Networking The Konkani Linguistic Community

ON August 20, 1992 one of the major aspirations of the Konkanni speaking community, numbering about six million was fulfilled when Parliament passed an amendment to the Indian Constitution to grant the official language of Goa - Konkanni, its deserved status in the eighth schedule. It was a historic and momentous decision because all the parliamentarians, even from Marathi speaking Maharashtra supported the amendment and buried forever the painful legacy of the past politics based on annexation, expansion and merger.

The tenth anniversary of the day would be celebrated at the state level today (August 20th) with subdued enthusiasm. The Konkanni movement solidly backed by politicians and the Roman Catholic Church in India was at its peak in the nineties. This momentum has been lost now because the political equations in Goa are in a constant state of flux and the champions of Konkanni in the past have retired themselves to their habitats, little realising that the provisions of the Official Language Act, 1987 have not been enforced. Konkanni has fallen behind in identifying, planning and utilising the vast promised resources which all equivalent Indian languages have been entitled to since 1950. In fact, there was a mischievous and misleading campaign carried out by anti-reformists in 1992-93 who told people that reconstitution of the board of state-sponsored Goa Konkani Akademi, as demanded by a group of reformists led by Konkanni writer, act

During the past nine years Konkanni has not been able to build a critical mass of literary or cultural resources not because of lack of aptitude or talent but because of the state governments hostile attitude in enforcing the Official Language Act. Successive governments including those led by Dr Wilfred de Sousa, Mr Luizinho Faleiro and Mr Francisco Sardinha could not even identify and notify areas of administration, economy, education or commerce where use of Konkanni should have been made compulsory. Goa is one the very few states in the country where the mouthpiece of the government - the official gazzete -is is not being published in the official language - Konkanni. There have been very comic replies to the assembly questions on this matter. The standard defence is - there is no demand for official gazette in Konkanni. Since 1991 the directorate of official language has been paralysed. On one side the Microsoft company launched its

What is Konkannis future as a modern Indian language in this century? The world language survey and atlas the ranked Konkanni as one of the top 150 global languages. There are an estimated five million Konkanni speakers in India and one million abroad. Compared to a language close to it - Marathi, Konkanni is numerically small but - surprise of surprises it has all the potential to dominate the internetworked global village.

Just as there is a standard theory of diffusion of culture we could formulate a social theory of techno-aided diffusion - the cyberculture which is much more radical, intimate, powerful, interactive, liberal, democratic, dynamic, flexible and evolving than all known forms of anthropogenic or anthropocentric cultures. How language communities become literate and technologically resourceful? Is there any corelation, any index or parameter aiding in a comperative study of cyberculture of a language? In this article I am attempting to offer a simple cyber-bibliometric tool. What I call as Kamats (copyrights reserved) Index of Population Related Relative Index of Documents On the Web - the acronym being PRRIDOW. Using this index I am attempting to compare the modernising power or technosavviness of Konkanni with Marathi. It is an attempt to eradicate the myths created during the British colonial rule about bigger and smaller languages. Languag

Now let us analyse the results. PRRIDOW for the term Konkanni is 2166 and for Marathi, 1082. Remember, a higher number indicates better Internet presence and penetration or a sign of evolving linguistic socio-cyberculture - an advanced phenomenon of modern cultural evolution. PRRIDOW for the term Konkanni culture is 33 and for Marathi culture only 3. The same index for the term Konkanni language stands at 108 and for Marathi language - 16. For Konkanni literature the index worked out to be 31 as compared to only 7 for the term Marathi literature.

The search was global and not in-depth or specific. But there is no limit for in-depth or specific searches because there could be hundreds of webpages on a single giant Marathi personality like Kusumgraja or Pula Deshpande. Such individual searches cannot be compared. What matters more is the global search - which is a universal indicator of linguistic cyberculture.

As more and more members of Konkanni society get networked, design webpages and host websites dedicated to any aspect of Konkanni culture, language and literature, the next revolutionary phase of global Konkanni movement would begin. Therein lies the hope and potential for Konkanni to dominate global cyberculture. I was the first electronic reviewer of Ms Hema Naiks feminist Konkanni novel - Bhogadanda. The review was hosted by Goa Research Net in Europe. The department of electronics and local NGO - Asmitai Pratisthan -have prepared an electronic lexicon, a world bank of Konkanni. Such efforts have to be pursued vigorously because it is only when a language has a vigour that it acquires glamour. Nothing would sell in the 21st century without novelty and glamour. Four years ago at the A I Konkanni Lekhak Sammelan (writers conference) at Margao I had presented a detailed paper inspired by the vision of Shennoi Goembab. 

N KAMAT