| Not all Goans pursued the English language. Some did, others did not. Some pursued the Portuguese language, others pursued Marathi. English was never the dominant language in Goa before the annexation. It was the colonial language of the rest of India, that’s why it was imposed on the Goans. The switch from Portuguese to English was not an easy pass. It was very traumatic. Entire institutions, both public and private, were closed (private out of necessity). People lost their jobs. Had it not been for the annexation, English would not have been one of the dominant languages in Goa. These are the facts. The rest (such as “Portuguese lost out for very good reasons”) is politics. And it took protests, demonstrations, even deaths for the Goans to finally have their mother tongue (“dudh bhas”) recognized. If this is not forcing and imposition, what is? Certainly it contradicted Jawaharlal Nehru’s promise that “Goa will continue to be an open window to the Portuguese culture”. John Sent from my iPhone Goans in Goa pursued English language education with much alacrity from the second half of the 19th century. Few peoples anywhere - but especially the subcontinent - have ever embraced English so enthusiastically as the Goans. There's no question of imposition but merely access to opportunity, and Portuguese lost out for very good reasons.
Elsewhere, of course, like all other Indians in their transnational dispersal, Goans have adopted and mastered a wide range of languages.I have been looking for Goan writing in Swahili. There must be some. If anyone has references, please share. I agree with you, Frederick. The language of all Goans (as Mourão Garcez Palha reminded us) is Konkani. The Goans learned those other languages out of necessity. Some Goans also spoke Portuguese (and this sub -group included Hindu men and women), also out of historical fate and necessity. What is remarkable is that the Goans mastered those other languages and many Goans spoke and wrote in them better than the native speakers of those languages. Many Goans (like Francisco Correia Afonso, for example) gave brilliant speeches and wrote wonderful essays in Portuguese even though they never had any formal education in that language (except, maybe, for elementary school). My point is that English was never the language of the Goans in Goa. It was imposed upon the Goans after the annexation of Goa. The prime example of the forced British ( or Indo-British) acculturation of the Goans is what happened to Escola Medica. This School (like many other schools in Goa) was eliminated even though there was a plan in place to improve it and maintain the teaching in Portuguese approved by the central Government of India. It was replaced by a Medical College where medicine is taught, not in Portuguese, not in Konkani, but in English, the language of the British colonialists (and racists!). Compare this to what the Jews did in Israel. They resurrected Hebrew, a dead language. Let us not forget that it took demonstrations, protests, even deaths, for Konkani to be the official language of Goa. As far as I know, it did not take protests, demonstrations, and deaths for Hebrew to be resurrected and become the official language of Israel. Sorry for this long digression. John M. de Figueiredo Sent from my iPhone I know people who also argue that it's also impossible to study Goa without knowing literary and spoken Konkani (at least two or more scripts... not to forget its many dialects), plus Marathi (and we are not even talking about Modi, the script which almost everyone has forgotten... but the State authorities have made some feeble efforts to re-teach recently).
And they're all right.
Now how exactly is one human being will meet such challenges in one lifetime and is going to be so linguistically endowed (though some are) really beats me. I'm sure there must be some workaround. But, on the other hand, I've been waiting for Google Translate for simply too long, and while the Konkanverter.com can do some passable transliterations (between Kannada script, Devanagari, Romi and Malayalam but not the right-to-left written Perso-Arabic), its results can sometimes also be unintendedly comical.
Goa (whose people wrote in a total of 22 languages, across the 20th century) indeed deserves a Translation Centre, that looks at multiple languages and scripts too, involving not just people working on literature but the Humanities and even possibly the Sciences. FN
PS: This is not a case for monolingualism. Or even bilingualism. On Tuesday, 5 December 2023 at 06:33:13 UTC+5:30 John M. de Figueiredo wrote:
Place in cultural history? It is impossible to understand the history of Goa without knowing Portuguese. This is one reason why Charles Boxer and Panduronga Pissurlencar were so successful. They knew Portuguese. Translations, especially of old documents, are hopeless. Traduttore, traditore, John M. de Figueiredo
Sent from my iPhone On Dec 4, 2023, at 5:42 PM, 'Nuno Cardoso da Silva' via Goa-Research-Net <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Eugene,
I do not have the possibility of translating all of them, but I would be happy to translate the one you felt would be of greater interest to you. Maybe other people could help with others.
Please do not take offense, but I sometimes wonder why more Goan people do not take the trouble to learn some Portuguese. It is the sixth most spoken language in the world and it must for sure have a place in your cultural history.
All the best
Nuno Cardoso da Silva
Going through some of my collections I found some pamphlets, mostly in Portuguese. I don’t read or understand Portuguese. These are mostly from Portuguese government departments or agencies.
Here they are:
1. Goa na Historia da Civilizacao, Dr. Socrates da Costa, August 14, 1947. The doctor was an MP, I suppose.
2. Principios duma reforma agraria (Communidades de Goa). Discurso proferido por Sua Ex O Governador Geral, 22 Setembrro de 1946..
3.Principes et Institutions de E’Etat Nouveau Portugais (Le Portugal D’Aujord’Hui)
4. A HEROINAS DE DIU (GRANDES PORTUGUESAS)
5. With Friendliness (On the Plane of Principles) (Coleccao de Divulgacao e Cultura)
6. O Melhor Caminho (The Best Way) by Cultura (with English translation)
7. Independencia de Portugal — 1150, 1640, 1940 (Edicoes da Comissao Nacional)
8. 20 Years of Mighty Achievements (28th May 1926 — 28th May 1945) In English.
9. The Rights of Portuugese India (A lecture delivered at the Sociedade de Geografia in Lisbon, on March 14, 1950) Alberto Xavier. In English.
10. Here It Is Portugal Coleccao Divulgacaoe Culura. Speeches by Joao de Lucena, Portuguese Consul at Bombay. At a meeting held on 31st October 1949. One on Assertions of Loyralty of the Goan Community of Madras: by FX Fernandes, resident of Madras; We Goans, speeech broadcast on the night of Sept 20th, 1949 by Dr. Socrates da Costa, President of the “Uniao National and Deputy of the Portiuguese India in the National Assembly. Also writing by Menezes Braganza.
11. Ao Cabo de um ano de caminho, Dr. Jose Bossa, July 1, 1947.
12. A Lusiranizacao de Goa, Artigo original de Mariano Saldo.
13. Portugal and its Overseas Provinces, the Case of Goa. Agencia Geral do Ultramar. Excerpt from Dr. Salazar’s address to his council of ministers in July 1953.
14. Portugal and the Far East, Statements of policy by the President of the Council of Ministers.
Does anyone has time to translate the Portuguese ones for me or for us?
Eugene Correia
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