Team Herald
MARGAO: Dalgado Konkani Academy on Sunday passed a resolution demanding equal status to roman script along with Devanagari in the official language act, 1987 at the Writers Conference of Konkani (Roman Script) held at Ravindra Bhavan, Margao.
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Addressing the conference, Fr Gabriel Coutinho stressed on the script issue, besides teaching Konkani in roman scripts, in the schools.
Other resolutions passed at conference included suitable place for Roman script Konkani at the educational level by Government of Goa, besides recognition by Sahitya Academy, New Delhi for Roman script Konkani while selecting its all annual awards, i.e. literature award, children literature and translation awards.
“The Education Department should give due representation to Konkani written in Roman scripts literature in Goa University, colleges and schools syllabus. New government should give all the facilities to the Roman script”, the resolution read.
A day-long writer’s conference further demanded that the Government of Goa should substantially increase the grants to Dalgado Konknni Akademi.
Earlier, in the inaugural address Fr Gabriel said that even the Konkani teachers are finding it difficult to write their names in Konkani.
“The situations of the Konkani teachers are disgusting, as they don’t even know how to write their name in Konkani. And hence, I have also instructed them to give them courses of Roman script Konkani”, he said.
He further said that different scripts have made the Konkani language rich in itself.
“Roman script is used and in practice amongst the large population of Goa. However, it is very sad to know that many are trying to link the scripts with religion, which is resulting in differences amongst the Konkani people at large. These differences will keep on growing until we decide not to link the scripts with religion”, said Fr Gabriel.
He appealed to all to accept all the scripts of Konkani for the betterment and overall development of the language.
“There should not be injustice towards any script by keeping literature written in that script or in general any script aside. However, we need to be united in order to develop our Konkani language further,”, he added.
He further mentioned about the new education policy which will be introduced by the government very soon.
Fr Gabriel is said that Roman script needs to be introduced at the primary level while implementing the new education policy.
“As per the education act and constitution nobody can stop us teaching extra to the students in the schools, and hence a good planning can help us at the schools to teach Roman scripts”, he stressed.
He urged the Academy and Konkani writers to come up with audio-books, which is a need of an hour.
Fr Myron Barretto, working president of the Writers Conference, Vincy Quadros, president, Dalgado Konkani Academy and others also addressed the gathering.
