Background
Karl was born in Smedjebacken, Sweden in 1867. His father, Gustaf Ersson worked at a mill, and his mother, Christina Ulrika Wallin, was a maid at the vicarage.
anthropologist linguist translator writer
Karl was born in Smedjebacken, Sweden in 1867. His father, Gustaf Ersson worked at a mill, and his mother, Christina Ulrika Wallin, was a maid at the vicarage.
While young, he worked as a gardener in Stockholm. During this time, Karl changed his surname to Laman. Two years later, in 1890, he was ordained a missionary.
In 1891, Laman emigrated to the Congo on a mission tour and stayed until 1919.
During his time in Kongo, he combined his ministry with linguistic study which resulted in numerous books, dissertations, and an almost complete translation of the Bible to Kikongo, the original language of the region and today the main language in Angola and Democratic Republic of the Congo. His most notable work was the Kikongo-Français dictionary of about 60,000 words completed during expeditions to minority groups in the region.
He also published Grammar of the Kongo Language (Kikongo) in 1912. In order to study the local languages and social systems, Laman worked with young, local, Bakongo evangelists.
In 1912, these evangelists assisted Laman with his survey questionnaires in Kikongo, developed to map out the languages and cultures of Kongo groups.
While in the Congo, Laman collected everyday objects, insects, bird eggs and animal skins. Notes on some mammals collected in the Congo Free State by the Swedish missionary, K.E. Laman, written by the Swedish zoologist Einar Lönnberg, was published in 1908. Laman"s collection of twelve human skulls are now with the Swedish Museum of Natural History while his collection of Nkisi is with the Museum of Ethnography, Sweden.