My response to the message from a Brazilian, Pedro Kaul, transmitted by Gabe with
English translation, is that India is not Brasil! Nostalgia is not the best way of explaining historical realities! (1) The pre-Portuguese cultural situation in India was not similar to that of Brasil, and the Iberians could not do a short work of these pre-Portuguese cultures as they did in South America. The Goan deputy to Portuguese Parliament, the famous doctor Forilano de Melo, was stating in the Portuguese parliament in March 1946, reacting against the colonial discrimation of the Acto Colonial: "Portugal em 1946 n�o v� descobrir *indigenas* na India, quando Vasco da Gama os n�o descobriu em 1498!" [Let not Portugal find "indigenas" in India in 1946 if Vasco da Gama did not discover them in 1498] (2) Also the designation "luso-Indians" is not applicable to India as it does perhaps to "luso-Brazilians", at least numerically. Could this Pedro Kaul tell us how many luso-indians did he find in India? Or is he identifying all the native Christians with his luso-indians? Is the qualifier an ethnic connotation or merely cultural? (3) If it is a mere cultural connotation, how may native Christians [however they may have been converted!] could earn their living within the frontiers of Portuguese India without having to resort to English language? The popularity of English among Goans is explained by the need of physical survival migrating to British India and other British colonies! Did Pedro Kaul wish them to die speaking Portuguese? The above mentioned MP in the Portuguese parliament provided detailed statistics of the English schools growing in Goa (while the Lyceum languished!) in his intervention of 24 Jan. 1947. He listed 63 private English schools in Goa employing 389 local teachers and 71 foreigners. They had a total of 8890 pupils! That meant 22 times more than those who frequented the Portuguese lyceum! This much should suffice for Pedro Kaul to re-think his nostalgia and the popularity of English language among the Goans. Teotonio R. de Souza http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1503/lusof_goa.html > > Gabe. > > Wimbledon - London > England. Something I received just minutes earlier: ============================= Data: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 00:13:24 -0300 (ART) De: Pedro Kaul <pedrokaul (Brasil,Florian�polis) Assunto: Valores portugueses introduzidos na �ndia. Eis, a seguir, sentimentos de um cidad�o lus�fono, sobre a ex-�ndia Portuguesa: - Um mixto de nostalgia e tristeza � o que sinto toda vez que percebo que est�o a se esvair, sobretudo nas �ltimas cinco d�cadas, os valores portugueses introduzidos em Goa, Dam�o e Diu ao longo de quase cinco s�culos. - Particularmente entristecedor, e que tem at� um certo toque de rid�culo (sim, exatamente de rid�culo !), � o fato de ver a L�ngua Portuguesa substitu�da, nessas regi�es, pelo Ingl�s. ( Porque dizer, por exemplo, "St. Xavier�s College" e n�o Col�gio de S�o Francisco Xavier ?). Melhor seria que, abandonando o Portugu�s, os luso-indianos (ou melhor, os ex-luso-indianos) conservassem unicamente suas l�nguas nativas, por exemplo o Concani, no caso de Goa. O Ingl�s que, por decis�o pol�tica, na �ndia, anulou o Portugu�s, acabar�, de uma maneira ou de outra, por causar um mal cultural maior a esse pa�s: o desaparecimento de suas l�nguas nativas. Estou certo ou estou errado ? Pedro ============================ A quick translation of the above for the Portuguese-challenged: Following are the feelings of a lusophone citizen on the ex-India Portuguesa: - a mixture of nostalgia and sadness that I feel every time I come to know that the portuguese values introduced in Goa, Damao & Diu over the past 5 centuries that are being drained, especially in the last 5 decades; - paricularly saddening, and to a certain extent ridiculous, is the fact that the Portuguese Language is being substituted, in these regions, by English. (Why does one say, for example, "St. Xavier's College" and not Col�gio de S�o Francisco Xavier ?). It would have been better if the luso-Indians (or better the ex-luso-Indians) had they conserved their native languages, e.g. Konkani in the case of Goa. The English language, by way of a political decision in India, has put an end to the Portuguese language (in Goa, Damao & Diu), and will result (similarly), in one way or another, in bringing about a large cultural evil to that country - the disappearance of its native languages.
