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Mogal Goanetters, First and foremost, I would like to Thank Fr Jaime Couto for doing a wonderful research on this subject. And secondly to Borges for sharing this article with Goanetters. Fr, Couto, ani Borges bab, tumkam chodd ani chodd Dev Borem korum. Ekdom borem dislem vachun hi lek, ani gomlem ki amchi Konkani zaun assa munn vodli boinn Marathichi, pun dakte boinink chodd mann diupak lagle amche goemkar dekun chodd ojap dista. Goem eka tempar zaiteo Xhalla (primary schools) asleot jinga fokot marathi shinkoitalet. Amchea aldonan, corjuemchea zunvear tin asleot, ek Gorjuem, ek Podwal ani ek Cuxeant, toxench ek Carona, ek Aldona Tersenar, ani ek Ximitir assa tinga. Anink assurleot zalear fobor nam. Ani azunui choltat zalear fobor nam, kiteak Carona assa ti bond assa, toxench Ximitiri koddem assa ti moddon kabar zalea, Corjuemchi fobor nam, pun dista teo dekun bond assat xeo. Era gaunchi fobor nam. Tor Marathi xinpoupak kiteak suru kelemi Goem jednam amchi bass zaun asli Konkani? Vodle boinink kiteak kuznan udoili? Like Fr Couto says, the Portugueze learnt Konkani, inorder to converse with local population, and they even did lots of translations. Although in Roman script as they did not have the fonts for Devanagri. So if Roman script existed for so many centuries, why was it not given its due importance? If Portugueze made so much effort in learning the language, what about our Goans who are settled away from Goa? As far as I am concerned, I was always poor in Hindi and also Marathi, so I opted for French, which I have never been able to use till date unless to say Merci Beaucoup, or Bon jour to some of my French customers, otherwise, its mostly English. And as for Marathi, because of its similarity with Konkani, could understand, but never converse. So who did benefit with either this Marathi and Devanagri Konkani? I think first benefiters were the teachers who used to teach in Xallas, who got easy jobs as Konkani teachers in Schools, and than it was all who could read and write that script, namely our Hindu Brethern, hence you find more Hindus holding Government jobs, and our Christians started looking for jobs all over the world hence the influx of migrations either on foreign shores or in Gulf. Pity that we being Goans could not get the best opportunities in our own land. Cheers Jerry Fernandes
