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One of the prestigious institutions run by SAC, the Konkani Institute, perhaps stands out for its unique history and the track record it has registered in the development of Konkani language and literature, a Indo-Aryan language spoken by over 5 million people in India and written in five difference scripts namely, Romi, Devnagari, Kannada, Perso-Arabic and Malayalam. Nurturing the Konkani Institute is second nature to this great College (now autonomous).
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| | Fr.Anjelo Savario Maffei S.J. |
| Amongst the first batchers was a young, shrewd and dynamic Jesuit, with a photographic memory and an eye for details of the surroundings, the natives, their culture and language, Fr. Anjelo Savario Maffei. Fr. Maffei was no linguist. Leave alone the local lingo, even English language was alien to him. Perhaps, he did not consider learning to read and write English was a challenge by any standards but he took up the study of the language of the locals, very seriously. And that language was Konkani!
Within a short span of time Fr.Maffei not only learnt to speak Konkani but in 1882 he prepared a Konkani grammar handbook and got it printed too. Further he prepared a lexicon Konkani-English, English Konkani. So valuable was this work that the Government of erstwhile Madras got it printed at its own cost and in the year 1892, the revised edition of Konkani grammar was printed and published by the Codialbail Press.
Konkani, a minority language, could not ask for a better deal and a better scholar than Fr.Maffei. Eventually, Fr.Maffei became the Rector and Principal of St.Aloysius College and kept the love of Konkani aflame.
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