Origins of the Konkani Language

by Nandkumar Kamat

The true history of the Konkani language, tracing it’s origin, evolution, development and diffusion, is yet to be written. Although Konkani has been classified as an Indo-Aryan (according to the latest nomenclature, Indo-European) language, very little work has been done to trace it’s origin to any specific ethnic group, despite the availability of modern research tools.

Gadgil and others in their exhaustive paper ‘Peopling of India’ (http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/hpg/cesmg/peopling.html ) have clearly pointed out that-“The Indian subcontinent has been populated by a series of migrations propelled by significant technological innovations outside India since the first major expansion of non-African Homo sapiens, probably around 65,000 years ago.”

The likely major migrations include (i) Austric language speakers soon after 65,000 ybp, probably from the North-East (ii) Dravidian speakers around 6,000 ybp from the Mid-East with the knowledge of cultivation of crops like wheat and domestication of animals like cattle, sheep, goats (iii) Indo-European speakers in several waves after 4000 ybp with control over horses and iron technology (iv) Sino-Tibetan speakers in several waves after 6000 ybp with knowledge of rice cultivation.

A notable feature of Indian society is the persistence of thousands of tribe-like endogamous groups in a complex agrarian and now industrial society. “Readers may also refer to another interesting paper by Partha P Majumder-“Ethnic populations of India as seen from an evolutionary perspective” (http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci/nov2001/533.pdf. ) to get an idea about the modern research tools being used in India to demystify our cultural history. Konkani is considered to be a non-Austric, non-Dravidian and non-Sino-Tibetan language. But, it has retained many Austric terms. It has also absorbed Dravidian terms but nothing is known about proto-Konkani and how it came to dominate the Konkan. Konkani cannot be considered as a language introduced by the Indo-European speakers symbolised by the legend of the Aryan war hero, Lord Parashurama. Tribals who once inhabitated the Konkan and later spread out into western and southern India and who still speak a form close to Konkani, would have to be brought into the research domain of the Konkani society.

My personal and still tentative prediction is that the unexplored traditional linguistic heritage of Kokna (also known as Kokni, Kukni and Kukna), one of the principal tribes of Maharashtra could point to the tribal origin of the Konkani language. Elements of proto-Konkani may be found in ‘Kokni’ (not to be mistaken with modern ‘Konkani”). The tribals have a non-Vedic pantheon indicating that they have no direct connection to the Indo-European migrants. Did they lose their ancient Austro-Asiatic/Elamo-Dravidian language? How did they come to acquire Kokni? What were their compulsions? How old is Kokni? Are the roots of proto-Konkani hidden in the extinct Austric language or Elamo-Dravidian?

It has to be seen whether Konkani scholars are ready to look beyond Goa. What was the epochal event that forced these tribals to migrate from the Konkan? Did this coincide with a climate change or was it due to external invasions? It is for the archaeologists to discover the reasons for the migration of these bilingual tribals from their original home in the Konkan to their present place of residence in the districts of Nasik, Thane and Dhule in Maharashtra. In Gujarat, Koknas are located at Valsad and Dang districts. Similarly attention needs to be paid by Konkani scholars to the bilingual Gamits and Mavchis of Maharashtra who consider Konkani their mother tongue.

Most of the classical historical accounts (da Cunha Rivara, Gerson da Cunha, Shenoy Goembab) of the Konkani language have excluded any reference to the possible tribal origin of the Konkani language. Without sound anthropological studies (linguistic anthropology) it is impossible to claim that our beloved state of Goa, as understood today and within the present geo-political boundaries, as the ‘center of the origin’ (‘mulpeeth”) of Konkani. Historical processes do not follow such simple linear trends. History means the events as witnessed by masses and not a chronological approximation of events as understood by the classes.

Many hidden socio-linguistic and socio-anthropological layers are still to be excavated. Indian linguists are not aware of the new trends in connecting human population migrations with the evolution of languages based on mapping of specific genes. Much of their work appears subjective, amateurish, sentimental and occasionally casteist, parochial, communal or dogmatic. Some of their hypotheses are popular but outdated in the light of the results from molecular anthropology. We need to learn much from geneticist, Luigi Cavalli Sforza’s multidisciplinary scientific work. He published, ‘The great human diasporas: the history of diversity and evolution’ (1996) and in the same year ‘The history and geography of human genes’. Both these works caused a considerable stir in western countries. Earlier, nobody had looked at the possibility of applying molecular anthropology with such effect. Recently, another of his classics ‘Genes, culture and human evolution: a synthesis’ has given a new, holistic dimension in understanding cultures. Another one, ‘Genes, people and languages’ provides concrete evidence about the origin of the language families.

Unless similar studies are attempted in India with particular focus on identified linguistic groups and tribal populations it is very difficult to reconstruct the history of any language or society from an objective and scientific viewpoint. Is our knowledge of Konkani language complete? What is the global perception of Goa’s official language? There was no response from the members of the Konkani society when I had written in this column, a year ago (July 25) on the data presented by Raymond Gordon, junior, who edited the 2005 edition of Ethnologue: Languages of the world, 1272 pages, published by SIL international, Texas. This report is available from the website ttp://www.ethnologue.com. Instead of providing tangible answers to the origin and spread of the Konkani language, this work raises many interesting and potentially controversial questions.

Obviously, the American missionaries would not present the answers to Konkani scholars. It is the intellectual duty of the scholars of the Konkani language and institutions like the Goa University, Goa Konkani Akademy and Konkani Bhasha Mandal to undertake specific research projects aimed at the application of modern research tools to explore the roots of the Konkani language. Such research needs to focus on the tribal linguistic heritage as inherited by the Kokni of the Kokna tribals. Assistance is available from the genographic project of IBM and National Geographic Society ( www.ibm.com/genographic) for population genetic analysis. In India, Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science could help any Konkani genographic and linguistic anthropology project. As a small language, Konkani has the benefits of scale. If it manages to recognise the tribal contribution in its genesis, it would lead to a revolutionary realistic history of the beautiful language.