Isidore Dantas

Isidore Dantas is an author, translator and lexicographer from Pune, Maharashtra, India, working in the Konkani language. Noted for his interest in Konkani film,[1] he is best known for his book on Konkani cinema (Konkani Cholchitram)[2] and for having co-authored an English-to-Konkani dictionary.[3] He has authored five books, co-authored a dictionary and translated two books.[4]

Isidore Dantas
Native name
इजिदोर डांटस
Born (1947-04-04) 4 April 1947
Poona (Pune), India
OccupationLexicographer, Konkani author, former bank officer
LanguageKonkani, English, Marathi
ResidencePune, India
NationalityIndian
CitizenshipIndian
EducationM.Com, B.Com, B.A., CAIIB
Alma materUniversity of Poona, Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce, Narowji Wadia College, Guardian Angle High School, Curchorem.
Home townPune
PeriodIn Pune from 1961.
GenreLexicography, non-fiction
SubjectKonkani film, translations
Notable awardsMaharashtra Konkani Kala Sanstha, Mumbai, 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award. 125 Years of Tiatr Felicitation, 2017. Dalgado Konkani Akademi Journalism Award 2010, Goan Cultural Centre, Kuwait, honoured in 2010.
Years activeWriting since 1958, from the age of 11.
ChildrenThree

Biography

Dantas is a retired bank officer, having worked as an Assistant General Manager of the State Bank of India, at the Opera House Branch in Mumbai (Bombay). He traces his roots to the Bardez village of Saligao, while his family was based in the Curchorem area in interior Goa, where his grandfather was a regidor (village official in Portuguese times). He is married and has three children.

Works

Unusually, Dantas writes in both the Romi (Roman) and Devanagari scripts of Konkani, and also in Marathi.

Konkani dictionary

Dantas co-authored, with the late Joel D'Souza, a Konkani dictionary titled English-Konkani Dictionary in 2016. In January 2016, he shared the 365-page dictionary under a Creative Commons license.[5] In 2016 it was made available in full-text on Wikimedia Commons.[6]

Books

Together with the dictionary he has co-authored, Dantas had, as of 2018, published eight books. Others were at that time reported as being in the pipeline.[7]

Dantas' 2010 book on Konkani cinema, Konkani Cholchitram ("Konkani films"),[8] has been released in the Roman script, Devanagari script and Kannada script versions of Konkani. It lists and describes all the films ever shot in that language from the first in the 1950s or thereabouts till very recently.

He has written books on Konkani sayings and proverbs, one of which is entitled Ozran.

His Utor-Sod is a Konkani vocabulary quiz book. He has also translated two books: children's author Anita Pinto's Espi Mai Is Stuck Again (as Espi Mai Porot Xirkoli) and artist-writer Angela Ferrao's Fuloos Plays With the Sun (as Fuloosachi Husharkai).[9]

Other works

He has contributed widely to the Konkani periodicals and newspapers and as of 2018 wrote a column for a Marathi newspaper in Goa. He plans to write a book on the famous Goan musician Alfred Rose and another on the history of Goan newspapers and periodicals. He is also active in contributing translations to Konkani Wikipedia.[10][11]

Role in restoring Konkani film

Dantas has been described as an "avid collector of Konkani film memorabilia"[12] and is credited with having had a role in the restoration part of the first (and popular) Konkani film Mogacho Aunddo (Love's Craving) (1950), by A.L. Jerry Braganza. The restoration was undertaken by L'Immagine Ritrovata, a restoration laboratory in Bologna. Media reports said the reels of the film were handed over by a relative of Braganza (his nephew, Angelo Braganza) to Dantas in 2010 during the release in one of his books, and Dantas, in turn, passed it on to prominent Konkani film director Bardroy Barretto, who managed to get the job done.[13]

Further reading
gollark: Wondrous.
gollark: ddg! xkcd goto raptor
gollark: Because of C's lack of memory safety.
gollark: What are you meant to do then, bootstrap up from a C compiler written in assembly to a C++ compiler to an apiolinux?
gollark: It actually might be fun* to make a C compiler missing 9012479124 of the features, hm.

References
  1. "Viva cinema! for Konkani cinephiles - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  2. "Isidore Dantas will be releasing his second book 'Konknni Cholchitram' on 21 September, in Goa. - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
  3. Dantas, Isidore; D'Souza, Joel (2016). Modern English-Konkani Dictionary. ISBN 9789384298319.
  4. "GE | Isidore Dantas". goanespresso.in. Archived from the original on 17 November 2018. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
  5. "Now, an online Konkani-English dictionary". The Goan. Archived from the original on 17 November 2018. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
  6. Dantas, Isidore (5 March 2016), English: Modern English to Konkani Dictionary is a Romi script Konkani dictionary authored by Isidore Dantas. (PDF), retrieved 17 November 2018
  7. "A call to the writers". The Goan Everyday. 10 November 2018. Archived from the original on 17 November 2018. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
  8. Dantas, Isidore (2010). Konknni cholchitram. Pune: Dantas Publications. ISBN 9788191036107.
  9. Pinto, Anita; Dantas, Isidore; translator; Lotlikar, Pandirarinath (14 November 2012). Espi Mãy Porot Xirkoli... Ani Gõycheo Her Kannio. Alexyz (First ed.). Goa,1556. ISBN 9789380739557.
  10. "Goa Wikipedia Group targets local writers, villages". oHeraldo. Archived from the original on 17 November 2018. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
  11. Noronha, Frederick (16 October 2018). "KONKANI WIKIPEDIA: Madhav Borkar (translated by Isidore Dantas)". GoaNet (Mailing list). Archived from the original on 17 November 2018. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
  12. "Feeling speci(AL) on his day". oHeraldo. Archived from the original on 17 November 2018. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
  13. "'Mogacho Aunddo' reels off into restoration". The Times of India. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
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