An overview
Activities of OCDIAS include:
OCDIAS also provides academic facilitation and training for graduate and postgraduate studies in related disciplines, longitudinal studies and field research.
We are focused on measurable outputs including continued language documentation, publishing of academic and conference papers, ongoing language and field study and active research.
WHO IS OTTO CHRISTIAN DAHL?
JULY 15, 1903 – NOVEMBER 11, 1995
Some History
Activities
Excerpt taken from: LANGUAGE - A DOORWAY BETWEEN HUMAN CULTURES Tributes to Dr. Otto Chr. Dahl on his ninetieth birthday Editor: Øyvind Dahl Otto Christian Dahl: Missionary and linguist When Otto Christian Dahl celebrates his ninetieth birthday on the 15th of July 1993, he will be able to look back on scholastic achievements whose range and quality rank high in the world scientific community. Father is primarily a missionary. Trust in God has been the warp running through the tapestry of his life and the vocation of a missionary one of the first discernible patterns in that tapestry. He himself traces his vocation back to an encounter, when he was only five years old, with Ole Aarnes, a missionary who served in West Madagascar. His sense of vocation grew stronger throughout the early years in his home town. The linguist in him soon emerged too. Even in his first year in Madagascar in 1929, he realised that he had to study linguistics when he next visited Norway. Otto Christian at the age of five, with a sense of vocation. He did that in the years from 1935 to 1937. Since that time, the threads running through the tapestry of his life have alternated between missionary work and scientific study of the Austronesian languages. From time to time, these threads intertwine. At no time has he ever turned his back on his missionary vocation for the sake of his work with language. Each field of activity has strengthened and complemented his work in the other. Otto Christian Dahl was born in the City of Namsos in Northern Norway, the sixth and youngest child of the bookbinder and merchant, Otto Christian Dahl and Jensine Dahl. Preachers and missionaries would often stay with his family while he was a very young child, creating in him an awareness of the wide world outside. His mother took a lively interest in missionary work and exercised considerable influence during the early years of her son's spiritual development. His missionary vocation was focused on Madagascar throughout this time. He matriculated with distinction at the School of Mission and Theology in Stavanger, where he studied Ancient Greek and Latin, and he went on to complete his theological training there. Together with his fellow students, he was ordained as a missionary minister at the Norwegian Missionary Society's general assembly in Tromsø in 1927. However, due to the stringent financial position of the Society at that time, he had to wait for one and a half years before he could take up his work as a missionary in Madagascar. During this period, he was assigned the task of cataloging the large collection of books which another linguist and missionary from Madagascar, Lars Dahle, had bequeathed to the library at the School of Mission and Theology in Stavanger. In 1921, at the start of his missionary training in Stavanger Mathilde, Per's mother, and Father just before they left Norway Maria Nome, approximately 1920 In April 1929, in Paris, on his way to Madagascar, he married Mathilde Petersen. He had known her since their time together at the grammar school in Stavanger. They were to be granted only one and a half years together. Mathilde died of a fever in October 1930. This tragedy was compounded by the fact that he found it necessary to send his infant son to be brought up by a brother in Norway. It was impossible for a single missionary to combine his work in the field with the care of a young child. This was no easy start for him. He was given two districts to administer in Western Madagascar, Morombe and Manja. Although he knew little Malagasy, his work prospered. He ascribes this to "the minister, Ratrabonjy, and the blessing of God". Moreover, because he felt the need for company, he conversed a lot with Malagasy people and quite soon became familiar with their language and customs. He learned the Sakalava dialect of the district where he was living, as well as Merina, the dialect spoken in the area around the capital. As early as the Christmas of 1930, he was able to celebrate his first church service in Malagasy. In 1933 he married Maria Nome, who had gone to Madagascar as a midwife. They were granted 58 rich years together until death parted them in December 1991. Maria was a strong and hard working woman who took her full share of the challenges they met in their time as missionaries. Otto Christian Dahl has dedicated one of his books to Maria with the following words "To Maria, who was always behind my work." And that is what she was. She took responsibility for the problems that would crop up from day to day. They had four children, all of whom they had to send away to be educated, as their missionary work required them to do in those days. From the very first time when Father began to study linguistics at the University of Oslo during his first furlough in Norway from 1935 to 1937, he discovered changes in the Malagasy language which he considered must have occurred shortly after its introduction into Madagascar. That discovery mapped out the path for the linguistic research which he is still actively pursuing today. Professor Alf Sommerfelt gave this young missionary a warm welcome, saying: "Linguistics owes missionaries an inestimable debt." Father has in no way reduced that debt in his life time. Otto Christian Dahl had his first article on his chosen field published in "Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap" (The Norwegian Journal of Linguistics) in 1937 under the title "Le système phonologique du proto-malgache." This study had earned him a grant from the Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, enabling him to study for a few but decisive weeks in 1937 with Otto Dempwolff in Hamburg. Dempwolff was the leading expert in Austronesian linguistics at that time. It was here that Dr. Walther Aichele, who was then Dempwolff's assistant, brought to his attention the latter's discovery of certain similarities between Malagasy and an Indonesian language, Ma'anyan. This in its turn was to lead to Father's doctoral thesis in 1952, "Malgache et Maanjan", published in 1951. This was a comparative study of the two languages, which has since become a standard text for language students at the University of Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar. However, many years and events were to lie between the encounter with Dempwolff and Aichele in 1937 and the defense of his doctoral thesis on the 20th of May 1952. The family left Norway for their second period of service in Madagascar in 1937, little suspecting that this period would last right up to 1946. This was due to the Second World War. Father's work was to take him to West Madagascar once more, this time to Morondava, where he was put in charge of a Bible school and a boarding school offering general education. The Bible school had to close during the war but the boarding school was kept running throughout this period. It provided education for several hundred pupils, to whom Father taught French. Mother, for her part, had her hands full, running an outpatients' clinic on the verandah of our house. The effects of the war in Europe were felt as far away as Madagascar. Economic problems immediately became obvious because it was no longer possible to transfer money from Norway. In order to provide for his family, Father considered working for a French settler. Instead, he managed to get by on half salary for a time, during which the scope of his activity had to be curtailed. Meanwhile, the amount of work he had to do was no less. Shortages, together with the extra responsibility for so many people, meant strains as well as challenges. The women would bring their carding combs and spinning onto our verandah and under Mother's guidance, the cotton thread that they had spun would be transformed into knitwear. For knitting needles, they used bicycle wheel spokes which Father had sharpened for the purpose. During much of the Petin regime, Norwegians lived under the threat of internment. The lines of supply around Africa to the theatre of war in the north of the continent made Madagascar a strategic target for Japanese and allied forces. The port of Morondava was one of the cities invaded by British forces. During this difficult period, the mission station priest, Denis Mahavere was a great source of support and friendship. Mahavere was also extraordinarily well versed in the Sakalava dialect and was, accordingly, a friend with whom Father could share his enthusiasm for language. Contact with his family in Norway was limited to occasional "Red Cross letters" consisting of twenty pregnant words. On the 20th of April 1940, his home town of Namsos, where his eldest son was living, was bombed. The news reached him one Sunday morning, just as he was about to celebrate a church service. Sometime afterwards, he came across an illustrated report of the event in a copy of Paris Match. This included a photograph of his family home in flames. During these war years, Father had to spend some time in the interior and he used this period to teach himself Dutch, which proved to be very useful later on. Donations from churches in the U.S.A. enabled him to increase missionary work towards the end of 1944, and at the beginning of the following year the Bible school was started up once more. On the evening of the 8th of May 1945, the missionaries' radio managed to pick up King Haakon's speech, broadcast from London, and a service to celebrate peace could be held at the missionary station. At the close of hostilities, there were many exhausted missionary families waiting their turn to come home to Norway. Thus it was the end of 1946 before an opportunity arose for the family to return home. Back in Norway, it was difficult for the Missionary Society to provide housing for everyone. For this reason, the family was housed in the Missionary Hostel in Drammen from the beginning of 1947. From there, Father wasted no time in getting to the University Library in Oslo, and resuming his studies. He now wanted to carry out his research full time. He applied for and was given leave to do this from the beginning of 1948. In the meantime, there arose a need for teachers at the School of Mission and Theology in Stavanger. Father was called on to teach courses to Missionary students on the history and theory of Missionary service and on Malagasy religion. In consequence, his own studies had to be postponed. However, in 1949 it proved possible for him to take up his study leave. For the next year and a half, until his third tour of duty to Madagascar in 1952, he was able to carry out full time research for the first time in his life. This period of research and study started with a visit to Hamburg, Leiden and London supported by grants from the Norwegian Research Council for Science and Humanities. This was his second visit to Leiden, the first having been on his way to his second tour of service in Madagascar in 1937. Father (left) visits the church of Berevo in Tsiribihina as superintendent in 1954 Following his study visits, he worked on the thesis which earned him his doctoral degree in 1952. Professor Hans Vogt, Professor Alf Sommerfelt