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A
Konkani speaking Kuwaiti
It was at a
photo-copying shop in Kuwait many years ago.
A Kuwaiti man and I
were standing side by side, when we ought to have stood one behind the other,
for
a turn to get our construction drawings copied.
After the client before
us was done with, the Kuwaiti, as all of them think is their prerogative, went
ahead of me to the
machine. I let him hear my displeasure, mildly though, and the man quickly
turned back and apologised: “Borem re baba, tum zalear tum voch”.
First of all, how did a
Kuwaiti come to speak in my mother tongue so spontaneously , and secondly, how
did he guess I was a Goan?
Having been overwhelmed
by such a gesture, not only did I give him the privilege due a Kuwaiti, but even
got to know him better. He was a member of one of the oldest families of
Kuwait, the “AbdulRazzak’s”, who had made Goa his second home for several
years, but gave up just when the Portuguese did, to join the family business
back home. His uncle, incidentally, was a sponsor of the “Indian School” in
Kuwait.
As for the second part,
the Kuwaiti in question, as indeed most of them in those times, could easily
distinguish a ‘farangi’ Indian from a ‘Hindi’. I only became aware of this as
time went by, and that was perhaps one of the reasons how, my chance encounter
with a Konkani speaking Kuwaiti drew us closer to each other, along with his
Aligarh University graduate uncle, Khalid.
Bennet Paes
________________________________
From: Carvalho <elisabeth_...@yahoo.com>
To: Frederick FN Noronha फ्रेडरिक नोरोन्या *فريدريك نورونيا
<fredericknoro...@gmail.com>; "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!"
<goanet@lists.goanet.org>
Sent: Friday, 4 November 2011 5:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Goanet] Did Bob Marley know Konkani?
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As usual Frederick will regale us with his balderdash.
So he knows a German girl speaking in Konkani and extrapolates that to mean
"foreigners" speak in Konkani fluently. Yes, young children exposed to any
language have the ability to learn that language. Infact, linguists and those
companies that make "Phonics for children" are at pains to study how exactly
children learn language. But we are talking here of "many foreigners" who
resided in Goa presumably as adult fun-loving, pot-smoking hippies of the 1960s
that according to Dominic spoke fluent Konkani. And I say, this is a near
impossibility. For an adult to learn a language just by casually listening to
it, is an impossible task. Try it!! Ask the Konkani-speaking Goans living in
Swindon how easy it is to learn to speak English fluently. Their children of
course will master it. And if you are dealing with languages such as Arabic,
Hebrew, Mandarin or any of the Sanskrit derivatives then it is twice as hard
unless you study it as a language for many
years.
Secondly, I have no idea by Frederick has summarily dismissed Burton as
irrelevant to the discussion. Burton was a dedicated linguist -not a casual
observor or weed smoking "tourist", and my point is even he does not have
Konkani listed as one of the languages he spoke fluently, despite the fact that
he must have heard it spoken frequently around him.
Here is a list of the languages he spoke:
http://www.sirrichardfrancisburton.org/rfb_languages.html
We do know that he had some knowledge of it because here and there, he
translates words spoken by his "cookboys." Burton learnt and knew to speak
Marathi, closely related to Konkani. Burton believed that Konkani was a variant
of Marathi.
If you access the link it will say that he started learning his Portuguese from
a Goan (not entirely true, he started practicing his Portuguese with this
Goan). This was a priest that was stationed in Baroda. Because of his
relationship with the priest, Burton's quarters in Baroda were nicknamed "The
Inquisition." Notice, he chose not to converse in Konkani with this priest but
in Portuguese.
And what is this "baggage" that he came with and how is it different to
contemporary interests in a discussion relating to language? I challenge
Frederick to tell me about Burton's baggage. I am only putting forward this
challenge because I know I can confidentaly beat Mr Noronha to a pulp
in discussions relating to Burton :-)
Now one reason why he would not have bothered to learn the language was because
it had not value to him in his army career. But his closest aids in his
expedition into Africa were Goans and had he been speaking to them "fluently in
Konkani" then much would have been made of it. Instead, it his Goan boys, who
probably knew a bit of Hindi and English, who were expected to be translators
within the group.
