Due to the tumultuous events, the Kokni community (more popularly called Konkani on the sub continent and henceforth mentioned as such) has fragmented and spread throughout the west coast of India. Their language, Konkani had to suffer the same indignation.

In ancient times, the Saraswat Brahmins lived near the Saraswati River, a region of land that became known as the Saraswat Desha. This land, west of the Sahyadri Mountain, was commonly called Kona, meaning a "safe corner", or Ankana, a "segregated area". Thus, this region became known as Konkana and the language of the Saraswat Brahmins who populated this area became known as Konkani.

A remnant of the old "Saraswati" language of the Saraswat Brahmins, Konkani is the first modern Indo-Aryan language that evolved from the Prakrits and the Apabhramsas. Thus, the main groups of people who speak Konkani today are the Saraswat Brahmins and the Roman Catholic Christians of Goa, Karnataka, and Kerala. A lot of Muslims of this area have also adopted Konkani as their native tongue. Many Konkani speakers have also migrated to the Middle Eastern countries, Africa, England, Pakistan, America, Canada, and Australia. The Marathi community called it a dialect of Marathi and did not recognize it. The Konkani language did not receive the respect or status it deserved and it resulted in lack of literature or patronage of the language. The Konkani writers and scholars who enriched Kannada, Marathi, and English literatures have not done anything for their mother tongue. Fortunately three events that occurred in recent years seem promising. First, the Central Literary Academy of India has declared that Konkani is an independent language and has set up honours and awards for recognition of works in Konkani. Second, we have recognized Goa as a state and have established Konkani as its official language. Even the government of Karnataka has established an organization for Konkani culture. Third, the groundbreaking discoveries in the Saraswati river valley have rejuvenated interest in Saraswats and their heritage. It is hoped that at least now the Konkani language will find its long due patronage and readership.

The origins of Konkani language from the historic viewpoint are very interesting. The Aryans who migrated to India familiarized themselves in North India and established several languages based on the local influence. Depending on their geographical dispersion you can categorize two distinct groups. Punjabi, Rajastani, Gujarati, and Hindi evolved from Prakrit of Magadha and Sindhi Maithili, Assamese, Bengali originated from Shouraseni Prakrit. Konkani belongs to the second group, and hence some scholars regard Bengali or Assamese as the mother of Konkani language. However, in reality the three are siblings of the same (now none existent) intermediary language. The arguments on the matter continue to generate a lot of response among linguists. Some historians argue that it was the language of Aryans who came further south to the Konkan. The most important point to note here is that Konkani is first seen in the Konkan area.

The Konkani language prospered during the reign of Hindu kings. It developed its own literary style, leading to the production of a number of proverbs, lullabies, folk tales, and nursery rhymes. Konkani was generally written in the Devanagari script with some minor works in the Brahmi script. Life in the region of Konkana did not remain stable for long. In 1351 AD, Hasan Gangu Jaffar Khan of the Bahmani Kingdom invaded Goa, one of the seven deshas of Konkana. He was succeeded by his son, Ghazni Mohammad, in 1357 AD. The ruthless leader that he was, Ghazni Mohammad terrorized Goa and its Brahmin inhabitants during his reign. The terrorism against the Brahmins in Goa heightened during the reign of Yusuf Adil Shah, the Turkish king of Bijapur.

There has been always sibling rivalry amongst Konkanis and the Marathis. The Marathis have condemned Konkani as, " a branch of Marathi; it has neither script nor literature; it is not a language." But, history has established that even when Konkani language has reached maturity, the Marathi language was not even born. There is an inscription written in Konkani dated 1187 A.D. whereas even the earliest Marathi manuscript is of 16th century. It is no surprise that when poet Jnaneshwar wanted to create his masterpiece Jnaneshwari, he had to take up study of Konkani which was very prevalent (1209 A.D.) After 16th century both Marathi and Konkani have taken their own developmental course and it is natural that today they appear as two separate languages

As mentioned above the Konkani language has stirred the emotions of many in the field of linguistics. One such debate that had been the subject of much discussion is whether Konkani is a dialect of Marathi or a language of independent status. This debate reached its peak during the Maharashtra-Mysore boundary dispute. At the time of the dispute, some Konkani speaking people were of the view that Konkani was an independent language that evolved from the Prakrits before Marathi. These people also believed that Konkani should be added to the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution and that there should be a separate state for the Konkani people. There were also Konkani speaking people who asserted that Konkani was a dialect of Marathi because of their many similarities. One Member of Parliament even went to the other extreme and stated that Konkani and Marathi were the same language. Thus, these three views battled with one another until the Justice Mahajan set forth his view that Konkani was not just a dialect of Marathi and that it was an independent language.

Although Justice Mahajan asserted that Konkani was an independent language, many people still debate its status. However, the fact remains that Konkani began as an independent language that descended from one of the Prakrits. The question of whether or not it has retained that status is one that may never be completely resolved. However, by exploring these two views, we hope to gain some insight into the social and/or historical factors that may have influenced them.

The Konkanis who settled in Goa engaged in creative literature and defined grammar for the language. Meanwhile, the Portuguese were land hungry and had started occupying the Indian west coast. On February 26, 1510, Goa was conquered by the Portuguese commander Alphonso de Albuquerque and Thimmayya Nayak, thus, Muslim rule was driven out of this region. During the reign of these new rulers, Goa was named the capital of the Portuguese empire in the East. The Portuguese forced their own language, customs, and religion on the residents. They even passed a law banning Konkani. In fact, they burned all the Konkani literature available at the time in 1548 A.D. The Konkanis became cultural orphans. The foreigners burnt alive the Konkanis who did not accept Christianity and forcefully converted the weaker sections of the society. They even changed their names to Christian names. One such example of how they brought about the decline of the Konkani language is given by Dr. G.A. Grierson. He stated that as the Portuguese began to proselytise the Hindus to Christians, they burnt Konkani documents containing Hindu beliefs because they were thought to be pagan doctrines at the time. The Portuguese missionaries ordered that the temples and any literature containing Hindu doctrines be burnt in order to force the Hindus to convert to Christianity.

