Father Antoni Maria Alcover i Sureda, also known (in Catalan) as ''Mossèn Alcover'' (; 2 February 1862 in Santa Cirga,

Manacor Manacor () is a town and Municipalities of Spain, municipality on the island of Mallorca, part of the Spanish Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. It is the second-largest town in Mallorca, after the capi ...

– 8 January 1932 in Palma) was a

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

Majorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest of the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, seventh largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. The capital of the island, Palma, Majorca, Palma, i ...

n writer, who wrote on a wide range of subjects including the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

and

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

. He is chiefly associated with efforts to revive interest in the

Catalan language Catalan () is a Western Romance languages, Western Romance language and is the official language of Andorra, and the official language of three autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous communities in eastern Spain: Catalonia, the Balearic I ...

and its dialects. Among his works was a Catalan-

Valencian Valencian can refer to: * Something related to the Valencian Community ( Valencian Country) in Spain * Something related to the city of Valencia * Something related to the province of Valencia in Spain * Something related to the old Kingdom of ...

- Balearic

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...

Biography

Alcover was born in Santa Cirga, a small territory between

and

Porto Cristo Porto Cristo is a small town on the eastern coast of Mallorca. It is from the town of Manacor and is within the Manacor municipality. Geography The village is located in a major tourist area between Costa de los Pinos and Cala Murada. Its sma ...

, the son of laborers. After studying

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and

classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

he moved at the age of 15 to

Palma de Mallorca Palma (, ; ), also known as Palma de Mallorca (officially between 1983 and 1988, 2006–2008, and 2012–2016), is the capital and largest city of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is ...

, where he continued his studies in

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as cle ...

. He became quickly known as a stubborn polemicist. Although his first literary efforts were in Spanish, he turned to the Catalan language after 1879. From this date, he undertook to collect the fables and folklore of

, which he began to publish in 1880 in various journals under the pseudonym Jordi d'es Racó. This collection is composed by around 430 folk-fables, which have been translated to several languages including English. In 1886, he was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are Consecration in Christianity, consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the religious denomination, denominationa ...

and became the parish priest for Manacor. In 1888 he became a professor of ecclesiastical history at the seminary in Palma. In 1898, the new bishop of Majorca, Pere Joan Campins i Barceló, appointed him as

vicar general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop or archbishop of a diocese or an archdiocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vica ...

of the Diocese of Majorca. He remained in this position until 1916. In 1905, he also obtained the position of magistral

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

of the Cathedral of Majorca. In 1906, by his initiative and under his presidency, the first ''Congrés Internacional de la Llengua Catalana'' (International Congress of the Catalan Language) was held. He was named president of the philological branch of the Institute for Catalan Studies, a position which quickly ended after a furious dispute with other members of the institute. His magnum opus was the '' Català-Valencià-Balear

Dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...

'', which he did not live to see completed. It was finished by his collaborator

Francesc de Borja i Moll Francesc de Borja Moll Casanovas (10 October 1903 – 18 February 1991) was a Catalan linguist, philologist and editor from Menorca. He wrote many books on the Catalan language and its varieties spoken on the Balearic Islands. He was also the m ...

and the Catalan folklorist and lexicographer Irene Rocas i Romaguera.Bruguera, Jordi. "Irene Rocas, Carrer d' - Ajuntament de Palafrugell". www.palafrugell.cat (in Catalan). Retrieved 2022-03-04 Among other responsibilities, he was the correspondent of the ''Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona'' in Barcelona and directed the publishing of the works of

Ramon Llull Ramon Llull (; ; – 1316), sometimes anglicized as ''Raymond Lully'', was a philosopher, theologian, poet, missionary, Christian apologist and former knight from the Kingdom of Majorca. He invented a philosophical system known as the ''Art ...

Work

His literary work focused on linguistic research, history, popular customs and folklore collections, various biographies, travel narratives and a novel. * Antoni M. Alcover i Francesc de B. Moll, ''La flexió verbal en els dialectes catalans'', 4 vols., Barcelona, Biblioteca Balmes, 1929–1933. * Antoni M. Alcover, ''Aplec de rondaies mallorquines d'en Jordi d'es Racó'', 24 vols., Palma, Moll, 1968–1975. * Antoni M. Alcover, ''Per la llengua'', ed. a cura de Josep Massot i Muntaner, Mallorca-Barcelona, Secció de Filologia Catalana de la Universitat de Palma-Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat, 1983. * Antoni M. Alcover, ''Dietari de l'excursió filològica (1906)'', edició a cura de Francesc de B. Moll, Barcelona, Departament de Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya, 1983. * ''Diccionari català-valencià-balear: inventari lexicogràfic i etimològic de la llengua catalana en totes les seves formes literàries i dialectals'', work started by Antoni Maria Alcover, written by Francesc de B. Moll, with the collaboration of Manuel Sanchis Guarner and Anna Moll Marquès, 10 vols., Palma, Moll, 1993.

Notes

External links

UIBInstitució Alcover
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alcover y Sureda, Antoni Maria 1862 births 1932 deaths People from Manacor Catalan-language writers Linguists from Catalonia Spanish male writers Members of the Institute for Catalan Studies Lexicographers of Catalan 20th-century lexicographers