, Mallorca Alcover was born in Santa Cirga, a small territory between
Manacor and
Porto Cristo, the son of laborers. After studying
Latin and
classics he moved at the age of 15 to
Palma de Mallorca, where he continued his studies in
seminary. He became quickly known as a stubborn polemicist. Although his first literary efforts were in
Spanish, he turned to the Catalan language after 1879. From this date, he undertook to collect the fables and folklore of
Mallorca, which he began to publish in 1880 in various journals under the pseudonym Jordi d'es Racó. This collection is composed by around 430 folk-fables, which have been translated to several languages including English. In 1886, he was
ordained and became the parish priest for Manacor. In 1888 he became a professor of ecclesiastical history at the seminary in Palma. In 1898, the new bishop of Mallorca,
Pere Joan Campins i Barceló, appointed him as
vicar general of the
Diocese of Mallorca. He remained in this position until 1916. In 1905, he also obtained the position of magistral
canon of the
Cathedral of Mallorca. In 1906, by his initiative and under his presidency, the first
Congrés Internacional de la Llengua Catalana (International Congress of the Catalan Language) was held. He was named president of the philological branch of the
Institute for Catalan Studies, a position which quickly ended after a furious dispute with other members of the institute. His magnum opus was the
Català-Valencià-Balear Dictionary, which he did not live to see completed. It was finished by his collaborator
Francesc de Borja i Moll and the Catalan folklorist and lexicographer
Irene Rocas i Romaguera. Among other responsibilities, he was the correspondent of the
Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona in Barcelona and directed the publishing of the works of
Ramon Llull. ==Work==