Frederick Noronha
Sometimes you run into a book quite by accident. That’s the charm with real-life bookshops and sales. Serendipity helps you to find texts you don’t know even exist. This was how one came across a modest, unpretentious (but potentially useful book) called ‘Glossário Konkani-Português Português-Konkani’.
Surprisingly enough, this is not a new or recent book. It was published way back in 2010, but seems to have made its way to Goa only recently. Of course, getting books across continents and finding a market for them can be tough in the small and not-so-well-informed Goa book market.
Its author is the Diu-born Francisco Xavier Valeriano de Sá, connected with the island of Jua (Santo Estevam). He studied at the Liceu (1950), and was associated with the Banco Nacional Ultramarino. His peregrinations around Goa and elsewhere may have given an insight into the language of the land. His interests include studying Goa, music, photography, painting and more. It only goes to show how the Goan takes Goa to whichever part of the globe he or she is located in.
Sa’s earlier work include texts on the viceroys and governors of Portuguese India, the Portuguese Padroado in the East, the Banco Nacional Ultramarino, among others. For us here, these might seem like outdated, colonial themes. But in our times, for political and other reasons, the risk of losing connections with such topics is also real.
In the revision of this work, Sá got the help of the late professor Olivinho JF Gomes. Gomes gives a brief introduction to Konkani, its spread over four states, and cities like Ernakulam-Kochi, Alleppy, Quilon, Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, Calcutta, and Madras. He points out to its evolution with influences from Arabic, Persian, Marathi, English, Portuguese, among others. It’s interesting to see how many points he could condense into four medium-sized paragraphs.
Being in the Roman script, the author initially offers some rules on how to get the spellings right. He notes that the function of C, K and Q is exercised by the letter K in Roman Konkani. Likewise, there are rules (or hints) when to use a Z or a J. The final V in Konkani words like hanv, ganv or nanv reflects a nasalisation. Interesting. This section is titled ‘Some rules for understanding the writing in Roman of Konkani’.
The Konkani-Portuguese section of this glossary covers up to Page 157. Roughly an equal number (up to Page 289) are devoted to the Portuguese-Konkani glossary.
Depending on what one is using this glossary for, one or the other section might be more useful. As a reader in Goa today, the Konkani-Portuguese section seems more practical.
As is well known by now, the Portuguese language has had indeed quite some influence on Konkani. The late professor Edward D’Lima compiled a list of some 2000 Portuguese-origin words, which Konkani (or some of its users) considers its very own. Often without even realising the origin of these words. A careful scanning of the glossary reminds us of the same.
For instance, ‘numbr’ in Konkani is ‘numero’ in Portuguese. Or ‘noven’ is ‘novena’, ‘kuzin’ is ‘cozinha’, and so on. You come across such words with unfailing regularity – ‘kuler’ (colher), ‘kumpar’ (compadre), ‘kartux’ (cartucho), ‘kazari’ (casado), ‘zambllam’ (jambulao), ‘zonel’ (janela), ‘natalam’ (natal), etc. Of course, depending on the preferred dialect of Konkani we use, some might find such words more or less acceptable.
Some are words which we might not be off-hand familiar with in our parts. ‘Manjericão-doce’ (sweet basil) apparently becomes ‘mezrikanv’ in Konkani. ‘Sapateiro’ (cobbler) could become ‘mochekar’ but also ‘sopter’. Just to cite two examples.
One question still remains. With so much of an interaction between the two regions, how many Konkani words did actually end up influencing the Portuguese language? There doesn’t seem to be a readily available study on this, though one could well be missing out something here.
Books like ‘Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian Dictionary’ list words from the subcontinent that have gone into the English language. There are even a few Goa-related words that have made it there. See https://bit.ly/hobsonjobson. But when it comes to Portuguese, such listings seem to be harder to find.
With an average of 50 words in a page, the glossary does a good job of packing in approximately 7500 words each (of Konkani and Portuguese) with their equivalents. Not being a dictionary, the entries are brief and to the point.
To get a Portuguese-influenced insight into the Konkani language, in our day and age, is interesting.
But at one point one got confused on reading the author’s description of some local words — rat, fish and knife as ‘undir’, ‘nustem/nistem’ and ‘piscati’ in Salcete and ‘indur’, ‘maslli’ and ‘suri’ in Bardez. Isn’t there some mix-up here?
Overall, this does remain a useful book at a good (obviously, made-for-Goa) price. It is one that could easily find space on the shelf of any linguist, writer or even a person just curious about language in Goa. Worth having.
But here’s the catch: this book has been published in Portugal. Just a few copies seem to be available in Goa (at a reasonable price of `500). This might also mean that getting a copy might not be an easy task. Now, and more so, later. Catch a copy if you can, I got mine from the Museum of Christian Art at Old Goa.