Frederick Noronha (FN)
Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:05:25 -0700
LANGUAGE
Tongue In A Twist
Kannada or Devanagari? The dialect-rich Konkani sets off furious debate
on the choice of script in Karnataka.
SUGATA SRINIVASARAJU
On April 13, the destructive rage of
language activists burnt down the
Central Library in Imphal, giving a
shocking new twist to the
controversy surrounding the script
for the Manipuri language. Manipuri
nationalists, since the state was
integrated into the Indian Union in
1949, have demanded that the ancient
indigenous script of the language,
Meitei Mayek, be restored and the
Bengali script, adopted
two-and-a-half centuries ago, be
abandoned.
A similar controversy is raging in a
diagonally opposite end of India, in
the Konkan region, and this is about
choosing an appropriate script for
the Konkani language in Karnataka.
"Kannada
Konkani is
our identity
marker. It
will be lost
if we adopt
Devanagari.
How can we
let it go?"
Eric Ozario,
Konkani
Sahitya
Academy
A rough estimate
puts Konkani
speakers at 37
lakh in Karnataka,
spread across
three coastal
districts. Konkani
has been the
mother-tongue of
some very famous
Indians, like
filmmakers Guru
Dutt and Shyam
Benegal, writer
Girish Karnad,
badminton ace
Prakash Padukone
and Nandan
Nilekani of
Infosys.
The script
controversy here
though, for
practical reasons,
is unlikely to
witness the
devouring pitch of
Imphal.
Nevertheless, a debate consuming the
attention of the linguistic
community is on and it is gradually
acquiring political overtones. The
dilemma being faced by Konkanis in
Karnataka is whether they should
stick to the Kannada script they
have been using for centuries, or
shift to Devanagari, to foster a
larger ethnic unity with Konkani
speakers scattered in other Indian
states, mostly Maharashtra and Goa;
or merge with the global tide and
use the tech-friendly Roman script,
as a good majority of Goan
Christians and even others are said
to do.
Although the dilemma has existed for
quite some time now, the debate has
suddenly come alive in Karnataka
because the state government, bowing
to the long-standing demand of the
community, has agreed to introduce
Konkani as a subject in schools from
Class 6.
Before it embarked
on the process of
preparing
textbooks, it
asked the
community to
internally evolve
a consensus on
what script should
be used, and the
choice given was
between Kannada
and Devanagari.
Devanagari is the
official script in
Goa, where Konkani
is the official
language. Besides
the script, the
Konkanis were
asked to decide
what
'boli' (dialect)
of the language to
standardise for
the textbooks, as
the dialect
"Devanagari
suits
Konkani as
it is close
to Prakrit.
But a good
number have
used Kannada
for a long
time."
Girish
Karnad,
playwright
is said to change every 20 km along the coast.
A couple of weeks ago, the Konkani Sahitya Academy, an autonomous body
set up by the state government, after an elaborate consultative process,
decided on Kannada as the script for Konkani. "We invited 121 eminent
Konkani people to place their opinion in writing. Out of the 67 who
responded, 44 voted for Kannada, 19 for Devanagari, two for the Roman
script and the remaining two were unclear. We also conducted a survey in
102 schools in the region where 88 per cent of the students, teachers
and parents endorsed the Kannada script. So, we chose Kannada," says
Eric Ozario, president of the Academy. As regards the dialect, a
20-member 'Zankar' committee decided to adopt the structure of the
language used in Goan schools and build a lexicon that draws copiously
from the 16-odd dialects.
But the politically powerful Devanagari lobbyists have taken this
"majority decision" badly. They have argued that the Central Sahitya
Akademi has only recognised Konkani written in Devanagari; Konkani on
currency notes too is written in Devanagari and the upsc too has allowed
the Konkani paper to be answered only in Devanagari. "When such is the
case, why should we disadvantage our children by adopting the Kannada
script? Devanagari will also unify the community across India; our
language has its roots in Sanskrit," they claim.
But Ozario counters this. "If the Kannada script is gone in Karnataka,
an ethno-specific character of Konkani would be lost," he says."Also,
our literature in the Kannada script is no inferior to the one written
in Devanagari.
