Goans going for Portuguese

Principal Correspondent PANAJI - The state has witnessed renewed interest in Portuguese language with the number of students as well as adults attending classes of the language gradually on the rise, just as the Portuguese Consulate in Goa is all set to celebrate ‘Dia de Portugal’ or Portugal Day, on June 10.
‘Dia de Portugal’ marks the death of the Portuguese poet, Luís de Camões on June 10, 1580 and is Portugal’s National Day. The delegate of Fundação Oriente in India, Dr Paulo Varela Gomes, speaking to ‘The Navhind Times’ said that he has been working on the statistics as regards the number of students in secondary and higher secondary schools in Goa who had opted for Portuguese as the third/second language, respectively, since 2001 and found that their number has increased over the years. “And this has happened in spite of the fact that the study of the language is not compulsory in the curriculum and the teachers are provided and paid by the Fundação Oriente.”
In 2001, the number of such students did not even touch the two-digit figure. Speaking further, Dr Gomes said, “Why this is happening, I don’t know but I think it has to do generally with the prestige that Europe has been acquiring and the feeling existing in Indians about Portuguese being an important European language at par with French.”
“Besides, Portuguese has an European, a South American as well as an African component; Portugal having become an interesting nation after the European Union came into existence, Brazil, a South American country being an emerging economy and finally, African nations like Angola and Mozambique fast proceeding on the global developmental track,” he stated. “In addition, Indians have also realised that it is always helpful to know a foreign language apart from English,” the Fundação Oriente chief in India observed, “As English is no more a foreign language in India and is deeply rooted here.”
Maintaining that knowing a foreign language is like having a special skill, Dr Gomes informed about a girl conversant with the Portuguese language who was immediately appointed on a lucrative post in Chennai as the particular company wanted to do business with Brazil

Courtesy:navahindtimes.com

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