A Barcelona Jesuit, Pe. Jorda, published a Konkanni-English in the 40's,
perhaps a first for the language. He was transferred to Brazil in the 50's,
where he served out his teaching career. I want to believe that he conducted
Konkanni classes for children there, and he likely did ! Perhaps Teotonio
can tell us more.
I dined a few hours ago with a group of Hindu Goans in New Jersey -
mostly professionals, inmany different fields: not a word of english was heard
in the room, it really was heart warming. I noticed a small change,
however - the language has acquired a shade of marathi. One can attrbute it
to the lifting of physical barriers with India and the permeation of the
dominant culture of 200 million people on the other side of a very porous
border. I am acquainted that form of the language, it was spoken by
Malvan/Ratnagiri Catholic friends. They are known as 'Bardeshkars' where they
live, and they now have a new Goan bishop. I hope the man is up to his
Devnagiri, because those expat Goans of many generations live and breathe
marathi. They are loyal, but insist on sending their children to the two
Anglican marathi language schools in Bombay, The Robert Money, for boys,
and St. Columba School for Girls.
Mannkikar was missing today: his usual jibe in college was let me here
you say conn, it's the waywe mispronounce kohn, the word for who; but it is
true about every other word, for that matter, an inevitable consequence of the
introduction of an alien script to a language. With Roman, we speak
alphabetic, as opposed to the Amhara-Sanskrit syllabic, so it rather pleases
me to hear todays catholic young, raised on devnagiri, ask for chhe-kan when
they mean chick-in !
'Hav arr yoo, Pinta' is a daily greeting at work from Elena, a
Russian. The Slavs use o when they mean to say a, a mix that gets fatal at a
late night Kosovo ethnic ambush: Muslims say Kosovo, it is Kosova to the
Serbs. We will never arrive at that, but one can expect to be treated
indifferently, at the least, if one insists on being different, and if i sound
grotesque to my friend, i fully understand.
eric.
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