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{{Short description|Mozambican clergyman and historian}}
'''Yohanna Barnaba Abdallah''' (died 1924) was a [[clergyman]] and [[historian]] of the [[WaYao|Yao]] people of central Africa.

==Life==
Abdallah was born in northern [[Mozambique]], and was the stepson of Barnaba, a village chief.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Anderson-Morshead|first=A. E. M|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5479/sil.798753.39088017639238|title=The history of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, 1859-1909|date=1909|publisher=Universities' Mission to Central Africa|location=London|pages=235, 387}}</ref>

He was ordained as an [[Anglicanism|Anglican]] priest at [[St Peter's Cathedral, Likoma|Likoma Cathedral]] in 1898. After a brief stint at [[Zanzibar]], he took up residence at the Unangu station on the east side of [[Lake Malawi]], eventually spending most of his career there. He was the first priest to be ordained in the [[Diocese]] of [[Nyasaland]]. He made a pilgrimage to the [[Holy Land]] in 1905.<ref name=":0" /> In 1924, Father Abdallah, en route to the coast for a holiday fell seriously ill in Medo, and died, possibly of [[pneumonia]], on 11th Feb 1924.<ref>The UMCA in Malawi: A History of the Anglican Church, 1861-2010 edited by James Tengatenga, 2010 ISBN 978-99908-87-65-5</ref>

Abdallah was noted as a scholar of the [[Greek language]] and of the [[Bible]], but his chief claim to fame is his ''Chikala cha Wayao'', a seminal study of the Yao people and [[Yao language]]. It was translated by Meredith Sanderson and published in 1919, and republished in 1973.<ref>The Yaos = Chiikala cha Wayao, by Abdallah, Yohanna B; trans: Sanderson, George Meredith. Reprint of the original English and Yao editions issued in 1919 by the Government Printing Office, Zomba, Nyasaland https://archive.org/details/yaoschiikalachaw0000abda</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{refbegin}}
* Owen J. M. Kalinga and Cynthia A. Crosby, ''Historical Dictionary of Malawi'', 3rd ed. (Scarecrow Press, 2001, {{ISBN|0-8108-3481-2}}), p. 1
{{refend}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Abdallah, Yohanna Barnaba}}
[[Category:1924 deaths]]
[[Category:Mozambican writers]]
[[Category:Mozambican clergy]]
[[Category:Mozambican Anglicans]]
[[Category:Malawian Anglicans]]
[[Category:20th-century Anglican priests]]
[[Category:Year of birth missing]]

{{Malawi-bio-stub}}
{{Mozambique-bio-stub}}

Yohanna Barnaba Abdallah - Revision history

imported>Dclemens1971: wikilink