The 16th century Portuguese grammarians, João de Barros and Fernando Oliveira, sought to work out “standards” for the teaching of the vernacular in Portugal. Barros tried his methods upon the princelings at the royal court. Both were convinced of the linguistic imperialism, and Barros more than Oliveira, was convinced that the Portuguese should replace the Romans in such a mission. He regarded the Portuguese language as the eldest daughter of Latin. However, he was not an advocate of "classicism" and of using archaic words and expressions, but rather in favour of employing those which had been naturalized by long usage in the northern province of Minho e Douro, which region he regarded as “preservative of Portuguese seed”! Barros also approved of incorporating various Asian and African words, those which were already naturalized by 1539, and others which we can be found scattered in his “Decades”. The Portuguese missionaries shared this spirit of linguistic imperialism. Let us not forget that the Portuguese Church Padroado was a tool of the Portuguese expansion overseas. It is understandable therefore, as Dr. José Pereira invokes in a recent posting on Goanet, that there was a standard Konkani during 16th to 18th centuries. Curiously, the Portuguese “liberal” politics (if it had anything of “liberalism” with respect for freedom and equality of rights, as the common folk may wish to understand it) it should have been easier to sustain and strengthen Standard Konkani after 18th century! Perhaps the new spirit of European imperialism generated by the Industrial Revolution (which hardly touched Portugal till very recent times) was responsible for the destruction of Standard Konkani that was promoted until then by the Portuguese colonial interests? We know it from the early writings of the Portuguese missionaries that they looked upon the “xennoy” Brahmins as the local intellectual / religious / burocratic elite. Hence, the missionaries sought to neutralize their influence among the natives by imitating and superseding their cultural talents, including their linguistic domination. That may explain why the “xennoy” standards got promoted! When the xennoys themselves were cowed down or won over to replacing their traditional linguistic tools (writing village records in “Konkanized Marathi” in Goymkanadi script as village kulkarnis and shannbog, in favour of Portuguese language, the “xennoy” standards survived only through the missionary imitations! The Inquisition pressures and the post-Tridentine spirit did their part in reducing and eliminating the need of these missionary imitations. The question now remains: Which and whose “standard” should Goan konknni adopt in our days? We may need to answer: Which are the new dominant ( “imperialist” ) interests that can dictate or promote a “standard” konknni? Would it be acceptable to revive the “xennoy” standard that was sustained and promoted by the Christian missionaries and the Portuguese administration when and while it suited them? I do not believe that there is any academic response that is waiting to be put into practice. It is a part of the dynamics of the political and economic reality as it is evolving on the ground. The Goa Konknni Akademi, the Dalgado Akademi, and other such bodies may all represent the melting pot of Goan cultural evolution today. My hunch is that a "standard" that utilises preferentially (I am not for abandonment of the native scripts) the roman script may reach further and do better in our cyber-globalized world and wide intercultural mingling. The xennoy-missionary" standard of the 16th-18th centuries can serve us as a good model of our past history for working out a compromise solution that could bring together, rather than divide the Goans in their linguistic-cultural efforts. Teotonio R. de Souza Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk
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