The stone inscriptions and copper plates of the 2nd century BC to the 15th century AD, found in Goa and other parts of Konkan, suggest that Konkani was spoken and written in Goa and Konkan in the pre-Portuguese era. Early 16th Century manuscripts of Krishna Charitrakotha and of the stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata were discovered in the Public Library of Braga, Portugal. Their author is Krishnadas Shama, a Goan, born in Quelossim.
The Jesuits, in Goa, had mastered local scripts in the second half of the 16th century. One extant evidence; is the manuscript of Thomas Stephens’ ‘Khrista Purana’ in Devanagari (presently in the Marsden collection in the School of Oriental Studies, London). A catechism, in Tamil script, had been printed in 1578 and 50 Devanagari types, for Konkani, were ready around that time. Their Superior, however, changed his mind, for reasons best known to him, and stopped the ongoing work for Devanagari printing. This meant a virtual imposition of the Roman Script, rather “Luso-Roman Script”, on Konkani. There were pleadings for his reconsideration, Fr Stephens being the most outspoken. Disappointed, he circulated the manuscript copies of his Purana, to satisfy the heavy demand for it, even from Hindus.
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Fr Stephens, being an English, found it most difficult the transliteration from Devanagari into Luso-Roman Script. This fact probably explains the long delay in getting his Purana printed in Luso-Roman Script only in 1616. He passed away in 1619. The printing of Konkani in Luso-Roman script stopped by 1640. The policy of Lusitanization strengthened by the “Alvara” of 1684, banning the study and use of Konkani, was the last nail on the coffin of Konkani in Luso-Roman script. Therefore its life was around 75 years.
The Official Portuguese Primary Schools started in 1541. Being mostly in urban areas, they catered mainly to the children from the Portuguese and higher class Goan families. Schools in rural areas, inhabited by Christians, called ‘Escolas Paroquiais’, came up in 1545. Run by the Church institutions they taught catechism, religious singing and music and reading and writing the Luso-Roman alphabet. They were attended mostly by the middle class Christian boys. The teachers called mistirs, though experts in their art had just a rudimentary knowledge of the Portuguese language. The upper class Christians; aside the rest practically remained semi-literate or illiterate.
Towards the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, emigration of middle class Goans, mostly Christians, started. Letter writing being the only means of communication, they made best use of the only script they knew, namely Luso Roman Script, bereft of k, w, y letters. This is the time the Goan Christians wrote Konkani in that script. This writing system had nothing to do with the one of 16th and 17th centuries. The open and closed, long and short vowels, simple and compound consonants and aspirated sounds were ignored and consequently the writing occasionally created confusion in its interpretation. Dr Mariano Saldanha cites an example of a person, returned from Mumbai, writing to his friend, in Mumbai, “Tujea cazrak lagun maca matse tras zale…” meaning literally “the writer had faced some problem because of the wedding of that friend”. But the addressee who had sent, with him, some khazur (dry dates) to his family, in Goa, got the message right.
Many systems of writing Konkani, in Luso Roman script, have been devised: Thomas Stephens’, in 16th century, Eduardo Bruno de Sousa, 1889, Dalgado, 1905, Prof Joaquim Antonio Fernandes, and more recently, Goa Konknni Akademi, Fr Vasco do Rego, Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendra, etc. None of them has been fully successful for, as Dalgado rightly said, “An oriental language should not be guided by any European tongue. Konkani should be written in its proper alphabet, Devanagari… and when it needed to be Romanized it should follow such a system as has been adopted in common agreement for the mother-tongue and the other vernaculars…” Presently, as it happened to Thomas Stephens, those, without a Portuguese background, find writing and reading Konkani, in Luso-Roman script, difficult and intriguing. Therefore Konkani in Luso-Roman script has its days precariously numbered. Only “Konkani in Devanagari Script” is destined to last.
