Sir, I am sendiny you an article "Why Roman script for Konkani" by Mr ancy Paladka from Mumbai. It will enlighten our people here in Goa. Hence kindly give publicity to it.
Pratap Naik, S.J. Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendr Why Roman script for Konkani Ancy Paladka Thane, Mumbai Dear Mr Maurice D'Melo, Whenever we decide on something like script we need to think ahead at least for next 100 years. Now due to the computer age there is threat not only to Konkani but also to all other regional languages. The TV media has diminished the taste of reading drastically. We Konkanis are still at an infant stage. Now if begin it in the right track we can successfully pass on our Konkani to the next generations. You have mentioned about Kerala. But do you think Konkani will survive in Kerala. Do you have any readership for any Konkani literature in Kerala? Remember Konkani is not taught in SCHOOLS in Karnataka by Saraswats but in only one school. Do you know how many students attend this class? Do you know how many hours in a week these classes are held? Are these classes held systematically as the classes of any other language ? I will extend my full support to Devanagari script if it is taught from the KG classes and taught in every classes as there are lessons in other languages. But who can implement this in the states like Karnataka? Also what about our Konkani children in Gulf? What about the Konkani children at your place in Canada? What about other regions? Should we forget them all? If you think about next century the computer/mobile world will have lots of influence in popularising Roman script. People will easily communicate with each other in their emails/SMS using Roman script. If this same script is used for Konkani instead of communicating in English they will love to communicate in Konkani. Some may argue that we can get tools to compose in vernacular script. But the common person (or the majority) will not take the trouble or spend extra money in acquiring these tools and learning these methods or spending more time in this when the same task can be done in much less time. Everyone will go for simplicity. Devanagari script was invented for Sanskrit. All the divine works are documented in that language. But how many of Hindu Saraswats study Sanskrit? What is the percentage? How many of their people have the taste of reading their religious literature? Just for the sake of a few people is it better to give a systematic death to Konkani? Nowadays everyone is trying to be get admitted in English medium schools. This trend will grow exponentially in the coming years. We Cannot stop this trend. One day 90% percent of our Konkani children (both Christians and Hindus) will be in English medium schools. Hence if we act right now and target even these children to read and write in Konkani I feel we could give a future to our mother tongue. Otherwise we will loose all these children and our community will be lost one day. Hope you have read this of my message http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MangaloreanCatholics/message/1219 I am in Mumbai since last two years. When I came to Bombay I was saddened to see that the children over here do not read/write in Konkani. Here our Mangalorean parents read and write Konkani in Kannada script. All their children are in English medium. Hence these children can only speak Konkani but cannot read and write. Thus in an intention to introduce Devanagari script to these children I wrote a book "Put'tu Shettichio Kannio" with very interesting stories, attractive illustrations, large fonts, expensive papers, same as the quality of children's literature English. I spent about a lakh of Rupees and gave this book for free or nominal price of Rs.10/- or Rs.20/- rupees to children. Even then 300 copies of this book are still lying in my house (I printed only 1000 copies). Also the children gave me the feed back that they find it difficult to read and hence they cannot enjoy the stories. (What my perception was that, since there is Marathi these children will easily grasp these stories in Devanagari script). But the result of my hard work is that I only lost huge amount, which I could have used for better cause. I also published a prayer book in Roman script. The orthography of this script is different than that which is used in Goa. The target group for this prayer book was only Mangaloreans. Though our Mangalorean children were not accustomed to read Konkani even in Roman script, they said it is easier for them to read and understand these prayers. The response for this book is overwhelming. I printed 5000 books and more than 4500 copies got sold in three months. Also I am happy to get feed back that, earlier in many houses the response for prayers in the houses was given by children in English but after the publication of this book the children give response in Konkani. This feedback I got from many families over here. Because the children concentrate to read/write mostly in Roman script for the English language this script becomes very familiar to them. They also use this script to read other literature like comic books, newspapers etc. But they are not inclined to read comics in Marathi or any other language that uses Devanagari script. In fact we have already lost a current younger generation in Mumbai, various cities of India, Gulf and other nations. This is mainly because we did not have Roman script for Konkani which is used all over the world. If all our Konkani regions had already Roman script our language would not have lost in these regions. The same trend is continuing in Karantaka too. It is better to take appropriate steps before the changes take place. We need to be ready and prepare for the next generation. Or else it will be simply crying over the split milk. Mr. Maurice, for me LANGUAGE IS IMPORTANT AND NOT THE SCRIPT. SCRIPT IS USED ONLY TO REPRESENT THE LANGUAGE. LANGUAGE CAN BE REPRESENTED IN ANY SCRIPT. ALSO THERE ARE ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES IN PHONETIC SCRIPTS AND NON-PHONETIC SCRIPTS. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.3 - Release Date: 24/01/05
