinsmith background, he 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 1830. Later on, he was ordained by the Church of England.

CMS already sent his first missionaries Samuel Gobat, a Swiss Lutheran, and Christian Kugler to Abyssinia (present Ethiopia), East Africa in 1829. As Kugler died in Tigre in 1830, his place was supplied by Isenberg as a CMS recruit. Isenberg joined Samuel Gobat, a Swiss Lutheran, in Cairo, Egypt, and studied Amharic and Arabic language.

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