Sod is a research bulletin produced, edited and published as part of the
research efforts of Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendr (TSKK), Alto Porvorim,
Goa, devoted to the promtion of education and research in Konknni language,
literature, and culture.
So far TSKK has published 9 issues of Sod. This is the 10th issue of Sod.
It contains articles related to Konknni language, script and education in
English: Konknni Myths - Pratap Naik, S.J.; Social damage done by Goa's
language controversy and conspiracy behind it - Ramnath G. Naik; Roman
script the soul of Konknni - Nelson Lopes; Socio-economic growth of the Goan
community through the Konknni language - Tomazinho Cardoz; Roman script for
Konknni a must : now or never - Godfrey Gonsalves; Script Controversy -
Eduardo Faleiro; A response to 'Konknni Myths' - Alito Siqueira; Scripting
controversy: debating the war of the Konknnis- Jason Keith Fernandes; An
attempt to understand Konknni language assertion Movement - Sammit
Khandeparkar; Mother tongue blues - Madhavi Sardesai; Konknni versus
scripts - Matthew Almeida, SJ; The African, Portuguese, Kannada, Marathi,
Malvani, Hindi and English influences on the hybridized Siddi-Konknni
dialect - Geralda de Lima Angenot; English medium primary education for
better future - Cypriano Lopes; Response to 'English medium primary
education for better Future' - Joe F. Vaz.
EDITORIAL
Inspired by Dean Swift's mock heroic Battle of the Books, one could
have titled this issue 'Battle of the Scripts' but unfortunately, one
proponent of the engagement refused to be represented here. In fairness we
would have liked to give all the four talks given at the 'History Hour' of
Xavier Centre of Historical Research (XCHR), that have created a healthy
public debate on the language situation in Goa. They are the talks given by
Pratap Naik, Ramnath G. Naik, Uday Bhembre and Tomazinho Cardozo. The third
one of these when we requested permission to publish his talk, refused
point-blank to grant us the requested permission. Hence our apologies to
the readers who are deprived of the views of the champion of Devanagari
script policy.
We begin by giving the first two talks. Then the former Union
Minister Eduardo Faleiro's article gives proper perspective to the script
controversy, and proposes equal status both for Devanagari and Roman scripts
for Konknni. Nelson Lopes' article and the talk of Tomazinho Cardozo
follow, which present the language scene of Goa from the point of view of
Roman script. Tomazinho Cardozo expresses his sense of disillusionment with
his former comrades in the language struggle, and terms the Language Act the
greatest fraud on the Goan Konknni community that uses Roman script.
The three articles that follow provide critical and analytical views
on the talks given at XCHR. One could not but notice that all the three of
them use the term 'hegemony' in speaking of the upholders of Devanagari
script for the Konknni language. The first is by Alito Siqueira, which is a
critique of Pratap Naik's talk on 'Konknni myths', written in the form of a
letter to Pratap Naik and published in the Goanet Reader forum. The second
is an article by Jason Keith Fernandes that critically analyses Uday Bhembre's
talk, 'Road Map for the Standardisation and Development of the Konknni
Language'. It is marked by clarity of arguments, and it challenges
misleading fallacies and non sequiturs presented as arguments, such as
'Devanagari is a natural script for Konknni'. His arguments regarding
Konknni are backed by concrete examples from happenings in the rest of
India. The third article is by Sammit Khandeparkar, who puzzled by the
whole controversy about Konknni scripts tries to make sense out of it. In
doing so, he finds that the underlying reality belies the surface
appearance; the facts of the matter belie apparent reasons proffered to be
true. He could make some sense only if he applied Antonio Gramesci's
concept of hegemony to the whole tangle.
Next we have two linguists giving their views on scripts used for
writing Konknni. Madhavi Sardesai's article focuses on the Konknni language
itself rather than on the scripts used to write it, though it provides
reasons why Devanagari was chosen for writing Konknni. Matthew Almeida
exposes some of the oft-repeated assertions and half truths about Devanagari
script with the help of what other linguists like Suneeti Kumar Chatterjee
have to say about it.
A third linguist, Geralda Angenot after her months of field work
presents her findings on Siddi-Konknni dialect found in parts of Karnataka.
Her interesting article studies the African, Portuguese, Kannada, Marathi,
Malvani, Hindi and English influences on this hybrid dialect. The phonetic
detail she provides about the dialect should be helpful for other
researchers in the field. Since the dialect she studies is hardly known in
Goa, it is good for Goan students to be aware of it, and follow Angenot's
example in doing research on the local dialects of Konknni in Goa.
The medium of instruction in Goa primary schools has been a burning
issue for quite some time. Now that the Goa government has changed its
policy and allows easily to start new English medium schools, Cyprian Lopes
has written a timely article on the subject. It is time for primary schools
that were offering Devanagari script Konknni medium for the past fifteen
years, to seriously assess the success or failure of their experiment. The
writer here advocates an immediate change to English medium in the interest
of our children. Joe F. Vaz provides a well reasoned response to the
article and defends his position with convincing arguments. This last
response is taken from the correspondence appearing on Goanet Reader. We
tried to contact the writer but did not succeed, but since the matter has
been made available in an open forum, we presume that he will have no
objection to our including it with Lopes' article.
Please note that for the very first time Sod gives the editorial in
English because all the articles this time are in English. Please also note
that henceforth we will use a uniform spelling Konknni both in English and
Roman script Konknni to avoid confusion.
Matthew Almeida, S.J.
Alto Porvorim,
_____________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list.
Goanet mailing list (Goanet@goanet.org)
