KONKANI NOT A DIALECT OF MARATHI
Lately our Cyber comrades are discussing concerning our Maim Bhass “Konkani” whether it’s a dialect or not.
Related to the same subject in 1999 Mr. Derrick Pinto from Mody Street – Mumbai wrote on “GOA TODAY” August issue on page 4 & 5 this following Letter to the Editor. I’m positive many of you will be surprised to know the details which many of us just ignore, due to which many have even criticized and abused our Konkani.
The other day a Maharashtrian friend of mine remarked, “Konkani is a dialect of Marathi. That is why Konkani does not have its own script.” This set me thinking. I am a linguist and I am interested in language and linguistics. I arrived at the following conclusions: If tongues were to be graded on a scale of 1 to 10, with a full fledged language like Hindi, Marathi, etc placed at 10 and any dialect at 5, Konkani would find its place at 7.5: Not 5, hence not a dialect and not 10 hence not a fully developed language. Why so? Why could Konkani not become a fully developed language? The reasons are obvious. People used Konkani only for oral communication but when it came to writing, the people in pre-Portuguese Goa wrote in Marathi. During the Portuguese reign, the Christian converts used Portuguese for written communication, while the Goan Hindus continued to use Marathi. As a result of this, the development of Konkani suffered a setback. Hence, 7.5 instead of 10. But definitely not 5 (a dialect).
Having a script does not decide whether a tongue is a dialect of an independent language. Even English (bestowed with the honour of being an international language) had to borrow the Roman script from Latin. Russian and other Slav languages had no script till St. Cyril formulated for them the Cyrillic Alphabet (being a mixture of Greek and Roman scripts) and for those who are ignorant, Konkani has not one but 6 scripts – Roman, Devnagri, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali and Arabic! Because Konkani is spoken all along the Konkan coast which lies in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala besides Goa. It is difficult to adopt any one of these scripts for Konkani because in each state, Konkani imbibes the accent and the vocabulary peculiar to that state or region which can be denoted only in that script eg the (e) sound cannot be dented in Devnagri which is possible in Roman (e) or Kannada script (w).
Coming to the vocabulary, as Konkani is one of the several daughters of the mother language Sanskrit, there are bound to be similarities as there are in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Punjabi, or Bengali, Oriya, Assamese. So this cannot be a ground for labeling Konkani as a dialect of Marathi. Even the syntax among most Indian languages is more of less similar. Hence, it is safe to conclude that while Konkani may not be as advanced as Marathi, it is not as under developed to be considered a mere dialect.
It is pertinent to recall that Kemal Pasha of Turkey changed the script of Turkish from Arabic to Roman. According to him, both Turkey and Turkish would develop if the Roman script was adapted. Personally I feel the same holds true for Konkani in Goa too. And I am not saying this because I am a Goan Catholic but because circumstances so warrant. Four hundred and fifty years of Portuguese rule, using the Roman script for writing Konkani, the language’s pronunciation and accent modified over the centuries, makes it difficult for us now, to be writing in the Devnagri script. If Konkani is to develop, it will do so only if the Roman script is adopted.
While on this, a special mention must be made of the valuable contribution made by the Vauraddeancho Ixtt in the development of the Konkani language. To write Konkani in the Roman script was taught to us by the Portuguese. Hence, they followed the Portuguese (Latin) rules of orthagraph (spelling) eg Using ‘c’ or ‘qa’ instead of ‘k’ ‘x’ for ‘sh’, the grave, cedilla, circumflex and tilde accent and avoiding ‘w’ and ‘y’. Some Newspaper s like the “Goa Times” circulating in Bombay used this style of spelling. Eg ‘Corrn’ instead of ‘Konn’ ‘quitem’ for ‘Kitem’ and so on. The Vauraddeancho Ixtt adopted certain rules for spelling Konkani words and this, consistently over the years of decades, This consistency gave a certain stability to Konkani orthography. It is widely accepted, recognized and used eg in liturgical works by the Church, etc and for this standardization, the Vauraddeancho Ixtt deserves a big award from the Konkani speaking people for its valuable contribution to the development of Konkani by giving a definite shape. A regularized spelling for Konkani’s vocabulary. A contribution over the years consistently and unstilted. Editors may come and go, but the crystallization has set in and this makes the paper stand out with authentic spelling.
But there is a flip side too. Over the years, the vocabulary has undergone a drastic change. Try comparing an issue of the newpaper of the 1970s with one of today. While the spelling (orthography) has been standardized, the language has become more and more Marathisized. Authentic Konkani words have come to be replaced by Marathi derivatives eg ‘fikir’ instead of ‘usko’ ‘khali’ for ‘rito’, etc and this pains a true lover of the Konkani language. Agreed, we need to develop Konkani, but not this way. Do we have to Konkanise Marathi words and use them? Eminent linguist, Dalgado, who is accredited with writing the first Konkani grammar and compiling the first Konkani dictionary, had, after much research, come to the conclusion that ”Concanim nao e o dialecto de Marathi” He knew better!
Best wishes to all, Viva Konkani.
Sanny Vaz – Kuwait.
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