Gafat language and Peter Dens: Difference between pages

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'''Peter Dens''' ([[12 September]] [[1690]] - [[15 February]] [[1775]]) was a [[Belgium|Belgian]] [[Roman Catholic]] [[theologian]]

The '''Gafat language''' is an extinct [[Semitic language]] that was once spoken along the [[Abbay River]] in [[Ethiopia]]. The records of this language are extremely sparse: a translation of the [[Song of Songs]] written in the 17th or 18th Century at the [[Bodleian Library]], and the reports of W. Leslau who visited the region in 1947 and after considerable work was able to find a total of four people who could still speak the language. Edward Ullendorff, in his brief exposition on Gafat, concludes that as of the time of his writing, "one may ... expect that it has now virtually breathed its last."^[[#Notes|1]]

He was born at [[Boom]] near [[Antwerp]]. Most of his life was spent in the archiepiscopal college of [[Mechelen]], where he was for twelve years reader in theology and for forty president. His great work was the ''Theologia moralis et dogmatica'', a compendium in catechetical form of Roman Catholic doctrine and ethics which has been much used as a students textbook.

== Notes ==

# Edward Ullendorff, ''The Ethiopians: An Introduction to Country and People'', second edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 131.

==References==

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[[Category:Extinct languages]] [[Category:Semitic languages]]

[[Category:Belgian Christian people|Dens, Peter]]

[[Category:Theologians|Dens, Peter]]

[[Category:1690 births|Dens, Peter]]

[[Category:1775 deaths|Dens, Peter]][[Category:Roman Catholic Church|Dens, Peter]]