Sir, I am sending you Roman script article:3. Kindly give publicity to it.
Thanks. Pratap Naik, S.J. Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendr Konkani and Roman Script Ancy Paladka Thane, Mumbai Number of people have tried to make HINDI as a National language but they were not succeeded. Hindi is not our nations only official language, Konkani is also one of our National languages. Konkani is printed in every note of Indian Rupee. All the proceedings in the parliament are translated and documented in Konkani. Also Konkani people stand in the 18th position in terms of numbers in over 2500 languages of India. May be Hindi has become popular after the tempo of TV channels. But popularity is only in terms of spoken Hindi and not written Hindi. Unless people are used to read and write in Devanagari script (the script used by Hindi) it is not easy to adopt this script for Konkani. Devanagari script can be easily adopted in Goa as the Konkani is the State language there and Konkani subject is optional in that state. Thus any script could be adopted in that state as there is a backing from the government & it is taught in the school. Devanagari is also practical in the state of Maharashtra as Marathi which also uses Devanagari script is a compulsory language to learn there. I wrote my book "Put'tu Shettichio Kannio" in Devanagari script because children here can easily read Devnagari script. Scenario is different in Karnataka. It is not practical to impose Devanagari for the Konkanis of Karnataka. Kannada may be practical there but it cannot be implemented in other states of India or other parts of the world. Kannada script is doing far better than any other script in terms of literature and the taste of readership. There are four weeklies in Kannada script in a tabloid size which have subscriber base from the range from 5000 to 18000 and these weeklies have the readership of about 1 lakh. There is also a fortnightly in the newspaper size in Konkani in Kannada script. There are 15 monthlies and several periodicals, which too have subscriber base ranging from 3000 copies. There are also more than fifty regional periodicals (Parish Bulletins) which too have significant readership though at their regional level. There are hundreds of novels and thousands of other types of literary books in Kannada script. I recently read one book published by Sahitya Akademy which says VJP Saldanha wrote 14 novels in Konkani. But the truth is VJP has written 60 novels, thousands of poetry, stories, investigative articles. He is known for his series of historical novels on exodus of Konkanis from Goa to Mangalore and Tippu's captivity of Mangalorean Catholics. Case of Devanagari script and Roman script is different. There is only one weekly in Roman script. There is not even a single weekly in Devanagari script. In fact there is a daily in Devanagari script and it is only published out of love for Konkani and I have heard that it doesn't have thousands of subscribers. Some people argue that Hindi is taught in Devanagari script in Karnataka. Hence they can adopt this script. But this argument is not practical. The reason is Hindi is learnt only from the 6th standard hence the script doesn't get into the blood of the people. I have studied Hindi from my 6th standard to my degree course. I have also scored more than 90% in all my Hindi exams. But it was not possible for me to read a Hindi newspaper or a Hindi storybook. It is only out of love for Konkani I have mastered this script later on. Hence though the numbers of peoples have tried to insist Devanagari script for decades together they could not achieve even a little success in this. Also Kannada script can be implemented only in Karnataka, which cannot unite all Konkani people. So this cannot be in the race of one script for Konkani. The scripts can be Devanagari or Roman script. Devanagari has the phonetic advantage. English has the advantage of easy to use and its popularity at the international level. What is my personal feeling is that if Devanagari is made the common script for Konkani we may not be able to unite all Konkani people. But if it is seriously taken we may succeed if we use Roman script. But the problem is if we use Roman script Konkani pronunciation should be taught at the initial level, as Roman script is not a phonetic script. It is easier for the people of Karnataka to adopt Roman script than Devanagari script as Roman script is taught at the KG levels itself. Also it is possible for the churches to teach Doctrine in Konkani in Roman script as children are already aware about the script. If the Devanagari script is made common script then the people of Karnataka who are more than 50% will be dragged away from Konkani, which may cause the slow death of large number of Konkani people since Devanagari script is only taught at 6th standard and also the environment does not encourage them to read and write in Devanagari script. The advantage of Roman script is we can bring together even the Konkanis who reside abroad. Also we can have hundreds of Konkani Websites to promote Konkani, as Roman script is the basic script of computers. Even the printing will be easier and cost effective. -- 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
