Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg

The English editor of his letters says that Ziegenbalg was born at Pulsnitz in Misnia and educated at Berlin and at the university of Halle (Ziegenbalg, Propagation of the Gospel in the East, preliminary discourse, sections 42–43). He signed the letter that reports the arrival at Tranquebar on 9 July 1706 (Ziegenbalg, Propagation of the Gospel in the East, Part I, pp. 17–18). He writes that within eight months he could read, write and speak Tamil and that he took the Tamil work while his colleague Heinrich Plütschau took the Portuguese (Ziegenbalg, Propagation of the Gospel in the East, Part I, letter 9, pp. 66–68).

In October 1707 he sent home the four Gospels in Tamil, checked, he says, against the original (Ziegenbalg, Propagation of the Gospel in the East, Part I, letter 10, pp. 75–78). A letter from the mission of September 1714 speaks of the New Testament as translated and reports the Gospels and Acts printed in Tamil (Ziegenbalg, Propagation of the Gospel in the East, Part III, letter 15, pp. 116–120). See the Tranquebar Mission.