Ludvig Olsen Fossum (1879 to 1920) was a Lutheran missionary and the first serious scholar of the Kurdish language in English. He translated the New Testament and the Lutheran catechism into Kurdish and published A Practical Kurdish Grammar at Minneapolis in 1919. A century later, it is still described as a very good grammar of the Mokri dialect.
He was working for Near East Relief among the Armenian refugees at Erivan (Yerevan) when he broke down. Barton records the cause as exhaustion brought on by overwork in caring for sick and starving women and children. He died in Erivan on 10 October 1920, aged forty-one.
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