Best,
selma
From: Frederick FN Noronha फ्रेडरिक नोरोन्या *فريدريك نورونيا
<fredericknoro...@gmail.com>
To: Carvalho <elisabeth_...@yahoo.com>; "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb.
1994!" <goanet@lists.goanet.org>
Sent: Friday, November 4, 2011 11:16 AM
Subject: Re: [Goanet] Did Bob Marley know Konkani?
As I see it, there are two separate issues here:
(i) Whether *many* foreigners who lived in Goa in the 1960s-1980s
spoke Konkani fluently. Frankly, I do not know, and there are AFAIK
no statistics to prove one way or another. What I *do* know is that
*some* foreigners did and do speak Konkani fluently. This is specially
true of young kids who grew up in the villages, and had
Konkani-speaking Goan kids as their playmates.
Just to give one example: the "German girl" who unfortunately got
caught up in a badly politicised controversy in which there were all
kinds of interests (as the son of a controversial politician was
involve), had grown up in my village. Local kids spoke to her in
Konkani, and she was referred to as if she was some kind of a local.
Even a school like the century-old Mater Dei, in Saligao, today has a
number of foreign students (because it is a privately-run unfunded
school, and has an English-medium primary). Though this ICSE school is
not obligated to teach Konkani, they do teach it to those who don't
take a "foreigner" exemption from Indian languages. Some kids there
speak English too with the most Goan of Goan accents, though their
genes could be traced to Germany, Sweden or Kashmir!
(ii) The second question is how easy or difficult the Konkani language
is to learnt...
Spoken Konkani is not difficult to master. The current "official"
Konkani is difficult, specialy for those not familiar with the
Devanagari script. Apart from the script, one also has to cope with
the Antruzi variant of the langauge there, which is not the commonly
spoken kind in large parts of Goa.
Of course, it is still hard to find Konkani learning courses and
texts, in Goa itself! Not to speak of tutors (many scholars face this
problem). But for foreign children, growing up with local children,
this is hardly a problem.
Lastly, I think Richard Burton's experiences a century or more ago are
hardly relevant to the experiences of tourists (and their children) in
today's Goa. He came with a certain baggage, while the contemporary
interest is quite different. FN
FN +91-9822122436 (SMS)
Doha, Qatar
On 4 November 2011 15:15, Carvalho <elisabeth_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dominic Fernandes wrote:
> As far as Konkani is concerned, many foreigners who lived in Goa from
> the late 1960s through mid 1980s spoke Konkani fluently. Of course,
> their children spoke better Konkani. Presently, foreigners' children are
> learning Konkani in our schools.
>
> RESPONSE:
> I find the assertion that "many foreigners...spoke Konkani fluently" bizarre.
> Konkani like most Asian languages would be very difficult for Europeans to
> master. The wide range of phonetics required, which are not found in their
> own language, make it nearly impossible for them to vocalise them not to
> mention memorize them. Secondly, the syntax of the language is different from
> European syntax and it would take years of dedicated study under the
> supervision of a trained monshee to master it. Even Goans who live in Goa but
> predominantly speak in English, have a hard time then speaking in Konkani
> "fluently". So the idea that "many foreigners" spoke it fluently is hyperbole
> at best.
>
> Even Sir Richard Burton who could speak many Indian languages did not have
> Konkani as one of the languages he spoke fluently. This despite the fact
> that he almost always hired Goans as his personal valet or cookboys because
> he thought they were far less trouble than other ethnicities. There is one
> letter from an acquaintance that says, he was heard speaking a mixture
> of Konkani and Portuguese with his "Goanese" servants.
>
> Best,
> Selma
>
