On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Floriano Lobo wrote: > > > A city by any name, without a proper sewerage system, still smells the > same. > > > > Cecil > > *** > > Yes indeed. That plus the nomenclature 'Panaji' sure smells of the merger > with Maharashtra. Now that the merger is shelved forever and the > mergerist's wings are clipped , we shall strive to revert Panaji back to > Panjim. Hasn't it served us Goans for 450 years??? > > Floriano
I'm no expert in linguistics. But, to me, Panaji seems to be a pale post-1961 imitation to the Portuguese Pangim (both pronounced in almost the same way if the second 'a' is not stressed in Panaji, as it wasn't initially). Likewise, let's not pretend, Panjim is probably a word that, along the way, became a mispronounced English-language version ... also of the very same Portuguese-influenced Pangim. Whatever happened to Ponnje, the word still on everyone's tongue? Let's not get too heated up about this issue. Different linguistic groups tend to pronounce words differently. Bicholim and Dicholi are actually quite close to each other in pronounciation when one remembers that the ending 'm' is almost silent in Portuguese-influenced words, and the 'B' and the 'D' are pronounced much like each other in many parts of South Asia. My Bengali friend, Bijon Shaha, is of the view that changing the name of Bombay to Mumbai was a stupid thing to do, Maharashtrians could just let the world call the city whatever they wanted, while calling it "Mumbai" themselves. Much like the people who are Germans (in English), Alemao (in Portuguese), something else in French ... and to themselves, simply Deutschlanders. Have you noticed that when a Goan hears a word or spells it, unless he's learnt some standardised form of Konkani, tends to spell it differently and probably also hear it differently -- depending on factors like community, caste, region, etc? Chief minister Manohar Parrikar has been complaining that he can't quite understand the abtruse Konkani language used by newspapers like the 'Sunaparant', while my journalist colleague Mayabhushan Nagvenkar (now with the Tehelka) was also saying the same just today. FN ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################