Gérard Moussay

Gérard Moussay (16 August 1932, Brecé (Mayenne - 1 February 2012 in Paris) was a French catholic missionary. He was also a specialist on Cam and Minangkabau languages.

1954–1975

Issued from a family farmer, he was the oldest of four children. He studied at the Petit and Grand Séminaries of Laval before joining Missions Etrangères de Paris on 20 September 1954. Ordained on 29 June 1957 at Laval, soon after he was sent to Viet Nam for his first mission of Nha Trang. He studied Vietnamese at Banam (about 60 km southeast Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia). In 1954, when Viet Nam was divided into the North and the South of the 17th parallel, some hundreds of thousands of northern refugees (mostly devout Catholics) were settled by small groups in different southern provinces especially where the field was not yet exploited because most of them came from the countryside in the North. So between 1958 and 1968, Gérard Moussay was in charge of these Catholics in two provinces of Ninh Thuân and Binh Tuy. Particularly he founded two parishes of Hiêp Nghia and Hiêp An. Close to his parishioners and being good at language, he spoke impeccable Vietnamese. It was not rare hearing from him a popular expression as " ông Ke " (M. Ke an imaginary terrible man picking up children who don’t behave themselves, so when they cry or don’t want to sleep their mother reminds them of M. Ke) or a proverb as "an trai nho ke trông cây" (literally: eating a fruit to remember who plants the tree). In 1968, on the consent of his fellow-members about the newly redefined activities of Missions Etrangères de Paris and encouraged by his bishop he settled in Phan Rang (Ninh Thuân Province) among Cam people Chams. In early 1970’s, they were around 40 000 including Cam inhabitants in the neighbourhood (Phan Ri). Two thirds of this population "follow a religion which was no doubt Brahmanism in the past but it is now only a distant souvenir of the religion coming from India". The last third are the so-called Banis who are descendants of Cam families who have opted for Islam since 14th or 15th century. These two communities have their villages, theirs clergies, their own rites. They don’t get married between them but keeping their relationship (same Cam calendar and some formal occasions). A small part of this ethnic group establishes in southwestern Viet Nam not far from the border of Cambodia. In this country however were living the majority of Cam people. That was what pointed out Gérard Moussay when he had arrived into Phan Rang. He set up there the Cam Cultural Centre to study Cam language and to form a team of researchers with the cooperation of old Cam scholars. They collected ancient texts, translated them and published them. A Cam-Vietnamese-French dictionary was issued in 1971.

1976–1993

July 1976, Gérard Moussay reached Padang diocese on the western coast of Sumatra Indonesia. Before leaving Paris, he did follow an intensive course of Indonesian organized at the head office of Missions Etrangeres de Paris. Afterwards, he was instructed in Minangkabau language. The close link between these languages with that of Cam people made his task easier. Between August 1978 and May 1979, he undertook a course of Arabic and islamology at Rome. Devoting to his duty of assistant-priest (1978-1981) then priest (1981-1993) at Bukittingi, meanwhile he drew up the grammar of Minangkabau language in which he had a doctorate at School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)) in 1982. To prepare a Minangkabau-Indonesian-French dictionary, Gérard Moussay and his Minang contributors were examining in systematic manner all newspapers and magazines occurred between 1965 and 1990. Throughout this work he wished to introducing "a Minangkabau language such as one spokes it and such as one writes it today ". Furthermore, by means of references might be found out all of literature of proverbs, sentences, popular stories…. This dictionary will be published only in 1995 in Paris.

1993–2012

Early 1993, Gérard Moussay was appointed to carry out the Archives of Missions Etrangères de Paris of which he was in charge until his death early 2012. Throughout these years, with the help of some assistants he made an inventory of numerous documents such as dictionaries, travel books, correspondence between missionaries… throughout continents and centuries. He remade the internal organization in view to receiving researchers and students putting at their disposal, along with his own experience, the documentary treasures dating back to many centuries. Under his direction were published many books (directories of follow-members of Missions Etrangères, their bibliographies...). He took an active part during the exhibition celebrating the 350th anniversary of Missions Etrangères’s foundation in 2008.