Paul Egede (September 9, 1708 – June 6, 1789) was a Danish-Norwegian

Denmark–Norway

Denmark–Norway is the historiographical name for a former political entity consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, including the originally Norwegian dependencies of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands...

 theologian, missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 to Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

 and scholar of the Greenlandic language.

Egede was born in Kabelvåg

Kabelvåg

Kabelvåg is a village in Vågan municipality on the southern shore of Austvågøy island, one of the Lofoten island group in the county of Nordland, northern Norway....

, a village in Vågan

Vågan

Vågan is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the Lofoten traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Svolvær....

 municipality on the southern shore of Austvågøy

Austvågøy

Austvågøy is the northeasternmost of the larger islands in the Lofoten archipelago in Nordland county, Norway. The island is 526.7 km² and extends up to 40 km in the east-west direction and 30 km north-south. Austvågøy is largely a mountain massif, with lowland almost exclusively at...

 island, one of the Lofoten

Lofoten

Lofoten is an archipelago and a traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Though lying within the Arctic Circle, the archipelago experiences one of the world's largest elevated temperature anomalies relative to its high latitude.-Etymology:...

 island group in the county of Nordland

Nordland

is a county in Norway in the North Norway region, bordering Troms in the north, Nord-Trøndelag in the south, Norrbottens län in Sweden to the east, Västerbottens län to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The county was formerly known as Nordlandene amt. The county administration is...

, northern Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. He was the eldest of two sons born to Norwegian missionary Hans Egede

Hans Egede

Hans Poulsen Egede was a Norwegian-Danish Lutheran missionary who launched mission efforts to Greenland, which led him to be styled the Apostle of Greenland. He established a successful mission among the Inuit and is credited with revitalizing Dano-Norwegian interest in the island after contact...

 and his wife Gertrud Rask

Gertrud Rask

Gertrud Rask was the first wife of the Danish-Norwegian missionary to Greenland Hans Egede and was the mother of the missionary and translator Paul Egede.-Life in Norway:...

. In 1721, the Egede family, consisting of his parents and his three siblings, relocated from Norway to Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

. His father had been sent by the Danish government to seek the old Norse

Norsemen

Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...

 colony on Greenland. The last communication with that colony had been over 300 years earlier. No Norse survivors were found. However, he did find the Inuit

Inuit

The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...

 and started a mission among them.

Paul Egede assisted his father in the Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

 mission. After 15 years in Greenland, Hans Egede returned to Denmark in 1736. Paul Egede remained for an additional six years and succeeded his father as superintendent

Superintendent (ecclesiastical)

Superintendent is the head of an administrative division of a Protestant church, largely historical but still in use in Germany.- Superintendents in Sweden :...

 of the Greenland mission. Paul Egede's knowledge of Greenland's society, culture and language assured the success of the mission.

In 1742 Paul Egede was appointed Minister of the Vartov Lutheran Church in Copenhagen. In 1747, Egede became professor of theology in the Greenland Mission Seminary, in 1758 becoming its Provost

Provost (education)

A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada and Australia, the equivalent of a pro-vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland....

. In 1779 he earned the additional title and rank of Bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

 of Greenland and in 1785 he was made a fellow of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters

Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters

The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters is a learned society based in Trondheim, Norway.-History:DKNVS was founded in 1760 by bishop of Nidaros Johan Ernst Gunnerus, headmaster at the Trondheim Cathedral School Gerhard Schøning and Councillor of State Peter Frederik Suhm under the name...

.

Egede also translated the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 into Greenlandic, a language related to the Inuktitut

Inuktitut

Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada...

 of northern Canada but not to any Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

n language. In this task, he was assisted by his translator Arnarsaq

Arnarsaq

Arnarsaq , was an Inuit translator, interpreter and missionary, assistant to Paul Egede, H.C. Glahn and J. Sverdrup from Greenland. She and Hans Punngujooq translated the Bible into the Inuit language...

. He published a Greenlandic-Danish-Latin dictionary (1750), Greenlandic grammar (1760) and Greenlandic catechism (1756). He wrote a number of books relating to the Eskimo–Aleut languages spoken by the natives of Greenland. Egede died in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 in 1789, now a respected expert on Greenland and its people, having published that year a journal of his life in Greenland.

Additional sources

• Andersen, Jan: Poul Hansen Egede, en grønlandsforsker i 1700-tallet, Aalborg Universitetsforlag, 2007
• Ostermann, H. Poul og Niels Egede (Continuation of Hans Egedes relationer fra Grønland samt Niels Egede: Beskrivelse over Grønland), Copenhagen: 1939 (Danish)
• Nansen, Fridtjof
  Fridtjof Nansen
  Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...
  
  . Eskimo Life (William Archer, translator. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1894)
• Gjerset, Knut. History of the Norwegian People (Macmillan, 1915)

External links

• Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (London: 1911)
• Map of Greenland by Paul Egede
• Paul Hansen Egede, Missionær i Grønland, Project Runeberg (Norwegian)
• Paul Hansen, Missionær i Grønland, Project Runeberg (Danish)