and Professor Carl Hjalmar Borgstrøm formed the adjudicating committee, Professors Sommerfelt and Borgstrøm acting as his examiners. The topic he chose for his lecture was the Bantu substratum in Malagasy. Father was very gratified to see that virtually every single one of his missionary colleagues had come to attend his inaugural lecture. His examiners had hardly expected anyone to attend. Shortly after this, the time came for a new journey to take up his third posting to West Madagascar. This was a difficult decision to take. Father felt that he owed the Missionary Society this period of service in return for the years he had enjoyed study leave. However, on this occasion, there were two sons to be left behind on the quay when the boat left harbour and three children had to be sent to boarding school as soon as the family had settled into their home in the port of Tulear. Even before the family arrived in Madagascar, Father had received an unexpected token of recognition from the Malagasy people. On a stopover in Paris, he met two leaders of the Malagasy liberation movement. These were descendants of men whom the French had executed in 1896, the year in which Madagascar had become a French colony. One of these had been the uncle of the last Queen of Madagascar. Father felt honoured by the way they received him on this occasion. He commented: "They treated me like a Malagasy nationalist." During the dinner to which all our family had been invited, Dr. Ratsimamanga explained how there, at that very same table, the Malagasy elite in Paris had decided to carry out the 1947 uprising in Madagascar. This bloody revolt prompted the reforms which eventually led to Madagascar's independence in 1960. In Madagascar too, he felt that he was treated as one of their own. The fact that he, a white man, was able to preach in the Sakalava dialect at the Service of Holy Communion undoubtedly went some way to explaining their attitude towards him. Moreover, he was able to listen to other people's points of view, and change his own, if he then felt that he had been mistaken. Such attitudes in a foreigner were greatly appreciated by his colleagues. One of his colleagues was Ramaha Gabriel, a minister whom he himself had baptised in Manja in 1933, shortly after he had taken up his ministry there. Ramaha Gabriel had been a man of noble birth whose conversion to Christianity had caused him to be rejected by his family. This is one of the worst tragedies that can befall a Malagasy. Another colleague was Ramalahy, the father of the present president of the Malagasy Lutheran Church, Rabenorolahy Benjamin. Ramalahy had also previously been Father's colleague both in Manja and Morondava. For five years, Father was a superintendent with episcopal responsibilities in the Malagasy Lutheran Church in Tulear, further south on the west coast. In 1955 Father was also elected President of the Church. In the same year, he was chosen to be one of three missionaries to form part of a ten-strong delegation to represent the Malagasy Church in the first All African Lutheran Conference in Marangu in Tanganyika. In addition to acting as a translator between English and French speakers during the conference, he addressed the conference on the subject of the relationship between the Church and Missionary work. In his address, that otherwise liberal and ecumenically minded theologian expressed the somewhat conservative view that transition to an independent church should not proceed too quickly. For his own part, he was in some doubt about the wisdom of spending so much money on such a conference. However, he also saw how much it meant to the African participants at the conference to be treated as equals in this way. Ramaha Gabriel and Father in 1954 Ramaha Gabriel and Father when they met again in 1977 The district he was responsible for was very large and his visitations could take as much as two months at a time. During these he would call on congregations both large and small; he would catechise those wanting to be baptised, give spiritual guidance to members of the flock and advise and arbitrate in matters of varying importance. While he was on his travels, he would also collect material on which he could base further research, always listening, asking and learning as well as making systematic notes of everything he discovered. At that time, Tulear was used by vessels of the Scandinavian East Africa Line for transshipment of goods. Ships would call frequently at the port and could remain there for a week at a time. The captain of the ship which had taken the family to Madagascar in 1952 had impressed on Mother and Father the need to do something for the Norwegian seamen. They responded during the first years by opening their living room to Norwegian sailors. Later, with the help of seamen who had become regular guests, they set up a reading room at the mission station. They went on to run this in collaboration with the National Welfare Bureau for the Norwegian Merchant Marine. Many were the trips out to the boats to bring the seamen ashore to church, many the preparations for services and for evening entertainment. Mother would bake pastries and make waffles and, at Christmas time, traditional Norwegian cakes. The reading room was a kind of family enterprise. Two of us children often participated there when we were staying at home with our parents in the period between boarding school and our further education in Norway. Mother and Father in 1982 The researcher at work in Taiwan 1960 In 1957, the family returned to Norway once more and settled in Oslo. The last years of his tour of duty had taken their toll on Father's strength and left him in a poor state of health. He did not feel strong enough to think about returning to Madagascar, nor was it easy