“KONKANI – Our mother tongue”
I met a cross section of Goan Hindu female middle-managers in banks, an
insurance company and in a hospital, all in Goa. I asked them in English, what
was the language their mothers first spoke to them in. A clean sweep –
“Konkani. It’s our mother tongue”. (Some pronounced it as Konkni).
Then I spoke to them in Concaini – the way we speak here in Salcete. “What
about my Konkani”? I asked. All of them had a bone to pick. They elucidated
their opinions more or less this way: “your Concaini is a cocktail. It’s a
fusion of Konkani and corrupted Portuguese words. It has a varied phonology and
a few dialects too. It is almost grammarless. It’s like a Portuguese ‘linguiça’
stuffed with pungent Indian massala which some Goans call ‘chouriss’. Some
others in another dialect call it ‘linghis’ – again a corruption from
Portuguese. If we may say so, this corruption is as old as conversion. We
happened to escape both, fortunately or not”.
Then I asked them if they ever wrote Konkani in school, and in what script.
Some said they only learnt to read and write Marathi, but in English schools.
Others said Konkani in Devanagiri script and in English schools, too.
Another point that hit me was: “If you think Goa is in India and Konkani an
Indian language, then it must be written in an Indian script. Perhaps, if you
were in Rome you could have written it the way they do”.
Whether Konkani or Marathi, without exception they all rooted for English.
Without it, they conceded, they would not be holding the positions they
presently do, nor would they move up the ladder.
I concur with the ladies’ comments. How about you?
Bennet Paes
