Égide de Boeck
Égide de Boeck was born on 13 November 1875 in
Life
De Boeck grew up in Flanders. His father was a primary school teacher, his mother a very devout woman. He had several younger brothers and sisters: Alphonse, a priest in Belgium, Marlo, Achilles and Jules, both missionaries in Scheut, a sister who worked as a nun in the Philippines and a brother who married.[2]
After secondary school in
On 8 May 1921 he was ordained
Lingala
As the son of a teacher, the school system was important to de Boeck. From the very beginning, he was committed to improving education in the Belgian Congo. On his travels, he always paid special attention to schools and introduced school inspectors. He discovered that there were many variants of Bangala spoken in the region. He gathered all available information and unified it into a standard language, the Lingala. This work resulted in a translation of the New Testament and a grammar and dictionary.[3] His linguistic work was always a means to an end, especially for the school.
Sometimes criticism is voiced that de Boeck introduced Lingala everywhere and displaced the local languages. This may be partially true, since the limited possibilities of the missionaries did not allow them to write textbooks for over 200 languages. On the other hand, de Boeck always advocated that the local languages should be cultivated alongside the Lingala and that, for example, religious instruction should explicitly not be held at Lingala. For
Varia
The Égide-de-Bœck cultural centres in Mongala, Équateur and Southern Ubangi are named after de Boeck.
Publications
By Égide de Boeck
- Langue congolaise. Exercices de lecture à l'usage des colonies de l'état par un père de la Congrégation de Scheut. Brüssel, s.a.: J. Lebègue & Cie.
- Cours théorique et pratique de lingala, avec vocabulaire et phrases usuelles. Antwerpen, 1942: Impr. Saint Norbert.
- Eenige begrippen van lingala : met woordenlijst en gebruikelijke volzinnen = Quelques notions du lingala avec vocabulaire et phrases actuelles. Brüssel, 1914: Impr. Th. Dewarichet.
- Grammaire et Vocabulaire de lingala. Neu Antwerpen, 1904: Mission du Sacré Cœur.
References
- ^ a b Register of Lisala
- ^ a b Biography on Aequatoria
- ^ Grammaire et Vocabulaire de Lingala, 1904.