-------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Add your name to the CLEAN GOA INITIATIVE | | | | by visiting this link and following the instructions therein | | | | http://shire.symonds.net/pipermail/goanet/2005-October/033926.html | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- We'll need to await some more responses to Uday Bhembre's speech, to get a better idea of the debate. But frankly I didn't find it anything new or that addresses the main issues concerning language in Goa. Let me narrate a few brief points I tried to make at the event Thursday. Firstly, I introduced myself as the father of a seven-year-old daughter who was studying Konkani as a *foreign language*.
Foreign language, exploded someone in the audience. Yes, I maintained. That's the case with the Antruzi dialect that dominates textbooks being so alien to the spoken variant we're used to. It's also distinct from the Bardesi (which in turn in different from Sashti, and the dialects spoken in Canacona or Pernem, and so on). So the lack of accomodation of various scripts was reducing Konkani to a foreign language. While we talk endlessly about *scripts* the unwritten agenda seems to be to sideline various dialects, all in the name of standardisation. In a state where the spoken variant of the language changes after every 40 kilometres, isn't this a recipe for disaster? If you read the primary school text books, even those of the second standard, there would be a large number of words which you wouldn't understand. Much like the 'padribhas' which today dominates the religious services in church. Okay, that's fine for a self-acknowledged 'denationalised' Goan like myself. (This term is used as an insult these days; fact is, a tradition in migration affects one in many ways, as the 20 million Indians scouring the planet are finding. Goans, with their earlier and relatively more impactful tradition in migration, learnt this lesson only more earlier.) But what does it imply when my friends like Tomazinho Cardozo of Candolim or Mahendra Prabhudessai of Parcem in Pernem also struggle to understand certain words in a second standard text? This is no exaggeration; we went through this exercise some time back at our unofficial press club in Panjim, the hole-in-the-wall Cafe Prakash. Is this because of an attempt at trying to suddenly create a large number of words for a language which has traditionally made-do with a smaller vocabulary? Does it imply that words from one region, still unfamiliar in others, are being used, without taking diversity into account? Maybe someone better in the world of linguistics could let us know. I pointed out to Mr Bhembre how their campaign had, in effect, reduced half my family into illiteracy -- my mother knows the language, but not the script; my wife knows the script (being a speaker of Marathi and Hindi in her Mumbai days) but not the language! So, I often end up taking Riza's lessons... which is fine; this is no complaint. Learning languages can be fun ;-) and I voluntarily also buy the Sunaparant, adding one copy to its debated circulation figures, and, now, the Tarun Bharat, the widest-circulated Marathi daily. My fear is that if we carry on with the same approaches, Konkani [1] might end up, by 2050, on the lists of extinct languages that the world [2]. Maybe Mr Bhembre didn't like being questioned about the use of parochialism and anti-Maharashtra/Marathi sentiment as a tool to whip up pro-Konkani campaigns in Goa. It works. Specially among Catholic audiences. IMHO, it was unfortunate that Catholics here got involved in what basically is a debate more about caste and less about language! If you had doubts about the links between caste and language, check this [3]. Instead of castigating the section of Goans who prefer to opt for Marathi (they're actually bigger Konkani speakers than many of us, and use it most of the time), can we ask *why* they make this choice? Is there something wrong with the force-feeding that makes them develop a gag-response? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konkani [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_languages [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Konkani Perhaps the biggest challenges today to Konkani are not from any 'rival' language, but from within. From its own failures and its own slow progress in marching ahead in the modern world. Among all the 'national languages' Konkani is one of the handful that lacks of a free software volunteer team to get a computer desktop to work in that language [4]. (One is not talking about machine translation here.) [4] http://www.indlinux.org Konkani is hardly visible on the Internet, thanks to all the wranglings over 'script' 'standardisation' and so on. Have you anytime seen how difficult things can be for someone wanting to learn Konkani? Leave aside modern teaching aids (like CDs, etc) there are hardly any decent real-world courses to learn. Mr Bhembre's was an impressive speech; but it flattered to deceive. It was rather reductionist in approach. If you tuned in, you might be forgiven for thinking that the entire issue was simply about a few books getting some thousands of rupees in grants, to be published in Konkani. Alito Siqueira (Goa University, sociology) made a good case to do away with old-fashioned ideas about one nation, one language, one script. Now is the time for accepting diversity, he suggested. My view is that rather than getting caught up in grandstanding over Devanagari-alone, Devanagari-and-Roman-only, or Marathi-must-get-its-own-place, we need to go further. Can Goa not recognise that in a multicultural situation, the diversity of different language groups need to be recognised? Goa has been a melting pot, let it remain one. Why is one language legitimate, while another illegitimate? As Modi's Gujarat and the Left in West Bengal goes in for greater levels of English-language primary education, we're going about destroying a legacy that gave young students from this region about the highest TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) scores in the world. But if you raise such issues, the 'de-nationalised' stick could quickly come out. While we are quick to talk about Konkani in Kerala and Karnataka, why shouldn't minority languages like Kannada and Urdu be considered worthy of promotion? For a culture whose people have written in 13 different languages (Prof Peter Nazareth's figure) we are remarkably insular! In days when there are takers for even Italian here, surely Portuguese and French could have a place, along with German. Should it bother me unduly if the Marathi papers outsell the official-script Konkani paper by a factor of 50:1? Do *I* have a right to decide what language people read, study, pray, correspond with their government or watch movies in? Mr Bhembre responded by ignoring most issues raised, and saying instead that text book problem lay with me not knowing the language well enough. He completely overlooked my earlier issue about dialects -- while I can understand 95% (if not more) of a Prince Jacob film, comprehension goes down to maybe 65% for a second standard text book! That's the problem. Being a language supporter in Goa has come to mean deletimising (and marginalising) groups of people -- a quarter of the state's population because they are migrants from other states into Goa, another quarter because they had migrated abroad or are currently living there, another large chunk because their vocabulary is unacceptably limited, and even more because the speak in a dialect (like in Pernem or Canacona) which isn't quite "shuddh" (pure) Konkani! At the end of the day, we could easily end up with a group of ten persons, small enough to rotate all the 'national' Konkani prizes among themselves, and also hold office in rotation (but even then, it seems, disagreements do break out among such groups). Just sharing a few thoughts. And I just think there's insufficient debate on such issues; no bitterness here. After the session, I shared a few pleasanteries with Mr Bhembre, who promised to send across an electronic version of his paper. And he did. It has been circulated earlier for another point of view--FN -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Independent Journalist | http://fn.swiki.net Goa, India | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436 ---------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1st Young Goans International Essay contest 2005 | | | | Theme: WHAT CAN I DO FOR GOA | | More details at | | http://shire.symonds.net/pipermail/goanet/2005-October/034190.html | --------------------------------------------------------------------------