Dear friends,
Augusto's post makes it obvious that, despite belonging to the Goan
Catholic community, he does not read Konkani in the Roman script; and he
is certainly not an exception!
Given this fact, his question in the subject line is not surprising,
because Soter Barreto is one of those many veterans who have been
ignored entirely in the “Brief History of Konkani in Roman script”
which, in stead, exaggerates and eulogises even the minuscule
contribution of self-propagandists who are in the good books of Dalgado
Konknni Akademy. This lacuna is being remedied to some extent by the
Konkani monthly GULAB. The English version of the same appears in the
Konkani-English bimonthly THE GOAN REVIEW, as well as on GoaNet. Soter
Barreto lives in Margao, behind Metropole Cinema. Information about him
appeared in the current (December, 2010) issue of GULAB. Born in 1944,
Soter Barreto began writing in Konkani in 1962 and has been at it
continuously and consistently since then. He writes in both Roman and
Devanagari scripts. He is a regular contributor to GULAB and THE GOAN
REVIEW; as also other periodicals in Roman script. His Devanagari
articles and poems appear in JAAG, SUNAPARANT, BIMB, KONKAN TIMES etc.
He has been awarded by GULAB and Konkani Bhasha Mandal (twice). He is
also a past Secretary of Konkani Bhasha Mandal.
The poem, that Augusto has posted, itself appeared in the Roman script
in the July 2010 issue of GULAB. It is reproduced here for comparison
with Augusto’s version. This is not to suggest that there is anything
amiss, or there are any “errors”, in Augusto's phonetic rendering; but
it certainly exposes the orthographic mess that exists in Konkani in
Roman script, in spite of its claimed 500 years of history and tradition!
Nakxeo
Avoyn babdden
Randdponn sonsun
Hanche khatir
Nakxeo zhoroileo.
Hannim mat
Vhonklo zatoch
Apleo nakxeo
Fokot rongoileo.
……………..
Cheers.
Sebastian Borges
--- On Tue, 7/12/10, augusto pinto wrote:
From: augusto pinto <[email protected]>
Flipping through the Konkani 'Jaag' which is a monthly published in
the Devanagari script and currently edited by Madhavi Sardessai (in
the past Ravindra Kelekar used to be the editor), I came across a poem
by one Soter Barreto which I liked entitled, 'Avoichem Naksheo'.
