Thursday, 19 April 2012
fullscreen
sms this page
email this page
Hermann Mögling (1811–1881) was a German missionary from the Basel Mission who spent most of his career in the western regions of the state of Karnataka, India. He is credited to be the publisher of the first ever newspaper in the Kannada language called as ''Mangalooru Samachara'' in 1843. He has also been awarded a doctorate for his literary work in Kannada called as ''Bibliotheca Carnataca''. He has also translated lot of Kannada literature to German.

Early life

Hermann Mögling was born in 1811 in the town of Brackenheim in the Kingdom of Württemberg, Germany. He studied theology in the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and joined the Basel Mission. He came to the city of Mangalore in Karnataka as a missionary of Basel Mission in 1836.

Career

Mögling, being a Christian missionary, was involved in missionary related work in Mangalore but he also learnt the native Kannada language and contributed significantly to Kannada literature. One of his pioneering works was the publication of the first Kannada newspaper, ''Mangalooru Samachara'' (meaning ''Mangalore News'').

Newspaper publishing

In the days of Mögling's career at Mangalore, there was no simple way of communicating news and other items to the general public because of non-existence of a medium like radio and of a newspaper in the native language. He decided to publish a Kannada newspaper with the intention of spreading news items to the public. He decided to name it as ''Mangalooru Samachara'' and its first issue rolled out on 1 July 1843. Thereafter it was published fortnightly and contained 4 pages. The paper was printed using stone slabs. Some of the news items covered were local Mangalore-related news, Indian population, news related to the East India Company and its laws and regulations. Even songs of Purandaradasa and moral stories were also printed. There are conflicting reports on whether this newspaper was used by Mögling as a tool for proselytisation or not. The newspaper became popular and it was decided to shift its publication to the city of Bellary where it was renamed as ''Karnataka Samachara''. ''Karnataka Samachara'' was first released on 1 May 1844 and in fact it was the 15th issue of ''Mangalooru Samachara''. ''Karnataka Samachara'' was the first Kannada newspaper to be printed using movable type. Unfortunately, only three issues of ''Karnataka Samachara'' were released. Mögling is credited to be one of the visionaries for a unified Karnataka. In his times, not much communication used to happen between the north and south regions of present-day Karnataka though the people in these two regions spoke the same language, Kannada. In the last issue of ''Karnataka Samachara'', he talks of a ''Samagra Karnataka'' (''Unified Karnataka'') which is essentially a union of these different regions.

Proselytisation

Mögling's main job as a missionary of Basel Mission was the spread of Christianity. One of his converts by name Anandaraya Kaundinya and his family have exchanged letters with Mögling which he has published under the title ''Iraaru patragalu'' (Twelve letters). This was the first collection of letters ever published in Kannada. Even during his stay in Kodagu district during the years (1853–1858) he spent lot of his time on proselytisation and he also published a German book titled ''Das Kurgland'' which mainly deals with his activities related to Christianity.

Literature

In 1848, Mögling started dealing with Kannada literature by publishing a list of more than 3000 Kannada proverbs. He also composed about 20 poems (along with Weigle who was his cousin brother and a fellow Basel Missionary) in modern Kannada poetical form. This makes him a pioneer of modern Kannada poetry. But his most important contribution to the Kannada literature is regarded as the ''Bibliotheca Carnataca''; which is a collection of Kannada classics edited and published by him between the period 1848-1853. Mögling was helped in this venture by a philanthropist, ''J Casamajor'' who was a retired judge from Chennai and settled in Nilgiris. With an exchange of letters, the two discussed on ways to collect Kannada manuscripts, select the important ones among them for publishing and identifying skilled people who would be needed to complete this activity. Casamajor agreed to bear all the expenses required for this venture and was very particular that his name should not be mentioned in any of the publications. A total of eight titles were brought out, the first one being the ''Ravana digvijaya - Yakshagana Prasanga'' (the victory of Ravana, based on a scene from Yakshagana). The largest published title running 760 pages was the Basava Purana and the smallest one was Kanakadasa's ''Haribhaktasara''. Other titles published as a part of ''Bibliotheca Carnataca'' were ''Dasara Padagalu'' (a collection of 170 Haridasa songs) and Lakshmisha's ''Jaimini Bharata''. This venture met an abrupt end due to the sudden demise of Casamajor and Mögling's return to Germany.

