Frederick Noronha <[email protected]> wrote: Dr William R da Silva, one time head of Goa University's department of sociology and a priest himself, called the "official" Konkani of Goa as Bamon-bhas and the Church-dialect the Padri-bhas. Meaning, the language of the Bamons and the priests, respectively.
Probably the "Church Konkani" is a post-Dalgado creation, which incorporates a lot of Sanskrit terms incomprehensible to the commonfolk, partly because theological concepts are easier to explain in such loan-words, and also because some of the creators of this variant were influenced by the Indologist-Sanskritist arguments of the past century and just earlier COMMENT: Not being either a scholar or a casteist but one who speaks Puneri Marathi, I can only describe the awful and jarring sensation I perceive when I hear this post 1971 imposed-Konkani preached in the Goa churches where I have attended services. My sense is that it as a very unpleasant and rude sounding (to my ears) nasal dialect of Marathi. The only other spoken language which creates a worse sensation to my ears is that thing which is spoken in North Kanara. Good Lord! These two 'dialects' are not the Konkani we spoke in our house nor in my in-laws house. That Konkani (with Salcete-Bardez variations) is pleasant to the ears. I also will suggest that the Konkani spoken by Digambar Kamat (as an example) is pleasant to the ears. It is akin to the English spoken in Goa: It can be pleasant or it can be very very unpleasant. When one can listen to a pleasantly played violin, why would one wish to listen to horrible sounding music made by dopies on a beach in Goa? jc
