This new Roman script Konkani is bizarre. It really appears like shooting oneself in the foot. Mere phonetics should not drive one to such absurdities; after all, we read and write English accurately enough in Roman script, even though it is far from phonetic. (George Bernard Shaw once suggested that 'fish' be spelt as 'ghoti', with the 'gh' pronounced as in 'rough', the 'o' pronounced as in 'women' and the 'ti' pronounced as in motion!)
If one is serious about popularising Roman script Konkani, such stuff should be avoided. Experience with diacritics and unconventional marks is that these things only cause confusion in the minds of the average reader; as such, they are best reserved for academic journals, etc. Look at the way Hindi is written in Roman script (in newspapers, magazines, etc. there are always a few Hindi words nowadays). Nobody who knows Hindi (and can read Roman script) has the slightest difficulty in understanding them. What is wrong with Roman Konkani as it is currently written? I am not a native Konkani speaker, but with some practice have never had any particular difficulty in reading Roman Konkani (though understanding it is more difficult, but then I have that problem with Devanagari Konkani as well). When getting Roman Konkani accepted is such a big struggle in itself, this really seems to be creating an additional unnecessary handicap, like tying heavy weights round one's legs before starting to scale a mountain. -- Question everything - Karl Marx
