[Goanet]Konkani -independent language, not a dialect
http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php?part=news&Story_ID=041628Konkani independent language, not a dialect, says Fr Naik NT News Service Mapusa April 15: There is a belief that a language that is spoken more than it is written is a dialect and that which has more written literature is a language. That belief is a myth and not a fact. This was stated by the director of the Thomas Stephens Konkani Kendra (TSKK), Fr Pratap Naik at the history hour at the Xavier Centre for Historical Research, Porvorim today. The history hour was dealing with the topic, ?Konkani: myths and facts.? Fr Naik said there is a belief that just because there is a relatively low volume of written Konkani literature though it is commonly spoken, it is a dialect of some other language and not a language itself. This belief is a myth. Fr Naik cited the example of the Tullu language of Karnataka and said that though there is little written literature in Tullu, it is an independent language and not a dialect of any other language. He also demolished the myth that just because there is no separate script for Konkani, it is not an independent language stating that even Sanskrit does not have its own original script. Another myth that was broken by Fr Naik was the belief that Konkani is a daughter of Sanskrit. Stating that this is not true, he said it is difficult to say which is language and which is a dialect. There is yet another belief that prior to the arrival of the Portuguese there was a highly developed Konkani literature, which was destroyed by them. Fr Naik said this too is untrue. He said most of the inscriptions of the time prior to the Portuguese arrival were written in Persian, Sanskrit or Marathi. Fr Naik said he had found not a single leaf in Konkani dating back to those days. ?If the Portuguese had indeed destroyed all Konkani manuscripts in the Old Conquests, then why was Konkani literature not found in the New Conquests?? he asked. Fearing conversions, Fr Naik stated that our forefathers from the Old Conquests had moved heavy deities and heavy gold artefacts from the Old Conquests to the New Conquest areas. ?If they could move all those heavy articles, why did they not move relatively lighter manuscripts of Konkani literature? It is because not much written Konkani literature existed then,?he added. Another myth demolished by Fr Naik was that in Goa, Konkani is taught in most schools. Handing out copies of statistic (as on September 30, 2003) gleaned from the Directorate of Education, Fr Naik stated that out of a total of 966 government primary schools in Goa, 918 offered Marathi as the medium of instruction and only 79 offered Konkani as the medium of instruction.-- Regards, Carlos
[Goanet]Konkani - independent language, not a dialect
Navhind Times report: >Another myth that was broken by Fr Naik was the >belief that Konkani is a daughter of Sanskrit. Santosh Helekar wrote: It would be interesting to know what exactly is meant by the above statement. I thought Konkani was derived from one of the Prakrits (early spoken dialects of Sanskrit) and Apabhramsas (regional dialects) in the 10th century A.D. Dear Santosh, I was one of the many present last Friday at XCHR for Dr. Pratap Naik's controversial presentation on 'Myths regarding Konkani'. Dr. Naik when asked the very same question by an agitated, but obviously very knowledgeable, member of the audience, gave a very technical explanation of his assertion. From what little I understood, to be called a 'daughter' of Sanskrit a language has to fulfill certain criteria of Grammar and Vocabulary which Konkani does not fulfill. So from a pure linguist's point of view Konkani cannot be considered a 'daughter' of Sanskrit. A 'granddaughter' or 'grand niece' maybe but these are not terms used by linguists. Of course I cannot do full justice to Dr. Naik's very erudite and lengthy answer so it would be best you contact him directly for an explanation. But I would like to state that it was a very interesting presentation and the Question-Answer session that followed was quite heated, as I am sure will be the debates that will follow on the Goan Internet Forums. What we are forgetting is that Fr. Naik made it very clear that he was speaking from that particular podium purely as a linguist and not as a historian nor as a language activist. The emotional responses from the audience were more activist in nature. What Dr. Naik seemed to be trying to get across is that we are clouding Konkani with myths to give it some 'superior' appearance. If we just accept the facts we can have a more rational understanding of our mother tongue. That does not mean we love Konkani any less. Cecil P.S. I also suspect that Dr. Naik was purposely very hard hitting in his myths so as to intentionally provoke debate, which is always good. After the dust settles a better understanding of our language might emerge.
Re: [Goanet] Konkani -independent language, not a dialect
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php >part=news&Story_ID=041628Konkani > >Another myth that was broken by Fr Naik was the >belief that Konkani is a daughter of Sanskrit. > It would be interesting to know what exactly is meant by the above statement. I thought Konkani was derived from one of the Prakrits (early spoken dialects of Sanskrit) and Apabhramsas (regional dialects) in the 10th century A.D. Cheers, Santosh
