An excerpt from my Goa Today column in 2002, seven years back! -------------
A Goanese by any name... No self respecting Goan anywhere in the world will tolerate being referred to as a 'Goanese'. Yet an Internet search for "Goanese" in my favourite Search Engine, Google (www.google.com), gave me about one thousand six hundred links! Of course most of these were from online recipe compilations, or menus at restaurants, or ill-researched travel sites where Goanese is often wrongly used as an adjective instead of Goan. For example a respectable online site like Lonely Planet (www.lonelyplanet.com) states "Calangute isn't one of the best Goanese beaches: there are hardly any palms..." Surprisingly Goanese as a synonym for the Konkani language also featured on many sites (eg. www.ethnologue.com). And yes, of course, Goanese to describe the natives of Goa! This error isn't recent though. Till a few decades back Goans were often referred to as Goanese in British records and as Mesticos and Canarans in Portuguese records in East Africa. In the Portuguese language the word for Goans is: "Goeses" (plural) and "Goes" (singular) or 'Goesa' (female). Alternative Portuguese terms are "goano" (male) and "goana" (female), Even the Encyclopaedia Brittanica 1995 (www.goanet.com/text/general/intro.htm) states "Many Goanese bear Portuguese names and are partly of Portuguese descent as a result of intermarriage between early Portuguese settlers and the local inhabitants." Besides being linguistically inaccurate, the other fact of the matter is that the Portuguese surnames came by during mass conversions, when the presiding Portuguese officer gave the recently baptised the legacy of his name. "Welcome to Goa, the land of taverns, feni, carnival, churches and carefree Goanese", said the controversial Surajkund brochure released by the Haryana Government and reported on by Sandesh Prabhudesai (www.goanews.com/17jan01.htm). Further back The Catholic Encyclopaedia of 1907 (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02644a.htm) states "In 1720, on political grounds, the Goanese clergy were expelled by the Government..." Perhaps the longest ever argument on, and dissection of, the term Goanese was held on The Goan Forum (www.colaco.net/1/goaniz.htm). A wonderful read I would highly recommended to amyone wishing to know more about this term. To condense: Perhaps not as derogatory as 'nigger' or 'Paki', but Goanese still rankles. Jorge de Abreu Noronha points out that, linguistically, it would be OK if someone called a Goan a Goese, but not Goan + ese = Goanese. The argument being that only names which have 'n', 'm' or 't' preceding the terminal 'a' get converted to 'ese'. For example China - Chinese, Burma - Burmese... But Sri Lanka - Sri Lankan, Arabia - Arabian, India -Indian (not Indianese!), Jamaica - Jamaican, Russia - Russian, Croatia -Croatian, Australia - Australian.... An interesting anecdote: In March 1994 Canada based Goan writer Ben Antao, and his Italian wife, had the privilege of being introduced to Pierre Trudeau, the late Prime Minister of Canada, as being from Goa. Mr. Trudeau asked Antao, "Is your wife a Goanese too?" To which he replied "No, she's not a Goan; she's Italian." ------------- Cheers! Cecil ===============