More importantly, when not a single
Konkani newspaper or periodical in
Karnataka uses Devanagari, why
should we impose the script? In 2004
alone, there were 40 books written
in Kannada Konkani, which is not a
small number for a minority
language. Also, church literature in
about 165 churches is in Kannada
Konkani. All this will be lost if we
adopt Devanagari. Kannada Konkani is
our identity marker, so how can we
let it go?"
But there are some people within the Konkani community like Anand Shanbhag, organising secretary of the Uttara Kannada Zilla Konkani Parishat, who take the middle path: "I was at the meeting convened by the Academy and I suggested that we should give people a choice to use either Kannada or Devanagari. "It's a problem Konkanis face as they are spread across ethnic and geographical areas." K.V. Narayan, linguist This trend is already prevalent; in the Konkani PG Department at St Alosyius College in Mangalore, students use both Devanagari and Kannada," he says. "That may be the final solution. In order to keep the unity of the Konkanis, here we may have to ask the government to prepare textbooks in both the scripts," says Ozario. Renowned linguist and former vice-chancellor of the Kannada University, K.V. Narayana, confirms that the issue is a complicated one: "This is a problem peculiar to the Konkani linguistic community because it is spread across ethnic and geographical areas. The other two prominent languages within Karnataka, Tulu and Kodava, do not have this problem. They quite comfortably use the Kannada script. Konkani is probably the only scriptless Indian language which uses nearly half-a-dozen scripts and code-mixes with an equal number of languages. Along the west coast, a good number of Konkanis use Arabic, Malayalam, Roman, Devanagari and Kannada scripts depending on the dominant one in the region. At one level, Konkani's situation is much like Kannada, which shares borders with five languages, creating a high instance of code-mixing and dialect variety. An ideal option could be to encourage a bilingual environment across Konkani-speaking regions and also promote Roman as a parallel script, if not as an alternative," he says. Renowned filmmaker Shyam Benegal offers greater "My rule of the thumb would be: people should use the script of dominant regional language." Shyam Benegal, filmmaker perspective to the issue: "I have never written in Konkani, but when my mother wrote a letter to my father, she used the Kannada script. That is because she grew up in the South Kanara region. At that time, South Kanara came under Madras Presidency and North Kanara came under Bombay Presidency, where Devanagari was prevalent. Since Konkani is scriptless, people used the script of the dominant language of the region. Due to Konkani's spread, it also developed different dialects. For instance, I cannot follow the Konkani that the Pais of Cochin use, there is a deep Malayalam influence on it. If someone were to listen to my Konkani, they will make out that it has an Urdu accent, because I grew up in Hyderabad. Similarly, there is the influence of Marathi in the Mumbai area and Portuguese in the Goa area. So, my rule of the thumb would be, people should use the script of the dominant language of the region. This problem has erupted because the process of crystallisation has begun. Earlier, there was no such problem," he says. Well-known Kannada writer but a Konkani speaker, Jayanth Kaikini, who appears inclined to the Roman script, sounds a warning: "When languages with established scripts like Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, etc are themselves facing an anxious situation in the context of globalisation, Konkanis should be more practical. For me, my mother-tongue is ultimately a very beautiful domestic language, which many centuries ago did not even have a third person plural usage. Civilising a tongue is obviously wrought with problems," he says. Jnanpith laureate Girish Karnad dismisses the controversy as pointless. "The script should not become a barrier. Logically speaking, Devanagari suits Konkani because it is so close to Prakrit, classified as an Indo-Aryan language, and almost indistinguishable from Marathi. And when Hindi as a national language is taught in schools, children anyway learn the script. But it is a fact that a good number of Konkanis have for a long time used the Kannada script, which evolved for a Dravidian language." Even as a majority of Konkanis argue for the Kannada script, the irony that stares them in the eye in Karnataka is that the Kannada Sahitya Parishat on June 14 launched a 'save mother-tongue movement' to press for the use of Kannada as a medium of instruction in schools across the state! Please click here to find this article Courtesy: Outlook Magazine Note: This article is published in 27-6-2005 issue of Outlook at Page No. 64 and 65 Thanks to Ancy Palakkad from Mumbai for forwarding this piece.