In 1864, the Portuguese rulers also passed an ordinance outlawing the use of the Konkani language by the people of Goa. So to preserve their identity the Konkanis had to migrate to Maharashtra, Kerala, and Karnataka. Muslim domination followed by the Portuguese conquest had vast consequences on the development of the Konkani language. One effect was that the converted Muslim people from the Bhatkal areas who spoke Konkani began to use the Persian/Arabic script for the language. The Portuguese conquest severely confined the development of Konkani literature and the spoken language. This is the reason why Konkani have so many dialects; those who went to different parts of India were influenced by their local languages. In Vengulra, Sawantavadi, and Ratnagiri, they adopted Marathi, and Malavani was formed. In south and north Kanaras, Konkani language was influenced by Kannada, and in Kerala, the Malayalam words were integrated to the language. The Konkani Muslims of Bhatkal have assimilated many Persian and Arabic words into the language. The Konkani speaking people who were converted to Roman Catholic Christians assimilated a great deal of Portuguese vocabulary into the language.  Subjected to all of these social factors, Konkani began to lose value in relation to these other languages. Especially in the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka, Konkani became subordinated to Marathi and Kannada respectively. This unfortunate situation also brought about one of the most remarkable characteristics of the Konkani speaking people that has survived to the present day. This characteristic is that the necessity of learning these new languages had coerced many Konkani speaking people to be either trilingual or even multilingual.

In spite of persecution, the Konkanis hung on to their culture and the Portuguese thought it was better for them to learn Konkani in order to convert the Konkanis. They called Konkani the language of the Brahmins, language of the Kanarese, language of Goan Brahmins, etc. The clergy translated the Christian religious texts to Konkani with the help of the converts and a new form of Konkani literature was born. They used Roman script for the translations. Since they translated word by word, there was no beauty or literary styles. Even the sentence construction and grammar were distorted. In 16th century, this grammar was legalized by publication of a Konkani grammar book. In 17th century in order to popularise Christianity, "Christa-Purana" was published that glorified the God just as the Hindu texts did. Poems, dictionaries, autobiographies of the priests were also published. In 1808 Konkani bible was published and distributed. Even today about 500 books of the period are available for study and research

But the Hindus of Goa were devastated from the attack on their tradition and culture, and resisted the forced Christianised Konkani. They preferred the neighbouring Marathi, and started creating works in Marathi. Konkanis who migrated to Maharashtra easily took to Marathi. Even the religious heads (Mathadeeshas) also started writing in Marathi. So Konkani language lost ground in its own homeland. However, those who migrated to the south preserved their lifestyle and for this, the Konkanis should be ever grateful to the people of Karnataka

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 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 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. There is no other language with a possible exception of Sanskrit that a language is written in so many scripts.

There are different names for the different dialects. People of Ratnagiri origin and Konkan Brahmins speak Chitpawani that is influenced by Marathi. People of Konkan speak Malavani and Goans speak Gomantaki. Tippu Sultan arrested the Christians of west coast, and transferred to Mysore as prisoners of war, and forcefully converted them to Islam. Their descendents speak Konkani with a mixture of Urdu in parts of Mysore, Coorg, and Srirangapattanam. In general, the Konkanis are skilled in multiple languages. They tend to accept other languages into their own rather than be inconvenience to others. This has served the community well as their migration from Goa to Karnataka, Kerala, and Maharashtra was easy. During the Maratha rule, Konkani families who migrated to Madhya Pradesh speak only Hindi. Hindus of Goa are arguing that only works written in Nagari be recognized as Konkani literature whereas the Christian brethren want acceptance of Konkani works in Roman script. Konkanis of Karnataka consider works of Konkani in Kannada script is most authentic and superior to all others. While Konkanis of Kerala are confused on which script to use, the Konkanis elsewhere are wondering which position to take.

The rich history of Konkani has influenced its development in a variety of ways, several factors including the Portuguese conquest, Muslim rule, and the Maratha rule hindered its development. These social factors caused Konkani to mix with Persian/Arabic, Portuguese, Kannada, Malayalam, and Marathi languages as well. The accomplishment of this today can be seen from the fact that Konkani has finally been recognized by the government of India and has been formally included into the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.

Konkanies represent less than 0.5% of India’s population but they have established a distinct place for themselves in all the streams. In 1976 the Sahitya Academy recognized Konkani as an Independent language. In 1987 it was made the official language of Goa. In 1992 Konkani was included in the 8th schedule of constitution of India and awarded the status of a National Language.

This article has been compiled by Abdul Rauf Roghey with acknowledgements predominantly to Kamat’s Potpourri Website and an Article by Aarti Maskeri from which most of this narrative has been extracted as well as references to various other sources which are too numerous to mention.

The above writings on the history and background of the Konkanis is authentic only to the extent that they are based on the best available data.

Reproduction / Republishing of this article whether in part or full permissible only with reference to the origin of this publication i.e. www.kmab.co.uk

Timeline

1187 First Konkani inscription

1548Portuguese destroy all Konkani works

1808Konkani Bible is published

1932Portuguese start Konkani school

1987Konkani declared as a National language

1992Konkani included in the 8th schedule of constitution of India

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