Farewell to Mario Sartor Ceciliot, father of the Pordenone dialect

Knight awarded the San Marco, he was working on a re-edition of the Dictionary. Emigrant to Argentina, he had become a university teacher of languages

Languages ​​have been a passion even more than a profession. They were his key to reading the world, but also to keeping the door open, deeply tied to his roots and to his city. Mario Sartor Ceciliot passed away at the age of 95 in his home in Roraigrande. In 2004 he published the “Dictionary of the Pordenone dialect” published by ProPordenone. “He was working on a re-edition of him,” said mayor emeritus Alvaro Cardin, who just recently had visited him with President Giuseppe Pedicini.

A man of lively intelligence and profound culture, but with simple ways, Mario Sartor Ceciliot had emigrated with his family to Argentina at the age of 20. He studied at the University of Mendoza where he first obtained the title of professor of Spanish literature (in 1952) and then that of professor of Italian.

It was precisely in the years of the thesis (topic “Popular language and culture in Pordenone”) that the professor collected material which he then used, on his return to Italy, for the elaboration of the dictionary of the dialect and folklore of Pordenone. But Ceciliot will not stop at these languages: he will study in Paris and upon returning to Argentina will devote himself to teaching Latin, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese. A career as a university professor and scholar that in 1983 led him to be awarded the honor of Cavaliere to the order of merit of the Italian Republic, by the then president Pertini. A life to discover the world, which will never make him lose his deep roots. After his definitive return to Italy, he gave many conferences (in Venice, Padua and Pordenone) and collaborated with the Friulian Philological Society, the ProPordenone and the San Marco Academy “of which he was a member” Cardin recalls. His role as a scholar, but even more as guardian of the Pordenone vernacular, had also led him to obtain the San Marco prize in 2009.

«In addition to the memory of a leading teacher in the field of languages ​​- continues Cardin -, I was linked to him by a friendship born when I was a child. Mario, he was about ten years older than me and was my catechist. The parish priest was then Don Umberto Gaspardo. His bond with the land has always been strong and it is no coincidence that he had returned to live in Rorai, in what is now called, among other things, via Don Umberto Gaspardo ». Cardin, who had been one of the drivers of the dictionary project in 2004, had recently met him because «he should have produced the latest edition of the Pordenone glossary and was already working on it, despite the fact that he was suffering. To his wife Maria Pia, his daughter and grandchildren, I express my heartfelt condolences, myself and those of the San Marco Academy ». Ceciliot’s funeral will be held on Monday 11 April at 3 pm in the parish church of San Lorenzo, naturally in Roraigrande (the neighborhood where he will later be buried). The rosary will be recited on Sunday, April 10 at 8 pm, again in San Lorenzo.