During his stay in Kodagu, Mögling also published the German book ''Das Kurgland'' and also a Kannada book titled ''Raajendranaame'' at the behest of the Kodagu king, Senior Virarajendra. The whole book ''Raajendraname'' was printed using a simpler orthographic form invented by Mögling himself. The Kannada language uses double consonants frequently, which Mögling felt was difficult for children to learn easily and also to print (since a blank line between two print lines was necessitated to print the double consonant). Mögling devised a scheme of accommodating the double consonant in the same single line by breaking the double consonant into a half consonant wherever possible. After getting an approval for his scheme from the Madras Province's Education Department, Mögling published this entire book in his devised orthography. He also published a book called ''Coorg Memoirs'' which is supposedly the one of the earliest history books on Karnataka. In this book, he has described the social life of Kodavas and their customs as well.

On his return to Germany, he translated 24 songs of Kanakadasa and Purandaradasa to the German language which were published by Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, an Oriental society in Germany. In 1870, he also translated the first two chapters (67 verses) of ''Bibliotheca Carnataca'''s ''Jaimini Bharata'' into German.

Pilgrims Progress was published in Kannada by Moegling and Weigle in 1848

Late years

When his cousin Gottfried Weigle died in 1855, Mögling (at a late age of 45) married Weigle's wife Pauline. This marriage also gave Mögling four stepchildren from Pauline's earlier marriage. One last contribution to Kannada from him was his interest in coming up with a Kannada - English dictionary. He motivated the British in this project and also suggested the name of Ferdinand Kittel as the ideal person to head the project. Mögling died in 1881 and his memorial is in Esslingen.

Recognition

  • At the recommendation of Rudolph Roth (a reputed Indologist), Mögling's alma mater; the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen awarded Mögling an honorary doctorate in 1858 for his work, ''Bibliotheca Carnataca''.
    • The Mögling Institute of German Language which is in Mangalore and affiliated to Mangalore University is named after him. 1 July (the day when the first issue of ''Mangalooru Samachara'' was released) is celebrated as ''Kannada Press Day'' in Karnataka.

    Notes

    Category:1811 births Category:1881 deaths Category:People from Brackenheim Category:People from the Kingdom of Württemberg Category:Kannada writers Category:German Christian missionaries Category:History of Mangalore Category:Christianity in Mangalore Category:Translators of the Bible into Kannada

    ar:هيرمان موغلنغ hi:हर्मैन मोग्लिंग kn:ಹರ್ಮನ್ ಮೊಗ್ಲಿಂಗ್

    This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.



    Video Suggestions







    The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters.

    1. Personal Information Collection and Use

    We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. For example, if you submit an inquiry to us or sign up for our newsletter, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details (name, e-mail address, mailing address, etc.).

    When you submit your personally identifiable information through wn.com, you are giving your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you would prefer that we not collect any personally identifiable information from you, please do not provide us with any such information. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties without your consent, except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy.

    Except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will use the information you provide us only for the purpose of responding to your inquiry or in connection with the service for which you provided such information. We may forward your contact information and inquiry to our affiliates and other divisions of our company that we feel can best address your inquiry or provide you with the requested service. We may also use the information you provide in aggregate form for internal business purposes, such as generating statistics and developing marketing plans. We may share or transfer such non-personally identifiable information with or to our affiliates, licensees, agents and partners.

    We may retain other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Such third parties may be provided with access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use such information for any other purpose.

    In addition, we may disclose any information, including personally identifiable information, we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal proceeding or governmental request.

    2. E-mail addresses

    We do not want you to receive unwanted e-mail from us. We try to make it easy to opt-out of any service you have asked to receive. If you sign-up to our e-mail newsletters we do not sell, exchange or give your e-mail address to a third party.

    E-mail addresses are collected via the wn.com web site. Users have to physically opt-in to receive the wn.com newsletter and a verification e-mail is sent. wn.com is clearly and conspicuously named at the point of

    collection.

    If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication or by e-mailing us at michaelw(at)wn.com

    The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

    If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.

    If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.

    3. Third Party Advertisers

    The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.

    4. Business Transfers

    As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.