KONKNNI’S TWINS
By Valmiki Faleiro
I bumped into senior friend, Tomazinho Cardoso, the other day. And got
explaining
how, despite my publicly written views, I had been inexplicably ‘shared’ by
both the
Romi and Devanagri camps of the Konknni divide. Permit me share this.
I’m not a linguist, nor bear any illusions to being a man of letters. My little
public
writing is restricted to the narrow confines of ‘journalese,’ largely in Goa,
in English.
But my heart does beat for Konknni.
None with even a little exposure to both scripts will deny that Devanagri is
the natural
script of the Konknni language. Indeed, it is the natural script to all
Sanskrit-derived
languages.
My wife was born and bred upto middle school in Nairobi, then British East
Africa.
Until marriage, she was handicapped with even a working knowledge of Konknni.
Things gradually improved. Recently, when helping me compile some Konknni
proverbs, she was convinced of limitations of the Roman alphabet in conveying
Konknni phonetics and nuances, the way Devanagri does in shining versatility.
My problem is not with scripts. My problem is with the fact that more than
one-half
million Goans around the globe read and write Konknni only in the Romi script.
It’s
this segment of the Goan family that kept Konknni alive from the 18th century.
‘Shenoi
Goembab’ Varde Valaulikar led a 20th century renaissance for the declining
language, largely in the Devanagri script. I bow my head to his memory.
It was that segment of the Goan family that read and wrote Konknni only in the
Romi
script that provided the numbers – even shedding some blood and lives in
1986/87 –
to have their mother-tongue recognized as Goa’s language. The very same segment
of the Goan family is being discriminated against. That’s my problem.
I don’t know of a single protagonist of Konknni in the Romi script who bears
antipathy
towards the original (Devanagri) version. Why, ‘ex-facie,’ should the opposite
occur?
Why, instead of cries for uniformity, should diversity not be celebrated?
I couldn’t agree more with Pandarinath Lotlikar, the former honcho at the Goa
Doordarshan, who likened Konknni in two scripts to twins born of the same
mother.
Which mother, he asked in King Solomon-like justice, would favour one child to
the
prejudice of the other?
As I once discussed with Prof. SM Borges of the Konknni-in-Devanagri camp
divide,
my problem is not with the Devanagri script – in fact, I love it, even if I
must borrow
college students to quickly read aloud for me long texts in the script. At
least two girl
students from Salcete-Navelim’s Rosary College (and one of them, if I may add,
the
daughter of recently migrated parents who live in Chinchinim) reinforced my
wife’s
and my own conviction that Devanagri is natural to homegrown phonetics.
But, what about the segment that’s more comfortable with the Roman script? Why
herd them – like docile cows resembling the ‘Go,’ ‘Gau,’ ‘Gaud’ or ‘Gotra’
tribe –
against their wishes, into a script they are yet to be acquainted with, in the
name of
uniformity?
Why corner, as of now, official incentives and benefits available for
development of
the language to just the tinier twin of the two? Mustn’t this 22-year old,
monumental
injustice stop? Why not allow, nay, encourage, the different streams of Konknni
scripts to evolve – and perhaps some future day co-join at a happy ‘Prayag?’
In fairness, none of the protagonists of Konknni in the Devanagri script I know
actually hates the language written or read in the Romi script. Men like
self-effacing
Damodar Mauzo are, to my mind, objective. Men like Uday Bhembre (I won’t deny
my personal equation with this much-respected senior friend) actually helped me
with
some work in Konknni in the Roman script.
Why, then, this tussle? Another respected senior friend, (Dr.) Olivinho JF
Gomes,
IRS (retd.), now the retired Head of the Konknni Department of Goa University –
and
himself the author of more books in Konknni in the Devanagri script than his
comfortable Romi – dubbed the injustice a “cultural and political genocide.”
As far as scripts go, I am with Konknni in all her scripts, including Kannada,
Malayalam and Urdu. But as far as natural justice goes, in our variant in Goa,
I can
only be with the underdogs – Konknni in the limited Roman alphabet. And I’m
neither
double-faced nor sailing in two boats … actually keying this in sitting in a
steady arm-
chair :-)
(ENDS.)
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The above article appeared in the May 10, 2009 edition of the Herald, Goa
