Prof. Andrzejewski

[J. Gabobe]

Dear Cavers: The Bulletin of the School of Oriental & African Studies
(v.19, part.1, 1996) carried an obituary on the death of prof. Andrzewski
(1922-1994), a long-time scholar of the Somali language. Here are some
extracts from it, written by Martin Orwin:

"B.W.Andrzejewski, known to all as `Goosh', was born in Poznan in
1922...His father's family was from western Poland, an area which had been
part of the German Empire and in which the German language had been
promoted to the detriment of the native Polish. This family background he
felt had played a role in his strong sympathies with the Somali people who
had also suffered under foreign domination.

The second world war broke out while he was in his penultimate year of
high school and he was in Warsaw during the siege of the city, from which
he escaped to join the Free Polish Forces abroad and to avoid forced
labor...On his arrival in Palestine Goosh began military training. At the
same time he started to learn Arabic and Hebrew, as well as continuing his
English learning...He was then in Gaza for a while at an officer training
school, but given what he called a `lack of talent in that direction' he
volunteered for other duties and was posted to a unit escorting German
prisoners of war from Port Suez to New York...After a further illness, he
took on administrative duties as a clerk and interpreter. It was at this
time that he began to pursue his education more systematically by taking a
correspondence course from Wolsey Hall in Oxford. He also took an entrance
examination and the intermediate examination as an external student of the
University of London in English, French, Latin and Logic and Scientific
Method.

In October 1944 he was granted leave from military service and began
studying English language and literature at Oriel College, Oxford...He had
already by this stage achieved acclaim as a poet in Polish...During his
time in Oxford he and Sheila (nee Weekes) married... In 1948 this hope was
realized and his involvement with the Somali language began.

C.R.V Bell, author of The Somali language, was at the time Director of
Education in the Somaliland protectorate and had initiated a project to
develop a written script for the Somali language. A linguist was therefore
sought to work on the structure of the language Somalis and to develop a
script. Goosh was appointed, and in October 1948 he joined the school of
Oriental and African Studies as a postgraduate scholar in the Department
of Linguistics and Phonetics. He began by studying phonetics and
linguistics at an advanced level and he also began to study the Somali
language from the material that was available at the time. One of the
works most important to him then, and one to which scholars of Somali
still refer, was L.E. Armstrong's The Phonetic Structure of Somali. Like
Armstrong, Goosh worked with two Somali informants in London, Ali Sheikh
Maxamed Jirdey and Anthony Mariano. He also took a course in Arabic, his
fascination with this language and its literature having continued since
his time in the Middle East.

After this initial stage in London Goosh and Sheila set out, in January
1950, for the town of Sheikh which was to be the base for the detailed
research on the Somali language that now needed to be done. It was there
that a most fruitful and indeed famous relationship began between Goosh
and Muuse Xaaji Ismaciil Galaal, the well known Somali poet and scholar.
Musa Galaal was then a teacher at the school in Sheikh and was released
from his duties to join Goosh on the orthography project. They worked on
the language under the supervision, by correspondence of Professor J.R.
Firth at SOAS. Their efforts resulted in a report on the phonology of
Somali and recommended a system of writing for the language. The system
they developed differs little from the present-day orthography. Because of
Somali resistance to the Roman script, however, their recommendations
were never acted on, and it was not until some twenty years later that a
script was finally officially adopted.

On returning to London, Goosh became Lecturer in Cushitic Languages at
SOAS and continued his collaboration with Muuse Galaal, who had been
appointed Research Assistant in Somali for three years. Together they
worked not only on the structure of the Somali language but also on the
transcription, into their orthography, and translation of folk-tales and
poetry, the results of which appeared in a number of articles and
books.

Muuse Galaal returned to the Horn of Africa in 1954 and Goosh, while
continuing to work on somali, also began investigating Oromo, a Cushitic
language related to Somali and widely spoken in Ethiopia, Kenya and in
pockets of Somalia. He worked on the language for a year and a half in
London with an informant before spending some months in 1957 in Northern
Kenya. Although his work on Oromo was not as extensive as that on Somali
it is of equal importance in Oromo scholarship, and continues to be
referred to...

A side of Guush which was not accessible to many who knew him through his
Somali work was his poetry in Polish. At his memorial service, Jerzy
Peterkiewicz, Emeritus Professor of Polish at the School of Slavonic and
East European Studies, described Goosh as `the Maestro of Semantics'. He
recalled Goosh's speaking of `the Semantic Styx' with which he was
fascinated and which he tried to cross in his poetry. His creative
exploration of words and meanings through poetic imagery at times bore
comparison, Professor peterkiewwicz said, with the mystical imagery of
poets like Ibn al-Arabi, the great Sufi mystic of Andalusia.

The vivid, creative imagination of the poet and the rigorous, painstaking
approach of the scholar came together in Goosh, but were never muddled.
His mind and personality were such that he was able to penetrate to the
heart of the language and, because of that, his work will not only be
referred to in the future, but will continue to to inspire schoalrs of the
languages and literatures of the Horn of Africa, those working on Cushitic
languages in particular."
Martin Orwin

Other works by Andrzejewski:

Somali poetry; an introduction by B.W. Andrzejewski and I.M. Lewis
(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1964)

The Declensions of Somali Nouns (London, 1964).

Ignorance is the enemy of Love (originally written by Farax Maxamed Jamac
`Cawl' in Somali, and translated by Andrzejewski into english), Zed Press,
1982.

An Anthology of Somali poetry, translated from Somali with his wife Sheila
(Bloomington, Indiana).

Many belated thanks to Professor Andrzejewski for his invaluable services
to the Somali language and literature, and may his soul rest in peace.
Jamal