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Dear Mr.Faleiro,
I made a trip to India in 2001 to attend to a Seminar in Noamundi and visit
iron ore
mines in your country. We were a group of two engineers and myself - a
geologist,
working for Vale - a Brazilian mining corporation. During our trip Alvito
D´Souza -
a native and resident Goan mining engineer, joined us and showed our way round
in a
very enlightening trip after the Seminar. We started in the Tata mines in
Jahrkhand
and went on to sites in Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and naturally came to
an end
in Goa. Apart from the technical side of our trip, I was quite impressed with
India
and the panel we had of its rich, multicultural history.
When we arived in Goa, we paid a visit to Alvito's family. Though having a
Portuguese family name, Alvito could no longer speak the Portuguese language.
In
fact, he explained that his father, having taken part of the political movement
which led to the independence of Goa in 1961, had naturally also decided to
break
with the language ties as a part of his political motivation. Alvito's wife
however
could still speak perfect Portuguese, having learned it with her parents as a
first
language at home. I remember having also talked to their youngest son who was
in his
early teens at the time. But - I do no know why, I did not address him in
Portuguese
but in English which he commanded fluently as it happens with educated people
in
India.
Now I have come across your considerations on Portuguese names in Goa and
remembered
a question that occurred to me later: has Alvito's son learned to speak
Portuguese
with his mother? I believe that - if he has, it could indeed turn out to be a
very
good advantage to him. If one speaks Portuguese, it will be easy to learn
Spanish -
for the languages are closely related and similar. Add Hindi and English, that
you
learn at school, and he would be fluent in three of the most widely spoken
languages
in the world today. Let alone India itself, he could probably find
opportunities all
over the Americas, not only in the US.
If you happen to know Alvito and his family, send my regards to him and
Eslinda, his
wife.
Yours,
Nelson Borges(*)
PS - In case you have that name in Goa, I learned recently that it stands for
the
medieval name of the city of Bourges in France; the name was granted by the
French
king Phillippe le Bel to a French military man who took part of a siege laid on
Bourges in the 1100s and later moved to Portugal where the name was introduced.
