Alice Werner | |
|---|---|
 In The Sketch , 20 February 1901 | |
| Born | 26 June 1859 Trieste, Austrian Empire |
| Died | 9 June 1935 (aged 75) Welwyn Garden City, England |
| Occupation | Writer, educator |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | German |
| Notable works | "Bannerman of Dandenong" |
Alice Werner CBE (26 June 1859 - 9 June 1935) was a writer, poet and teacher of the Bantu languages. [1]
Alice Werner was one of seven children in the family of Reinhardt Joseph Werner of Mainz, teacher of languages, and his wife, Harriett. Her father travelled extensively during the first fifteen years of her life, and she lived in New Zealand, Mexico, United States and throughout Europe, until the family settled in Tonbridge, England, in 1874.
After visiting Nyasaland in 1893 and Natal in 1894, her writings were focused on African themes.
In 1901 she began lecturing on Swahili at King's College London, becoming the school's only woman professor. [2] [3]
In 1917 she joined the School of Oriental Studies, moving up from lecturer to reader to professor of Swahili and Bantu languages, and retiring in 1929-1930. She was awarded a D.Litt. in 1928 from London University as a result of her specialised teaching and research. Following her retirement, she received the title of Emeritus Professor from the same university. In 1931 she was awarded the Silver Medal of the African Society, of which she was Vice-President. [1]
Although not known as a major poet, her poem "Bannerman of Dandenong" has appeared in a number of important Australian poetry anthologies. [1]
She lived for a time with Lillias Campbell Davidson, American founder of the British Lady Cyclists' Association, and Ménie Muriel Dowie, a British writer of the New Woman school. According to The New York Times :
The writer Ethel F. Heddle novelized their experience in her 1896 book, Three Girls in a Flat, in which she described the ambivalent experience when the freedom of living alone collides with "the sordid, matter-of-fact worries incident on having very little money." [4]
She died in Welwyn Garden City on 9 June 1935. [5]
Swahili, also known by its local name Kiswahili, is a Bantu language spoken by the Swahili people, who are found primarily in Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was an American abolitionist, suffragist, poet, temperance activist, teacher, public speaker, and writer. Beginning in 1845, she was one of the first African American women to be published in the United States.
Katharine Tynan was an Irish writer, known mainly for her novels and poetry. After her marriage in 1893 to the Trinity College scholar, writer and barrister Henry Albert Hinkson (1865–1919) she usually wrote under the name Katharine Tynan Hinkson, or variations thereof. Tynan's younger sister Nora O'Mahony was also a poet and one of her three children, Pamela Hinkson (1900–1982), was also known as a writer. The Katharine Tynan Road in Belgard, Tallaght is named after her.
Enid Yandell was an American sculptor from Louisville, Kentucky, who studied with Auguste Rodin in Paris, Philip Martiny in New York City, and Frederick William MacMonnies.
Lorna Gaye Goodison CD is a Jamaican poet, essayist and memoirist, a leading West Indian writer, whose career spans four decades. She is now Professor Emerita, English Language and Literature/Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, previously serving as the Lemuel A. Johnson Professor of English and African and Afroamerican Studies. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Jamaica in 2017, serving in the role until 2020.
The Pokomo people are a Bantu ethnic group of southeastern Kenya. Their population in Kenya was 112,075 in 2019. They are a distinct ethnic group with their own sub-clans/tribes. Despite their proximity, they are not of the nearby Mijikenda people. They are predominantly agriculturalists and both freshwater and ocean fishermen living along the Tana River in Tana River County. They speak the Pokomo language, which is similar to Swahili.
The Tonga are an ethnic group living in northern Malawi on the shores of Lake Malawi in Nkhata Bay and northern part of Nkhotakota. Their language and Tonga people of Zambia and Zimbabwe belong to different branches of the Bantu family.
Dr. Jan Knappert was a well-known expert on the Swahili language. He was also an Esperantist, and he wrote an Esperanto-Swahili dictionary.
Ménie Muriel Dowie was a British writer.
The Bantu peoples are an ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct native African ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. The languages are native to 24 countries spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Southeast Africa and into Southern Africa. There are several hundred Bantu languages. Depending on the definition of "language" or "dialect", it is estimated that there are between 440 and 680 distinct languages. The total number of speakers is in the hundreds of millions, ranging at roughly 350 million in the mid-2010s. About 60 million speakers (2015), divided into some 200 ethnic or tribal groups, are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone.
Adelia Cleopatra Graves was an American educator, author, and poet. At one time serving as Professor of Latin and Belles-lettres at Mary Sharp College, she went on to occupy the position of Matron and Professor of Rhetoric in the college. In 1841, she married Prof. Zuinglius Calvin Graves (1816–1902), who was serving as president of Kingsville Academy. She was the author of several books including juvenile literature under the pseudonym of "Aunt Alice". She also contributed prose and verse to periodical literature. In her day, Graves was one of the most popular writers of the South. Her best-known works were: Life of Columbus; Poems for Children; Seclusarval, or the Arts of Romanism; and Jephtha's Daughter, a drama.
Lady Mary Alice Seymour was a 19th-century American musician, author, elocutionist, and critic. She was referred to as "Octavia Hensel" in the music world, where she was an internationally known music critic. As a critic, Seymour was renowned. Her musical nature, her superior education, her thorough knowledge of the laws of theory and familiarity with the works of the great composers of the classic, romantic and Wagnerian schools, and the later schools of harmony, gave her a point of vantage above the ordinary. She was one of the original staff writers on the Musical Courier, having been its correspondent from Vienna and other European centers. Seymour played the piano, harp, guitar and organ, but never appeared on the stage, except for charitable events, as her relatives were opposed to her pursuing a professional life. A "confirmed bluestocking", Seymour was also a polyglot who spoke seven languages fluently: German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Hungarian dialects. She died in 1897.
Lillias Campbell Davidson was an American-born British writer. She founded the Lady Cyclists' Association. In 2018, the New York Times published a belated obituary as part of its Overlooked series.
Alice Drayton Greenwood (1862–1935) was a British historian, teacher and writer.
Jessie Fremont O'Donnell was a 19th-century American writer of poems, novels and magazine articles, as well as a lecturer. In December, 1887, her first book, Heart Lyrics appeared. Later books were Love Poems of Three Centuries, Three Centuries of English Love-Songs, A Soul from Pudge's Corners, and others, besides contributions to various U.S. periodicals. She also wrote essays, short stories, and character studies.
Mary Elizabeth Perley was an American writer, professor, and poet. She taught at Tilden Ladies' Seminary, New Hampshire Conference Seminary, Tabor College, Fargo College, and the University of North Dakota. In addition to two books, she wrote poems, newspaper articles, short stories, and plays.
Jeanie Oliver Davidson Smith was an American poet and romancist. She contributed to leading British and U.S. magazines and published several books, continuing her writings almost to the time of her death.
Euphemia Johnson Richmond was an American litterateur and author of novels and children's literature. Her early sketches, published in periodicals, were under the pen name, "Effie Johnson", but her later work was under her own name styled as "Mrs. E. J. Richmond".
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