15 Oct 2019 | 05:41am IST
Goa University looking to digitise Konkani texts, transliterate works
Research concludes that for language to survive invasion of technology and standardise communication, it needs to adopt technology
PANJIM: In a step towards preserving the State’s official language Konkani texts, which are in multi-script formats, Goa University is looking at digitisation of the texts and their transliteration.
Research conducted by the English Department’s doctoral research scholar Palia Tukaram Gaonkar and associate professor Dr Andre Rafael Fernandes, concluded that if a language like Konkani is to survive the invasion of technology and its mission to standardise communication, it needs to adopt technology to preserve its diversity, and subsequently its culture and heritage.
The paper ‘Digitization of Konkani Texts, and their Transliteration: An Initiative towards Preservation of a Language Culture’ reports attempts to digitise, and transliterate an available performance play text in Konkani, from one script to another. It also explores digitization as a way of preserving Konkani texts in multi-script formats.
“The study aims to explore the possibility of having a cross-orthographical readership of Konkani using the transliteration tool known as Konkanverter, which will not only bridge the orthographic disparity and increase readership and production of literature, but also contribute to the creation of Konkani digital archive,” the researchers said.
The World Konkani Centre situated in Mangalore, Karnataka, has developed a transliteration tool, Konkanverter, which transliterates Unicode text between four of the five writing systems of Konkani, namely Devanagari, Roman, Kannada and Malayalam.
“Konkani is the official language of Goa. This language has faced many political threats such as 450 years of Portuguese colonisation and contention with Marathi in order to be recognised as the official language, post-Liberation in 1961. It finally entered the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India in 1992. These hardships have diversified the nature of Konkani,” the paper stated.
The paper further mentions that Konkani is spoken in several dialects in Goa and elsewhere, and is written in five different scripts, owing to the migration of Konkani people from Goa over the centuries.
There are Konkani communities in the neighbouring states of Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra, which are heavily influenced by the dominant local culture. Hence, Konkani is written in Devanagari, Roman, Kannada, Malayalam and Perso-Arabic scripts. “This phenomenon creates a linguistic and literary gap in the community of Konkani speakers,” the apper added.
Pointing to Census 2011, the paper states that the number of native speakers decreased from 24,89,015 to 22,56,502, with a growth rate of negative 9.34 percent.