Survival of the Fittest
By Wilmix Wilson Mazarello
A prominent Historian, Journalist & Social Activist from Pune
(Maharashtra), Mr. Mahavir Sanglikar has written a very down to earth
Article, on the Internet, entitled ‘Roman Script for Indian Languages”.
In this Article. Mr. Sanglikar quotes the Darwin’s “Theory of Survival
of the Fittest” and applies it to today’s situation of hundreds of
Scripts used to write Languages.
He is of the strong belief, that the Roman Script is the strongest
Script in the world today.
The reasons given by him are :-
a) Maximum number of languages in the world today, are written in the
Roman Script.
b) Maximum number of people in the world, today, are using the Roman
Script, for their writings.
c) Roman Script is the most “Computer–Friendly” Script in the World, today.
d) Most transactions of the World’s Economy, today, happen in the Roman
Script.
e) Roman Script has been accepted, by most everyone, as the ‘Script’ for
the future generations.
Considering the above, Mr. Sanglikar, applying the Darwin’s Theory,
strongly feels that most Languages using any Script, other than the
Roman Script, are likely to face extinction, some day.
He further adds, that it is in the best interest of all the languages,
to change over to the Roman Script immediately, for their very survival
& growth. And, the sooner they do it, the better it is for their
language and their people.
Now, we are all aware, that everyone in this world loves his or her
language.
So do we here in Goa, love our Mother-Tongue “Konkani’.
And since we really love our Mother-Tongue Konkani, it becomes our
bounden duty to ensure it’s safety and guarantee it’s development.
And if we accept this as our responsibility, then it is also a bounden
duty of all of us Goan’s to slowly wean-off any dependency on the
Devnagari Script, and adopt the Roman Script, in full.
For us Goans, this is nothing new. It does not make us shift from any of
our earlier held positions.
Goans always believed that in the present scenario, it is best to adopt
the 2-Script formula, viz. Roman Script & the Devnagari Script.
We still believe that, as long as some Goans, however small their number
be, continue to want the Devnagari Script, we should respect their
feelings and accept the 2-script formula, for Konkani.
However, we should never forget, that ultimately for the love of
Konkani, its survival & development we have to adorn it with the only
script of the future, ie. the Roman Script.
This, we should have already done by now. We are already late. Every day
lost weakens the base of our Konkani and we will have only ourselves to
blame for it.
Mr. Mahavir Sanglikar has done a thorough ‘Study’ on the future of
languages and it is only after this ‘Study’ that he recommends the usage
of the Roman Sript, for all Indian Languages, including Konkani.
He further states, that ‘Scripts’ at best can be described as “clothes”
of a language. Script is never the Language.
All languages have, at some time or the other changed their ‘Scripts’
(Clothes).
For example, both Hindi and Marathi, which today are written in the
Devnagari Script, were once being written in the “Brahmi” Script.
Subsequently, Hindi was written in the “Kayatthi” Script and Marathi was
written in the “Modi” Script.
Hindi was also written in the “Urdu” Script.
The Sanskrit language has been written in the past in many Indian
scripts along with “Thai” & “Tibetan” Scripts.
So also, the “Grantha”, “Sharda” and “Siddham” alphabets have been used
only for the Sanskrit Language.
Today, Sanskrit is written exclusively in the Roman Script.
Many languages of Africa, South East Asia and Central Asia have already
changed over to the Roman Script.
A fine example is the Turkish Language, which for so many years was
written in the Arabic Scipt, is now being written only in the Roman Script.
The German language was earlier written in the ‘Kurrent’ or “Fraktur’
Script, is now entirely written in the Roman Script.
Fortunately, for us Goans we already have with us the Roman Script for
Konkani.
Shall we accept it as God’s Blessing ? or let the Devils destroy it ?
Think it over, my fellow Goans.
(ENDS)
