Manoel da Assumpção was a Portuguese missionary and linguist who remains immortal in history for composing the first printed grammar and dictionary of the Bengali language. During his stay in the Bhawal region of Dhaka in the early 18th century, he mastered the colloquial language of the local people and published his famous work, 'Vocabulario em idioma Bengalla e Portuguez,' in Roman script from Lisbon, Portugal, in 1743. Simultaneously, his work 'Crepar Xastrer Orthobhed' (The Meaning of the Gospel of Grace) was the first Bengali book printed in Roman characters, which highlighted the common prose style of contemporary Bengal through religious dialogue. Even before Nathaniel Halhed, his pioneering work in developing the grammatical framework of the Bengali language and introducing it to Europeans is considered a unique historical document.
