José Gerson da Cunha OCI (2 February 1844 – 3 August 1900) was a Portuguese physician who achieved international renown as an indologist, historian, linguist and numismatist.
[1][2] Francisco was an infantry lieutenant in the Portuguese army stationed in Goa who had taken part in the military campaign against the Marathas at Uspa and Rarim in Savantvadi.
[3] Besides medicine, Cunha's interest spanned across diverse subjects such as history, archaeology, linguistics, numismatics and Sanskritology (study of Sanskrit).
[8][9] It possesses an elaborate grammar of its own and a rich vocabulary which is derived from various sources (Sanskrit, Persian, Kannada and Portuguese, with all the contributing elements having lost their autonomy in the course of time and becoming so fused together that only a careful analysis can discover their etymology.
[8][9] Da Cunha was greatly concerned with the increasing corruption of Konkani's purity, as he felt that the incorporation of Portuguese, Persian, Kannada, and Marathi loanwords were distancing the language from its original source, Sanskrit.
Under these circumstances it is no wonder that Konkani has been treated with neglect by the very children of the soil, and has, from the absence of a norm to regulate its forms, dwindled into the state of a jargon, or patois.
[5] In view of his work, da Cunha acquired significant fame as an Orientalist and was invited to International seminars and conferences.
[3] In the latter conference, da Cunha was hailed by the Count Angelo de Gubernatis as the "leading Orientalist of the day".
Da Cunha was a hyperpolyglot, possessing knowledge of Konkani, Marathi, Portuguese, Italian, French, English, German, Pahlavi, Persian, Latin and Sanskrit.