My (possibly incorrect) view is: * There is probably no one-to-one equivalence in languages. So there's no exact equivalent for 'hello' in Konkani.
* One would not ask 'how are you'. Instead, you use a round-about way to get to that point in Konkani. "Nisteak kitem?" (What's the fish on the menu today... asked before noon, a way of saying 'hi'.) Even 'Boslea?' (Are you seated? Many expats get pretty bugged by this form of greeting, not understanding its connotations, and attempting a one-to-one translation.) In cyberspace [http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071217023102AAllRso] the answers being given are How are you?- Kashi assa? Where ru?-Khay assa tu? Keep in mind that there are a lot of (mostly unacknowledged) dialectal differences in spoken and written Konkani. (Konkani has been more spoken in the past.) The persons attempting to render Konkani (above) into the Roman script are probably not users of that script, and are using it because of the keyboard they use. So don't follow the accepted conventions. While the result might sound okay to their 'guessing' ear, it comes across, as you say, sounding "Marathified". Or should we say Sankritisied. (This is also aggravated by the move to rid Konkani of 'impure' foreign languages, and only depend on 'national' ones. You should read a book called "Hindi Nationalism" by Alok Rai, an IIT prof and grandson of the great Hindi poet Munshi Premchand, for more on a parallel debate in the context of Hindi-Urdu-Hindustani.) I think more appropriate spellings for the above would thus be: Kosho assa? Or Koshi assa? (depending on gender of person addressed). Khuim assa tum? I'm sure someone better equipped could correct us on these issues... * This is supposed to offer a machine translation, but it doesn't work: http://www.savemylanguage.org/app/konkanitoenglish.php FN