In the decade of 1840, the Irish-born French scientist, Antoine d'Abbadie, travelled to the Horn of Africa. Financed entirely by himself, he made many scientific observations, which he recorded in numerous notebooks. These and other of his manuscripts are now housed in the French National Library in Paris and contain a wealth of information that remained largely unpublished until the creation of the MSS-Abbadie project of the BnF (2020-23). As part of that project, the notebooks have been digitised, deposited on Gallica and made also available on Europeana and the French collaborative transcription platform Transcrire, where the notebooks were transcribed.

Transcribathon is now joining the efforts to decipher Abbadie's manuscripts by offering four additional documents for transcription and annotation!
The competition will be launched on 27 September 2024, the anniversary of his award of the Legion of Honour in 1850, and will run until 31 January 2025.

Antoine Thomson d'Abbadie d'Arrast (January 3, 1810 – March 19, 1897)
was an Irish-born French explorer, who is best known for his explorations in Ethiopia during the early 19th century.

His notes and manuscripts cover various fields of knowledge, including history, literature, codicology, anthropology, linguistics, geography, hydrography, and meteorology. He listed and established vocabularies for more than thirty languages, including Ethiopic languages. Beyond the social sciences, Antoine d'Abbadie conducted investigations as a geographer, cartographer and physicist, taking a particular interest in climatic phenomena, which he measured and described in great detail.

Antoine d'Abbadie often used Arabic, Ethiopian, Greek and shorthand. If you are not familiar with these languages and their scripts, use "? unclear tool" and write [Arabic], [Ethiopian], [Greek] or [shorthand] next to it. In case you are familiar with the script, but experience troubles using virtual keyboard, here are some online alternatives for Geʽez Script: Lexilogos | Branah; and Arabic script: Lexilogos | Branah.

Correct and Edit HTR Results
(HTR = Handwritten Text Recognition)

To help you transcribe the manuscripts, we have run two of the documents through an automatic recognition process using a Transkribus HTR French/Latin script model. For these two stories, we invite you to correct the results and, in particular, to edit the non-Latin characters, mostly in Ethiopic (Ge'ez script). The model incorrectly recognised them in most cases as either numbers or Greek letters. At the top of the special HTR editor you will find a virtual keyboard button which will provided you with a table of all Ethiopic letters. Make sure you save your work regularly by clicking the 'Save' button. If you are not satisfied with the layout recognition, you can create and edit layout elements manually. To learn how to do this, visit the Transkribus Help Center.

The work you do in correcting HTR will also count for the run.

Transcribe French and Arabic texts

If you prefer to work manually, we have two more stories. One contains correspondence addressed to Antoine d'Abbadie in French, while the other is for our Arabic-speaking users with letters and other manuscripts in Arabic.

FR / ET / AR

Studies on the languages of Ethiopia by Antony of Abbadie || Études sur les langues de l'Éthiopie par Antoine d'Abbadie

1006 Items

Antoine d'Abbadie's studies on the language of Ethiopia and the neighbouring territories. The notebook contains a French-Amharic-Tigrinya vocabulary. Among others are the vocabularies of Ilm Orma, Soha, and Somali languages.

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Historical, geographical and philological notes on Ethiopia; extracts from letters by missionaries: Monseigneur Massaja, Monseigneur Taurin Cahagne, the R. P. Coulbelle (1871-1891), collected by Antoine de Abbadie.nineteenth century. || Notes historiques, géographiques et philologiques sur l'Éthiopie ; extraits de lettres de missionnaires : Monseigneur Massaja, Monseigneur Taurin Cahagne, le R. P. Coulbeaux (1871-1891), recueillis par Antoine d'Abbadie.XIXe siècle.

56 Items

Antoine d'Abbadie's notes on Ethiopia. These include grammar observations on Amharic and Tigrinya languages, proverbs, notes on history, and excerpts from letters.

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FR / EN / AR

Papiers d'Abbadie. Correspondances et documents sur la famille d'Abbadie et sur l'Éthiopie (XVIe-XIXe siècle). VI Correspondance d'Antoine et d'Arnauld d'Abbadie sur leurs voyages en Abyssinie (1839-1849).

703 Items

Correspondence of Antoine and his brother Arnauld d'Abbadie on their travels in Abyssinia between 1839 and 1849.

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Lettres adressées à Antoine d'Abbadie durant son séjour en Abyssinie ; la dernière pièce du volume est constituée par la copie de la sourate al-Fatiha.

109 Items

Letters addressed to Antoine d'Abbadie during his stay in Abyssinia; written in Arabic. The last item of the story consists of a copy of Surah al-Fatiha, the first chapter of the Quran.

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Top Transcribers

Wolfgang Dekeyser

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morizeaub@gmail.com

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Sophie Jouglard

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OF 3

Antoine d'Abbadie Run

27 September 2024 - 31 January 2025

Portrait of Antoine Thompson d'Abbadie

Bibliothèque nationale de France

Vocabulary of Ethiopic languages in the Transcribathon Editor

Transcription Tips

HTR

Stories to edit and review

Studies on the languages of Ethiopia by Antony of Abbadie || Études sur les langues de l'Éthiopie par Antoine d'Abbadie

Manual Transcripion

Stories for manual trascription

Papiers d'Abbadie. Correspondances et documents sur la famille d'Abbadie et sur l'Éthiopie (XVIe-XIXe siècle). VI Correspondance d'Antoine et d'Arnauld d'Abbadie sur leurs voyages en Abyssinie (1839-1849).

Lettres adressées à Antoine d'Abbadie durant son séjour en Abyssinie ; la dernière pièce du volume est constituée par la copie de la sourate al-Fatiha.

Results

Top Transcribers