TSKK Romi Lipi released NT News Service Mapusa Aug 17: TSKK Romi Lipi, a 52-page booklet which deals with the modified Roman orthography of Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendr (TSKK) to write Konkani in Roman script, was released by the veteran Konkani singer, Mr Ullas Buyanv at a function organised by Dalgado Konknni Akademi at Grace Church Hall, Margao on August 15.
According to the press release, the book is written by Dr Pratap Naik, S J and it is published by TSKK, Alto-Porvorim. While releasing the book Mr Buyanv said though he is a Konkani speaker and supporter of Konkani, for his religious purpose he uses Sanskrit and Marathi. If the entire Hindu community uses Marathi for their religious purpose, the Goan catholic community has the right to continue and foster their religious tradition using Konkani in Roman script. Further he said that even though the British never ruled Goa, present day Goans have accepted English and discarded Portuguese. Stating that this was sad, Mr Buyanv said Goans should once again take interest to study Portuguese to understand old documents and records related to land and property. The President of the Dalgado Konknni Akademi (DKA), Mr Tomazinho Cardozo, said that every Goan should take pride to speak Konkani and to read Konkani in any script. He stressed the point that without Konkani Goa will lose its identity, and Goans will become strangers in their own land. The TSKK Director, Pratap Naik, compared Devanagari and Roman scripts to two wheels of a cart. With these two wheels the cart will move smoothly. Both the wheels are equally important and necessary for Konkani to exist, to flourish and to progress. TSKK took the initiative to modify the existing Roman orthography to suit the Konkani speech sounds, the requirements of e-mail and other computer applications. TSKK has evolved an orthography for Konkani which is scientific and at the same time user friendly. TSKK orthography makes use of a linear typing system without diacritics, making use of only the standard computer keyboard. It has used 24 alphabets of the Roman alphabet and added only two phonetic symbols available on the keyboard. Except three major and one minor speech sound all other speech sounds of Konkani are correctly represented in TSKK orthography. At present among all the orthographies used to write Konkani, TSKK Orthography is the closest to the pronunciation. It has 96% accuracy. This booklet contains a few Konkani texts in TSKK Roman Orthography, Devanagari and Kannada scripts. TSKK hopes that these texts will help Konkanis, and others to read and write Konkani in Roman script. The booklet is available at TSKK office, Zito Almeida, Margao, St. Pauls Bookshop, Panaji, Varsha Bookstall, Panaji and at Bom Jesus Bookstall, Old Goa, the press release adds. ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs