Short guide to picking up some Konkani

Frederick Noronha

Which is the most difficult language to learn in Goa today? Portuguese? German? French?  Sanskrit?  Hindi? This might seem strange, and almost an exaggeration, but Konkani comes close to the top in terms of the difficulty to learn a lingo in this state.

You can learn it in school and some streams of college; but there’s little provision to pick up Konkani if you’re not a full-time student. Classes are sometimes held by institutions and individuals. But these tend to be conducted only very occasionally, and some can also be priced on the higher side.

Foreign languages get some external support, while Delhi pushes its own preferred languages. A correspondence course in Hindi, till very recently and possibly now too, cost a tiny sum, with a bagful of printed study-material thrown in.

Attempts have been made to teach Konkani via YouTube, and, at times, even in diaspora communities (like Bombay, today’s Mumbai).But this is far too little and far too late. Most such efforts are individually-driven. Some attempts at producing learning guides have also to be appreciated. For instance those created quite some time back by the Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendra at Alto Porvorim and a few others, some mentioned in this column earlier. There are even short stories circulated in Romi Konkani from Mangalore, making it easier to deepen one’s vocabulary and understanding.

Keeping this background in mind, the ‘Romi Konknni Xikom-Ia’, a slender 104-page guide priced at Rs 150 just released earlier this month is noteworthy.  With little fuss, and going direct to the point, this book takes us to the simple basics of learning the language. Or, enough of it to get by.

Obviously, no one is going to master a language with just one book.  But, rather than it being totally at sea with it, one can at least get the basics and more here. Enough to perhaps get started, and then move on to some form of self-learning.

The book, in the Romi script, has a small measure of English included along with the Nagari alphabet.  The first serves to explain (in small measure) what one is learning. The second helps to get pronunciation right for those knowing that script (as many in this part of the world today would).

This book takes us from the alphabet, to vowels and consonants, nasalised alphabets, the use of ‘y’ and ‘i’ (a changing situation in recent decades), nouns, gender and number, pronouns, adjectives and so on. The nice part of this book is that it makes the learning quite simple. Though the parts-of-speech approach describe above might make it sounds tough and pedantic, it is not.

Even someone who has not learnt the current form of the written language (Romi is not taught in the formal educational system) can easily learn something here. For instance, we get to know that Romi doesn’t use the alphabets ‘Q’ and ‘W’, except in proper nouns. Likewise, the alphabet ‘C’ doesn’t come by itself in Konkani, but always rendered as ‘ch’.

We get the rules for capitalisation in Konkani (which can vary across languages), and also when accents like the tilde ought to be used (hint: only when absolutely necessary). Nasalised words can get by with an ‘m’ (like tambyo, temp or thembo, to mean copper, time or drop) or an ‘n’ (xant, sanz for peaceful and evening).

It might seem that one is learning the rules. Yet, side by side, for someone who has a nodding acquaintance with the language, this can serve to build one’s vocabulary too. The three-and-a-half pages on ‘opposites’ is particularly interesting.  It takes us from altodd-poltodd (this side-that side), atam-magar (now-later), mukti-gulami (freed-enslaved), and so on.

It introduces similar sounding and confusing words too. Like cholta (walks) and cholltta (rubs), dor (rate, every) and dhor (catch), fottafott (swiftly) and fattafatt (following closely).

It offers us an introduction to counting. This is interesting; in Romi Konkani, the counting pattern is different. This contrasts with older historical patterns that formed compound numbers. In some European languages, such as German (‘zweiundzwanzig,’ literally ‘two-and-twenty’) and Dutch, the unit was traditionally spoken before the tens.

Older forms of English also used this order (‘four-and-twenty blackbirds’). But modern standard English gradually shifted to the more mathematically linear ‘twenty-two.’ This happened after printing and education got standardisation. Romi follows the modern norm or decimal naming system (e.g. ‘vis ani don,’ or twenty-and-two).

For what level of a learner would a book of this kind be suitable? With a teacher, a beginner could take to it. Without a teacher (one suspects this would be for a far wider number of cases), one would need to have at least a nodding acquaintance of Konkani to be able to get the most from this book.

If someone’s language roots have got shaky over time, this can be a useful refreshers course.  Making the text a bit more multilingual could have perhaps aided learning. But then, perhaps this has something to do with some teachers preference for the ‘immersion’ style of learning.

The key, as they say, is balance. The learner should constantly interact with real Romi Konkani sentences, dialogues, and stories, while English or any other language could act as scaffolding that gradually decreases over time. A good textbook therefore transitions from ‘high support’ to ‘high immersion’ as proficiency grows.  But that would need to cover far more pages.

This book supplements the existing texts that are in print. Unfortunately, such books can be difficult to access, and are not easily available as and when you want it. Making such texts available easily could be a crucial part of the jigsaw to make it easier to learn Goa’s language in Goa.

There are special pressures here. Unlike globally taught languages, Konkani also lacks a large market of modern textbooks, graded readers, apps, many YouTube courses and standardised teaching methods, especially for Romi Konkani learners.

Often, we assume that “You’ll pick it up naturally” through family or friends. This might work for some children (not all in multilingual Goa), but not so easily for adult learners. The latter need explicit instruction and consistent practice. So, its not unusual to hear even those who want to learn complain about encountering fragmented resources, inconsistent spelling conventions and few opportunities to use the language daily.

Social media offers more opportunities to hear many variants of the spoken language. But textbooks have a useful role to play, and this one is a useful addition. It is easy to recommend, more so at its price, which is what one might spend over a cup of tea and a snack at a small restaurant these days.

(This is published, and available at the Dalgado Konkani Akademi,

Old Education Department,

18th June Road.)