author
José da Fonseca
1788–1866
Best remembered today for the wonderfully odd phrasebook English as She Is Spoke, this Portuguese grammarian and lexicographer spent much of his career helping readers move between languages. His dictionaries, conversation guides, and teaching books made him a familiar name in 19th-century Portuguese-language publishing.
1 Audiobook
English as she is spoke; or, a jest in sober earnest
by José da Fonseca, Pedro Carolino
About the author
Born in 1788, José da Fonseca was a Portuguese writer, grammarian, lexicographer, and translator whose work focused on language learning and reference books. Library and catalog records connect his name with Portuguese, French, and Spanish teaching materials, including dictionaries, grammars, and conversation manuals published in Paris.
He is especially associated with O novo guia da conversação em portuguez e inglez, later known in English as English as She Is Spoke. The book became famous for its eccentric English and has long outlived many more conventional language manuals, giving Fonseca an unusual place in literary history.
Fonseca also worked on substantial dictionary projects, including a Portuguese dictionary and bilingual French-Portuguese works. Sources indicate that he died in Paris in December 1866, at the age of seventy-eight.