Each community’s dialect is different, he said. When he said 42 what he was referring to were the various castes and sub castes within communities who use the language. One of the communities he focused on, which is keeping the language alive, is the Navayat Muslims from the port town of Bhatkal in Karnataka. This is one unique group that writes Konkani in the Perso-Arabic script and up to a decade ago even published their own daily newspaper in the script. Today the community has only one monthly paper surviving, but more unfortunately it has no literature to boast of, Rao says. Konkani in the Malayalam script is also on the decline, with many switching over to the Kannada script for more visibility. During the census in Kerala, many declare their mother tongue as Malayalam even though they speak Konkani.
Goan writer Damodar Mauzo says he doesn’t believe dialects die. “It is only when you give up writing that literature dies. Dialects change with culture and according to time.” There are some Goans in Maharashtra who still speak Konkani the way it was spoken five decades ago in Goa, infused with Portuguese words, he points out. MV Kamath who presided over the Manipal Konkani meet advised people to speak Konkani in its pure form without using words from other languages. However Mauzo says this isn’t possible. On the contrary, influences from other languages can be encouraged in order to keep
the language alive.
The Goan writer says with the dying out of certain traditional professions, the instruments used and terminology associated with the profession also face the threat of becoming extinct. “Earlier when the Gavvda community used to construct bridges, they had their own engineering terminology when it came to setting stones and so on. Similarly, coconut pluckers used the ‘bhalo’, a stick with a pointed end, to pick up coconuts that fell into the river. Today coconut pluckers themselves are rare.”
He also speaks of the ‘tol’luk’, a caretaker
who looked after your land when you were
away. When a coconut plucker came he would
keep a share of the coconuts for the tol’luk.
The Konkani language is written in five
scripts—Devanagiri, Roman, Kannada, Perso-
Arabic and the Malayalam script. Of these there
is vibrancy left only in the literature of the Devanagiri,
Roman and Kannada scripts.
Earlier this year the All India Konkani Writers
Organisation instituted awards for literature in
various scripts of Konkani with grants of Rs
25,000 being offered to support those who
would write a book in the Perso-Arabic and the
Malayalam scripts.
Literature in the Romi script faced a decline
for two decades after Konkani in the Devanagiri
script was declared the official language of Goa
in 1987.
“Only Konkani in the Devanagiri script flourished
because of the financial help they got
from the government. Romi Konkani was revived
only in the year 2000 after the Dalgado Konkani
academy was set up for the development and
promotion of Konkani in the Roman script,”
Tomazinho Cardozo says.
The academy receives a grant-in-aid from the
government for undertaking literary activities
including publication of books and conducting
workshops and seminars in the Roman script.
In August 2012 the World Institute of Konkani
of the World Konkani Centre in Mangalore
launched www.konkanverter.com an online
script conversion utility for the Konkani language.
The konkanverter converts Konkani text from
one script to another retaining the dialect of
the text. It was designed to unite the various
factions among Konkani writers and remove
the hurdles in appreciating Konkani literature
across scripts and dialects. It isn’t full proof,
but is a good effort.
At the meeting Rao also complimented Raknno
for being in existence for the past 75 years.
Raknno is a Konkani weekly published in the
Kannada script in Mangalore. It went online in
the year 1998 and today is read by many in the
country and beyond. Raknno also started a publishing
house and has published over a 100
fiction and non-fiction books. Today Raknno
also publishes Kajulo a monthly magazine for
children.
While Raknno may be the oldest weekly in
the Kannada script, the monthly magazine Dor
Mhoineanchi Roti published in the Romi script is
the oldest magazine (across all five scripts) that
continues to be in existence to this day. It was
started in 1915 in Karachi and in 1960 its office
was shifted to Bombay and later moved to
Goa. Since 2006 the magazine is being run by
Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendr (TSKK), the
research centre belonging to the Jesuits. The
magazine completes a century next year.
