GASPARD AMARAL (Gaspare). – Jesuit missionary, born at Corvaceira in Portugal in 1592. He worked in Goa, Macao, and Cochin China, and then spent seven years in Tonkin. He was rector at Macao (1633) and vice-provincial (1641–45) of the Japanese province, which had been expelled from Japan. He died in a shipwreck in 1669 while returning to Tonkin. He left in manuscript a Tamul dictionary, which was later used by Fr. Alexander de Rhodes in compiling his well-known work.
BIBL.: Sommervogel, I, cols. 261–62; Streit, Bibl., V, p. 179.