Konkani - My Mother Tongue

Konkani, my mother tongue is not a very well known language. It got the official status in the Indian constitution in 1992. Hence, I thought of publishing some facts and figures around this.

The language is spoken all along the Konkan coast spanning the coasts of Maharastra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala. There are about 7.6 million konkani speakers covering all major religions i.e Hindus, Christians and Muslims. Each region has its own dialect, tone, vocab and grammatical differences.

As the Indian culture, the Konkani language has gone thr' a lot of transformation and localization. The Konkani community has Aryan roots (wait for my next blog on my community GSB's), the community came into India and were in the north on the banks of River Saraswat (600BC). A drought there forced them into Goa. During the Porutguese colonialization was the time when the community was forced to fled from Goa for the fear of conversion to Christianity and the community spread to differnt parts especially along the western coast thr' the sea ports of Goa. The communities started at this time (15th century) started gettting local accents and words into the Konkani languages and hence resulted in the various dialects that exist today.

Konkani is a language having its roots from Sauraseni Prakrit which is also the root for Bengali and Assamese.
If one has to see the diversity of today's Konkani language, one should travel the Indian west coast. In Bombay, they speak in Marathi accent whereas in Konkan, they stretch the words so that no outsider can understand!. The Hindus of Goa liberally use the Portuguese words whereas the Christians use it as if it's a Portuguese dialect. In Karwar and Ankola (locate), they emphasize the syllables, and in Kumta-Honavar, they use consonants in abundance. The Konkani spoken by Nawayatis of Bhatkal is very melodious with smearing of Persian. People of South Kanara do not distinguish between nouns of Kannada and Konkani, and have developed a very business practical language. They sometimes add Tulu words also. The Konkani of Kerala is drenched with Malayalam, and the Konkanis of north Karnataka add Kannada verbs to Konkani grammar. The city-bred use a plenty of English. To write Konkani, Kannada, Nagari, Roman, Arabic, and Malayalam scripts are used and this way, Konkanis declare themselves as members of world family (Vishwakutumbi). There is no other language with a possible exception of Sanskrit that a language is written in so many scripts.


The communities that speak konkania are:
Hindus
Marathas
Bhandaris
Gaud Saraswat Brahmins
Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmins
Daivadnya Brahmins
Konkani Lower Castes
Muslims
Kokani Muslims (Costal Maharashtra)
Navayath Muslims (Bhatkal, Karnataka)
Christians
Goan Catholics
Roman Catholics (Mangalore/Canarite)
Others
Janjira Siddis
Yellapur Siddis

References
Wikipedia
Kamath.com
http://www.gsbkonkani.net/