to accept the idea of leaving all his children behind in Norway. Pending some solution to this problem, he resumed contact with the University of Oslo. In 1957, he was elected to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, as in 1941 he had been elected to the Academie Malgache. This time he hoped to have an opportunity to carry on with his linguistic research on a full time basis so that he could deal with the large corpus of language material that he had collected in the course of the years. This was not to be. The Missionary Society needed him as their Field Secretary in Stavanger and he accepted the appointment. He took up the post in May 1958 and remained in it until the end of 1966. There was little time for any research during those years, but he used whatever opportunities that did come his way to combine the roles of missionary and linguist. While he was on a visit of inspection in the Far East, he found an opportunity of meeting a Paiwan tribe in the mountains of Taiwan and noticed some similarities between their language and Malagasy. The mountain dwellers of Taiwan are an indigenous people who speak an almost archaic language which is of great value in understanding the construction of Proto-Austronesian. Following this visit, he got in touch with researchers in this field of linguistics. In the spring of 1966, Father received an enquiry which led to him being given the opportunity to carry out linguistic research on a full time basis. The Chancellor of the University of Bergen, Professor Ludvig Holm Olsen, suggested that he should apply for a government fellowship for linguistic research. This was approved by the Norwegian Parliament in 1967 and remained in force until the end of 1974. At the same time he was asked to sit on the Board of the newly established Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies, an office he held until 1975. The Director of the Institute, Søren Egerod, introduced him to his own and others' work on South East Asian languages. From this time onwards, Father published a considerable number of papers, most of the early ones being about the Malagasy language. However, as time went by, he delved more and more into the Proto-Austronesian languages. In 1973 he published his treatise, Proto-Austronesian and, in 1981, Early Phonetic and Phonemic Changes in Austronesian. He himself considers these to be his major contributions to his subject. Father presented papers at the conferences on Austronesian linguistics in Honolulu in 1974 and in Canberra in 1978 and he has already put his name down for the one to be held in Leiden in 1994. As late as in 1990 he addressed a symposium of linguists in Tromsø in the North of Norway. He is respectfully known by his colleagues in the field of Austronesian linguistics as the "grand old man". In 1976, The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture awarded him Nils and Mathilde Pedersen's Award for Outstanding Research in Comparative Cultural Studies, a mark of recognition which he greatly appreciated. The stipend awarded was for five years. In the course of the years, a number of honours have been bestowed on him. In 1981 he received the Rogaland Academy Award for his services to linguistics. Two years earlier, he had been made a Chevalier of the Malagasy National Order of Chivalry. He has said that he associates this honour with a visit he made to Madagascar in 1977 at the invitation of the President of the Academie Malgache, Césaire Rabenoro, to attend their seventy-fifth anniversary celebrations. It was natural for Father to give his lecture in Malagasy and he took as his theme the importance of Malagasy language for Austronesian linguistics. Bakoly Domenichini Ramiaramanana, the Head of the Humanities Section paid him special tribute for this. She particularly appreciated the way in which he had shown Malagasy scholars that their native language was as effective a means of scientific communication as any European language. Here too, we can see how his missionary spirit has been present in his scientific work. In 1984 he was made an Officier of the Malagasy National Order of Chivalry, in 1989 Commmandeur and in 1992 he was nominated for the rank of Grand Officier, which is the second highest honour of that order. While he sets great store by these marks of recognition, he never parades them. In the spring of 1991, his book, Migration from Kalimantan to Madagascar, was published by the University Press in Norway. This is a linguistic and cultural study of the connection between Indonesia and Madagascar in ancient times. Taiwanese languages are still a constant source of interest to him and he has sufficient material for many years of research yet. He still does his daily stint in his office Now, at the age of ninety, he still does his daily stint in his office on the first floor of his home in Stavanger. The climb upstairs keeps him light of foot, while his daily research keeps him mentally alert. The Missionary vocation has been the axis of Father's life and never absent in his linguistic research. He hopes that since his scholarly work has been performed by a missionary, it will contribute towards the way missionary work is regarded in Madagascar. What is certain is that his linguistic research has contributed to the self-awareness and sense of national identity of the Malagasy people. His father, Otto Christian Dahl, was said to have been "a man of sound judgement and good sense throughout his life, as well as being a person of refreshing serenity". Those words are no less true of his son, Otto Chr. Dahl, missionary and linguist. His Children: Per, Bjarne, Reidunn, Øyvind and Beril From left: Reidunn, Øyvind, Per, Bjarne and BerilOTTO CHRISTIAN DAHL
JULY 15, 1903 – NOVEMBER 11, 1995
A tribute from his children
