[Ethiopic] Sive, Jobi Ludolfi I.C. Lexicon Æthiopico-Latinum,

After studying philology at the Erfurt academy and at Leiden, Ludolf travelled in order to increase his linguistic knowledge. While searching in Rome for some documents at the request of the Swedish Court (1649), he became friends with Abba Gorgoryos, a monk from the Ethiopian province of Amhara, and acquired from him an intimate knowledge of the Ethiopian language.

Ludolf's Ethiopic and Amharic dictionaries and grammars were of importance far transcending his own time and remained, for well over a century and a half, the indispensable tools for the study of these languages.