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> > Quote: In Mississauga alone, there are quite a few significant > > personalities > > from the Konkani community. > > Source: The Mississauga News (Canada) Nov 1, 2002 at: > > http://www.mississauganews.com/mi/news/story/695054p-824781c.html > > Title: Multi-faiths define Goa's Konkanis > > By: Bikram Lamba The acceptance of a linguistic border to define a "community" needs to be debated. As far as I know, the term "Konkanis" is used in Karnataka to define a linguistic minority group, who are so obviously different from the mainstream Kannadigas (Kannada-speaking people). But, can the same be extended when talking of people in regions like Goa, or in the rest of the globe? For that matter, how many of us would define ourselves as 'Konkanis'? (The adding of an 's' to Konkanis, as done as in English to make it a plural word, might itself be linguistically questionable.) Sometime back people in coastal India were stoking up a linguistic identity, it was suspected to be aimed at claiming "minority" status for educational institutions (since "minority" status in India is accorded on either religious or linguistic basis). There are, of course, a number of sincere workers who believe that language is a better identity-marker than something like community or caste or even geography. But, for a few, language could only be a better way of camoflaging other identities. Just to clarify -- one way or the other, I don't have fixed views on this subject. But just think that it worth debating, if only from a perspective of satisfying intellectual curiosity. Goans' identity has been constantly redefined. In the early 20th century, it was defined on the basis of caste (both among Christians and Hindus). Later on, that got changed among Christians and the defining border became religion. Even later, by the 1980s, it became geography ('Goan' and 'non-Goan', though these are probably loaded terms in themselves). Now language? Defining a community on the basis of language is problematic for a number of reasons: (i) Konkani comes in many dialects and variants (ii) Often these are simply not recognised as such, and each community of speakers tries to push its own variant as the 'standard' Konkani (to be used as the official language, as the standard language for tiatr and mando, the language used at church, literary Konkani, etc) (iii) Below the surface-level similarities in this linguistic group, there are deep differences over dialects, scripts, caste and community. One could argue that there are more differences than similarities. On the expat front, there's another complication -- most expats families of Goan origin have take a (conscious?) decision somewhere down the lines to shift to English as their primary medium of communication. While today's expats have been repeatedly faulted for their not knowning what should have been their 'mother tongue', this trend is happening increasingly with other expat Indian linguistic groups... and those whose size is much larger and many-million strong. Of course, some of the points made above are deliberately provocative, to rake up possible debate on this forum. Any views? FN ---------------------------------------------------------- What's On In Goa (WOIG): * Nov 1-17: Swimming classes for children, others. SAG pool, Fatorda * Nov 1: Antonio Costa's painting exhibition opens, F.Oriente 6.30pm * Nov 3: Children's Day by Jan Ugahi, Navelim Perpetual Convent morning. * Nov 4: Book release, on Dr Gama Pinto, Lourdes Convent Saligao ----------------------------------------------------------
