Media Release

Mangaluru, Mar 15: Konkani Thesar ‘Padanidhi’ will hit stands after its release on March 18 at 4.30pm, at Rasquinha Hall, St Aloysius College.

‘Konkani Thesar’ is a thesaurus dictionary of Konkani synonyms and anonyms, plus idioms and sayings, edited by Fr Prashant Madtha, former principal of St Aloysius College.

This dictionary, ‘Konkani Thesar’, Konkani Thesaurus, first of its kind in Konkani, contains thousands of synonyms and antonyms for about 5000 Konkani words. This is the third dictionary by Fr Prashant Madtha, a Jesuit priest. His first dictionary was, ‘Ten Thousand idioms of Konkani’, the second one is ‘Padanidhai’, a massive volume of 800 pages containing synonyms and antonyms of Kannada and the latest one, ‘Konkani Thesar’, about 600 pages, is a collection Konkani synonyms and antonyms, plus idioms. Fr Prashant is the only person to edit two thesauruses in two languages.

In 2008, his massive volume of Kannada synonyms and antonyms, ‘Padanidhi’, first-of-its-kind in Kannada was published, which brought him laurels and one English weekly in 2008, acclaimed him as one of the 50 pioneers of change in India, named him as the ‘wordsmith’, ‘Rogests of Kannada’ (The ‘Roget’ Thesaurus’ fame) and the second Fr Ferdinand Kittel of Kannada. The method followed in Konkani Thesaurus like Rogets Thesaurus in English, is not in alphabetical order but conceptually arranged.

Fr Prashant is a columnist, a prolific writer in three languages- five books in Kannada, 4 books in Konkani, one in English titled, ‘On Eagle’s Wings’, recounting the 125 history of St Aloysius College. When he was the principal of St Aloysius College, he introduced Konkani as the subject in the college, the first and the only institution in Karnataka which taught Konkani where exams were conducted by the Mangalore University.