There were few
lands on which he set foot, whose language he did not master. But his heart was firmly with Konkani an and
he fought for justice to the language of his roots. Which is why that it is
only fit to pay a fitting tribute to Konkanis most important sentinel.
Sebastiao
Rudolfo Dalgado was born on May 8, 1855 in the village of Assagao in Bardez
taluka. His parents, Ambrosio Luis Dalgado and Rosa Florinda de Souza, belonged
to the aristocratic family. His father was a rich landlord and as farming was
the main occupation, they had several cattle.
Rudolfo
Dalgado obtained his primary education in Mapusa and it was here that he learnt
French, Portuguese, Latin and Philosophy. Thereafter, he joined the Rachol
Seminary in order to pursue his priestly studies. Through it all, his love for
the Konkani language only grew.
During
his training at Rachol seminary, Dalgado became aware of the fact that Konkani
stalwarts like Thomas Stephens, Diego Ribeiro, Minguel de Almeida, Antonio
Saldanha and several others found their calling at this place and their
contribution towards the Konkani language was immense.
After
completion of his priestly studies, Dalgado was ordained a priest in 1881. But
as he was blessed with the extraordinary gift of picking up languages and in
order to pursue in his further studies, he was sent to Rome, Italy.
During
his stay in Rome, within three weeks, Dalgado mastered the Italian language and
he was able to read, write and speak it fluently. Mastery over a language does
not come about overnight and each day he would dedicate around 18 hours for
literary works; in 1884, he obtained a doctorate with religious norms as his
subject.
In
1885, Dalgado was appointed as Vicar General of Ceylon. In order to make his
priestly ministry more fruitful, he mastered the Sinhala language and
simultaneously learnt the Malayalam language.
In
1887, Dalgado was appointed the Vicar General of Bengal and during his stay in
Kolkata, he mastered the Bengali language. While picking up Bengali, he noticed
the similarities it shared with Konkani.
Thereafter,
Dalgado moved to Honavar and he learnt Kannada, besides picking up Tamil. While
moving towards Sawantwadi from Honavar, he learnt Marathi and Sanskrit with
ease.
Mons. Sebastiao
Rudolfo Dalgado, a linguist by his own right, studied numerous languages such
as Marathi, Sanskrit, Kan’nad and English. When he was in Portugal, he
painstakingly studied Arabic, Persian and German languages.
During his stay in
Rome, he mastered Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, Italian and Spanish. He did not
only learn these languages for the sake of learning, but made an in-depth study
of the various differences that existed in these languages. This academic
exercise bestowed on him international acclaim.
Although Konkani
language was his mother tongue, he did not write much in Konkani language.
Instead, he wrote about the Konkani language in Portuguese and other languages.
It was Mons. Dalgado,
who gave the Konkani language a new direction and dimension and through his in-depth
writings, proved that Konkani was an independent language. He was also
instrumental in providing the first Konkani-Portuguese and Portuguese-Konkani
dictionaries.
His other literary
works include ‘Glossario Luso-Asiatico’, ‘Influencia do Vocabulario Portuguese
en Linguas Asiaticas’, ‘Florilegio dos Proverbios Concanis’, etc.
During the last 10-11
years of his life, Mons. Dalgado was gripped by diabetes and one of his legs
had to be amputated. A little later, after four years, the other leg was amputated.
Despite being restricted to the bed, he did not give up his passion for
literature and dedicated at least 12 hours a day for his research and literary
works.
In 1916, in a time
when there was a conflict over the Konkani and Marathi languages, Mons. Dalgado
was residing in Lisbon. Being aware of the injustice done towards Konkani
language he penned around 11 articles on ‘Heraldo’ newspaper. His articles can
still be easily traced at the Central Library at Patto, Panjim.
Today,
the Dalgado Konknni Academy (DKA), an institution that strives towards the
growth of the Konkani language, especially in Roman script, is named after this
great personality, keeping Mons. Dalgado’s name and rich literary works alive.
