Team Herald
MARGAO: The Global Konknni Forum (GKF) has called on the All India Konkani Parishad (AIKP) President, Fr Mousinho Ataide, to reconsider his stance on the sole use of Devanagari as the script for Konkani, citing recent remarks by prominent thinker and language researcher Ganesh Devy. GKF President Kennedy Afonso pointed out that Devy’s insights underscore the idea that Konkani has no inherent, “natural” script, urging Fr Ataide to avoid advocating otherwise.
“In fact, there is no natural script for Konkani, so Fr Ataide should stop misleading Goans on this issue. Ganesh Devy has illustrated how languages globally have flourished with multiple scripts,” stated Afonso.
“This is why the Sahitya Akademi must abolish their one language, one script policy, as it threatens the Konkani language, which is already on the endangered list. The All India Konkani Parishad’s policy of sidelining all other scripts to promote Devanagari will ultimately spell doom for the Konkani language,” he noted
The GKF also expressed optimism that the AIKP would take Devy’s remarks to heart and adopt an inclusive approach towards all scripts used for Konkani. Devy, who was the Chief Guest at the recent 33rd AIKP in Margao, observed that a script is incidental to a language, and there is no such thing as a “natural script” unless one is specifically designed for that language.
Referring to Devy’s insights as ‘groundbreaking’, Afonso elaborated, “He offers examples of thriving languages like Spanish, English, and Hindi that are not bound to a single script. This debunks the notion that any language requires a uniform script for its success.” Devy also addressed broader myths about Aryan- Sanskrit-Nagari script heritage, urging an open-minded perspective on script usage for languages.
GKF has been advocating for Romi Konkani to be granted official script status, and for it to be introduced in schools.