Johann Georg Krönlein

Johann Georg Krönlein (Segnitz, near Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany, 19 March 1826 – Wynberg, Cape Colony, 27 January 1892) was a Rhenish Missionary pioneer in South West Africa and a Bible translator and lexicographer of the Khoekhoe language.

That August, he was appointed successor to Johannes Samuel Hahn as chief of the mission in Berseba, South West Africa, at the time the isolated outpost of captain Paul Goliath and his Oorlam tribe, whose living conditions one missionary described as "fit for dogs and cats.

His most notable linguistic achievement is his dictionary, Wortschatz der Khoi-khoin (Namaqua-Hottentotten) (Berlin, 1889), published with the help of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the German Colonial Society.

[2] Krönlein rendered click consonants under the Standard Alphabet by Lepsius, determining syllables by etymology and distinguishing three pitches (low, middle, and high).

He returned in 1867 from his visit as Germany to become superintendent of the RMS[3] in Namaland, a post he held until 1877, when health problems and family circumstances led him to retire to home life in Stellenbosch.

Along with Carl Hugo Hahn and others, Krönlein played a major role in forging the "true peace" known as the Treaty of Okahandja, which held through 1880.

Krönlein's mission, Berseba, was a centrally located linchpin of the political controversies of the era, leading him to play a major role in them.

In Stellenbosch, Krönlein taught Khoekhoe to young Rhenish Missionaries and worked tirelessly on his Old Testament translation into the language, which he completed by the end of the 1880s.

Portraits of him remain in the archives of the RMS, and Heinrich Vedder published a profile of Krönlein as Am Lagerfeuer der andern (Windhoek, 1942).