Part 9 of “O concani não é dialecto do marata”
by Mgr. Sebastião Rodolfo Dalgado (1855-1922)
(In Heraldo, Vol. IX, No. 2576, 22 February 1917, pp. 1-2)
Translated from the Portuguese by Óscar de Noronha
An important question now arises, which can also be regarded as a sensible and weighty objection. It being impossible, as a result of those significant discrepancies, that Konkani, as we know it, be a dialect of Marathi, how does one explain so many analogies, especially morphological, between the two languages?
It is a complex issue. It demands a lot of learning and long elucidation. In addition to philology, it needs history and ethnology to step in. I turned it over many times in my mind, but did not obtain satisfactory and definitive results, for want of some indispensable elements.
Hence, I am not on firm ground. I may put across my point of view if I get some respite from my occupations, and I find sufficient motivation, for elderly people generally flounder.
Meanwhile, responding to frantic demands, I will declare that I would not be averse to the hypothesis that Marathi is the subsoil (not mother, please note) of Konkani or the superinduction or superfetation. Which of the hypotheses is more plausible, if there is need of any?
This time my only goal was to break a lance for ‘my lady’ and to avenge the wild invectives that cowardly hands threw at her, mercilessly and with iron fists, but also – sorry to say! – with neither knowledge nor conscience. I end crudely, with not much of a method and hurriedly, so as not to delay the typographic proofs of more useful and less sentimental and abstract work. Maybe some minor slips escaped my notice – a fact that is understandable for him who works from his bed and on subjects that require frequent consultation of books.
I do not mean to say, however, that nothing has been written about Konkani that is sensible and deserving of praise, nor that I am displeased by opinions differing from mine. On the contrary, I disapprove of ipse dixit, and I believe that intellectual slavery is the worst kind of slavery. It is not something in which we say Roma locuta est, lis finita est.
But there are opinions. Opinions expressed without full grasp of the subject, albeit with literary trappings, only with the itch to show off and to give tit for tat, have no greater value than those coming from inmates of a mental asylum. They are combated, not with a view to convincing the opinion holders, but to prevent those opinions from getting established.
It goes without saying that, whoever lacks even elementary notions of general philology, and is unaware of the origin, history, phrases, dialects, literature, nature of vocabulary, grammar of a language, and her relations with her sisters and neighbours, cannot expatiate on their merits or demerits, their progress or degeneration, their purity or corruption. Ne sutor ultra crepidam.
Speaking a language by listening does not qualify one to deal with its philology, which is a completely different thing. Adolfo Coelho and José Maria Rodrigues know more about Latin philology than Cicero and Horace did; and Max Muller and Brugmann know comparative Sanskrit philology better than did Panini, the prince of the world’s grammarians.
But this is not how they think in Goa, for lack of common sense and intellectual discipline. Freedom of thought and of speech is no excuse for nonsense bordering on insanity. The Hindu who, on the occasion of the proclamation of the Republic, entered a church over there, holding a cigar in his mouth, proved, if anything, that he was utterly uncouth.
How many of those who have written about Konkani would know the right declination of a noun or conjugation of a verb, or how to analyse a passage by breaking down the words, distinguishing themes and inflections and indicating the etymology? Just how many people mistake the past tense of transitive verbs for active voice, and the sentence – hânvem ambó kheló – for ‘I ate a mango’, when, in reality, it means ‘the mango was eaten by me’!
It seems as though general belief over there has a say in everything that concerns our communities: Zâmkún zhânkún gâmvkar zâtá; one becomes a ganvkar through sheer chattering.
That results in a lot of vines and few grapes. If competent people took care to teach; if the ignorant cared about learning; if they talked less and worked more, it would be a win-win. We are so done with chatterboxes.
Fortunately, in the midst of disconcerting mists, a gleam of light is not lacking. I was deeply moved to learn that my venerable friend and most exemplary priest, Father Casimiro Cristóvão de Nazareth, had offered the local government a Portuguese-Konkani vocabulary, put together by him in collaboration with some knowledgeable people, to be published and distributed to schools.
I have no doubt that the work is of great merit. Father Nazareth, who trained from early years at the school of Filipe Néri Xavier and Miguel Vicente de Abreu, and who has been a busy bee throughout his life – tanquam apis argumentosa – and is a walking library of useful information, does not produce fake stuff nor is he a publicity seeker.
But to think that an eighty-five-year-old man, and moreover, blind like Tobias – quia aceptus eras Deo – is still working and making it a point to be of service to the country, while so many young people exhaust themselves with an hour’s reading and need to amuse themselves with manille and suposta and give in to banal and sinful talk: what a striking contrast and what an edifying lesson!
It pains my heart to remember – and this happens so often! – that the Portuguese government declined to publish his Mitras Lusitanas, a product of much labour and an ample mine of such precious information, collected with great tenacity from all the accessible sources. It occurs to me now that Counsellor Jaime Moniz told me that he would bother him with requests for books to read or to send to Rachol Seminary.
In any other civilized country, that monumental work would have been welcomed as a national glory, and an award given to its author, who neither made a profession out of his calling nor aspired to lucrative and showy positions. Of him, certainly, one cannot say that he was ‘toddy coconut tree’ – suretsó madd.
Certain happenings in Portugal lead people to believe that they live in some Zululand. From Rome, they recently sent me Pietro della Valle’s book, which cost twenty francs. The Customs office of Lisbon valued it at twenty escudos – over four times – and charged 1700 réis as duties! The bookseller’s receipt was presented and it was proposed that they keep the book for fifteen escudos, thus making a profit of five. They threatened that they would value higher. And all that just because of the shoddy, dirty parchment binding, for which I didn’t pay a penny!
Patriotism is a good and praiseworthy thing. Jesus Christ shed tears foreseeing the future ruin of his homeland. But I reject patriotism that forces me to distort the truth and trample on justice.
In conclusion, I must declare, in order to appease my conscience, that those vague references are not tantamount to personal contempt for those targeted, whom I know not and wish all the best, as well as all humanity. I would have liked to be entirely doctrinaire, if the subject so allowed it. I earnestly request the reader not to be curious to investigate who is hinted at in the above allusion. It is about doctrine, not people. Veritas et caritas super omnia.
First published in Revista da Casa de Goa, Series II, No. 31, Nov-Dec 2024, pp 45-48