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1. April 28, 2008 at 13:27Priyank,Hope it’s all right to respond to sonmhtieg you posted nearly three years ago.As a Marathi married to a Mangalore Konkani GSB, I appreciate your not making the common Marathi imperialist mistake of calling Konkani a dialect. Most Konkani speakers south of Goa strongly contest that assertion, and even in the stretch from Rajapur-Kankavali southwards to Goa, although they speak Marathi (in fact most of the outstanding Goan Hindu literary figures such as Ba. Bha. Borkar Bakibab and Ravindra Kelekar, are equally acclaimed for their literary contributions to both the languages).My own take is that until about the 14th-15th c. the two were the same language. The Marathi of the Dnyaneswari could equally well be considered Konkani (and Dnyaneshwar, remember, was from far inland, Paithan). Possibly the coastal and interior forms started evolving differently sometime soon after Dnyaneshwar, and the distinctive identities that we know today emerged.About the current geolinguistic spread of Konkani , I would say the cadences start appearing from around Vasai (north of that, up to Daman, is an interface area of Southern Gujarati, Marathi overflow from Khandesh and Nashik, and the tribal languages of the interior); the character becomes quite distinct by the time you reach Rajapur; from there south to Sawantwadi, Vengurla and Banda it is called Malvani; and then, when you cross the Terekhol creek, the realm of Konkani proper begins. By the time you reach South Canara it has acquired shades of Kannada and Tulu; and past Mangalore, from Kasargode southwards, the Malyalam influence comes becomes evident. So if one were to conceptualise a Vishal Konkan , it would stretch roughly from Vasai to Kochi.Incidentally, the script situation is slightly more complicated than you suggest. The Goan Christians use the Roman script. The Hindus use Devanagari. And from Karwar to Mangalore, it is mainly a spoken language, but if one has to write the preferred script is Kannada. As a matter of fact, for most Konkani speakers from the Kanaras, even the preferred language of written communication is either Kannada or English.Finally, I laud your ambition to learn it, but don’t be so sure you will pick it up soon. The phonetics, the nasalisation and stresses of accent are very subtly nuanced. The shuddha Marathi speaker almost inevitably murders them by exaggeration. But it’s worth giving it a try anyway. A far more musical language than modern Marathi. One does not have to look as far as Bengali or Gujarati to realise that Marathi is by far more abrasive. And Konkani reminds us that it does not have to be so. Reply

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