Two things unite the Konkani speakers on the Western Coast of India – one is the Konkani language and the other is the plethora of controversies surrounding it. Quite recently, with the Roman script Konkani protagonists as well as Marathi protagonists in Goa demanding an amendment in the Official Language Act of Goa, 1987 (OLA-87), fresh controversies have erupted. Each camp has tried to legitimise its stand. The lacuna of a historical and linguistic response on the subject matter is obviously evident. In the Konkani world, scripts and dialects have caste and religious overtones. Is the Konkani case understood? Can there be a possible solution?
Konkani’s contested origins
Konkani, like other Middle Indo-Aryan languages, is part of the Indo-European language family having its origin in the various Prakrits that were spoken in the northern part of the Indian sub-continent. Proponents of the official script, viz. the Devanagari alone can’t argue their viewpoint from the antiquity argument. For them, the oldest is the natural, and the natural must be legal and official. Consequently, the Konkani language and the official script issue is a closed chapter for them. From a linguistic perspective, any language can be written in any script. Either a script is created or a script from another language is adopted to equally represent the sounds of a particular language. Hence when we say “natural script” it should have the capacity to represent the specific sounds which the adoptee language has.
What the non-Nagari users accuse the Devanagari lobby is that they have diverted all the government benefits and awards for themselves. In the same vein, Devanagari proponents have worked towards getting the administrative and educational corpus translated into Konkani, with Konkani being taught in Goa, Karnataka and Kerala schools and the state administration in Goa slowly moving towards Konkani. The Devanagari script choice by the elite Catholic clergy of Goa, despite their inability to read or write in that script, is an important point to be considered in the Konkani script row.
Konkani’s first script
As pointed out by the renowned epigraphist Eugen Hultzsch, the Shravanbelagola stone inscription of the 12th century is a Marathi inscription in the former state of Mysore (present day Karnataka). Its presence in the Kannada speaking region shows the prestigious position that Marathi held even outside its homeland. Moreover, the words karaviyalẽ (causative verb form of – to do) and suttalẽ (surrounding wall) have an entry in Dr Shankar Gopal Tulupule’s Old Marathi dictionary. To say it is the first Konkani inscription would be technically incorrect. Further, considering the historical fact that Chavundaraya, a Jain king of the Western Ganga dynasty had an inscription (c. 10 ACE) for a Konkani population at that time, in that part of Karnataka is difficult to assume. The claim that foreign missionaries gave Konkani its first script is equally contentious. Some form of Konkani literature in the Kannada/Kandavi script might have existed. The pre-sixteenth century Ramayana and Mahabharata would have been in that script.
Konkani and Kannada script
Archival records in Goa reveal that Konkani subjects under the Kannada rulers not only adopted the Kannada script, but also had their own version of Kannada to write Konkani which is the Gõy-kanadi lipi or the Goan-Canarese script. The comunidade assembly minutes are entirely in the Old Kannada script and the signatures of the Gaonkars are either in Roman script (of Catholics after conversion) or Kannada script during the initial Portuguese regime. The first Goan to be knighted in Lisbon, in 1538 ACE has his signature in the Kannada script. It is due to this reason that the wrong nomenclature of Konkani being called as “lingua canarim” came to be used, while Marathi was known as Marhastri. Till date no Konkani manuscripts, either in Devanagari or any other script, which would have escaped the alleged burning of indigenous literature by the Portuguese, are found in the New Conquest areas.
The foreign missionaries knew Konkani and Marathi to be distinct languages along with their scripts. Their letters to their superiors in Rome reveal that they were also keen to get their compositions published in the local scripts – lettera da terra. The Flos Sanctorum, the only missionary manuscript composed in Goa in the Old Kannada script reveals a lot more. Here we find the retention of schwa. Bi-syllabic and tri-syllabic words in this text, when compared with the handwritten glossary (in Roman script) of Fr Diego Ribeiro perfectly match each other. The schwa is not retained in modern day Marathi, northern Konkani dialects and the Kanara Christian dialect.
Hence, words like tăkli, âstâ, distâ, etc. were written as tăkăli, âsătâ, disătâ, a feature still prevalent among the present Salcete dialect of Goa and to some extent in the GSB dialects of Kanara and Kerala. Thus, we can safely conclude that during the initial stages of Portuguese rule, Kannada was the predominant script for Konkani.
Konkani and Devanagari script
The earliest confirmed record of the use of Devanagari script for Konkani is the testimonial given by the three Konkani pandits Appa Bhat, Ranga Bhat and Vinayaka Pandit from Cochin in the Hortus Malabaricus composed between 1669 to 1676 ACE. The allegiance of these vaidyas with the Dutch colonial power is worth noting. Interestingly, the first complete Konkani book printed in the Devanagari script was the New Testament Konkani Bible by the Protestant Missionary William Carrey in 1818 which is in the North Kanara GSB dialect of Konkani. In the modern period Shenoi Goembab, who against the background of the eki-movement of uniting all Saraswat sub-castes, could be credited to promote Konkani in the Devanagari script. His lashing against Goans who considered Marathi as their mother tongue is equally justifiable. Prior to him, Monsignor Dalgado’s effort, to represent Konkani in the Devanagari script along with the Jonesian system of Romanization may also be considered. However, neither present day Roman nor Devanagari users follow his method.
Konkani and Roman script
Konkani in the Roman script came be used due to Christian missionaries who scientifically wrote Konkani. A fact which today’s Roman script protagonists ignore. Thanks to them scholars can now study Old Konkani literature. In the modern period, Fr Maffei, Shenoi Goembab, Dr Eduardo de Bruno and Mons Dalgado made efforts to represent the Konkani sounds accurately by using symbols or diacritical marks.
The first seven books of Shenoi Goembab in the Roman script serve as a good model of Romanization, different from what is used by the Church today in Goa. Being, an international script this script has the potentiality to unite Konkani speakers all over the globe, at least at the literary level.
An academic proposal
We live in a globalized world. There has been a lot of East West mutual exchange. The appellation of the Roman script as vestiges of the colonizers is redundant today in a globalized world. One could also argue that both Konkani and the Roman script are genetically of the Indo-European stock. Hence rather than colonization it is globalization today, resonating with the Indian ethos of “vasudhaiva kutumbakam,” which calls us to ‘think globally, act locally.”
In such a diglossic situation, we have two models before us – the Hindi-Urdu model and the Serbian model. The former, split the one Hindustani language into two, creating mutual animosity. Serbians on the other hand, recognized both the Latin as well as the Cyrillic script.
Today both are taught in schools and used in administration. Could we take a clue? The Karwar convention of 1939 was a national vision for Konkani. Another convention with a “global vision” where all stakeholders of Konkani are equal partners is still awaited.
(Jason Pinto is a Salesian Priest, PhD research scholar in Linguistics, Konkani writer and teacher)