Preserving linguistic heritage

World Konkani Centre, spread across three acres in Shaktinagar in Mangaluru, stands as an epitome of pride for Konkani-speaking people across the world. The language is spoken by various communities including Gowda Saraswatha Brahmins, Catholics, Siddi, Navayata, Kudubi, Kharvi etc. The centre also aims to preserve and promote Konkani language, and the Konkani-speaking communities’ culture, traditions and way of life for posterity.

Established in 1996, the Konkani Language and Cultural Foundation has set a benchmark in the development of Konkani literature and preservation of Konkani culture. The World Konkani Centre (Vishwa Konkani Kendra) is a visionary project of the foundation. With ‘Integration through language’ as its motto, the Centre is engaged in various activities to keep the language alive. This includes publishing literature, a heritage museum and a ‘hall of fame’.

Literary sojourn
The World Konkani Centre chairman, Basti Vaman Shenoy, says that the Centre has brought out several publications with an objective to bring the best literature of other languages to Konkani and vice versa. Books in Konkani have been translated to Kannada, English, Hindi and Malayalam. Around 30 books have been published under ‘Vishwa Konkani Sahitya Male’. Kannada Konkani Ratnakosha (a dictionary) edited by M Madhav Pai and Konkani Parichay Kosh (a Konkani encyclopedia that has been brought out in three volumes) edited by Tanaji Halarankar are some of the major publications.

The Centre has also taken up the project of translating Khanda Kavya and classics including the works of Kalidasa, William Shakespeare and Leo Tolstoy. Bala Sahitya Mala, a children’s series in Konkani, has been brought out in Kannada and Devanagari scripts. Additionally, about 30 bilingual story books for children have been published.
Catering to the needs of the current generation, the Centre has developed a software Konkanverter for automatic script conversion. Also, e-books have been made available on the Centre’s website and on eBay. Kaakkmam ani gurbachekka, a Konkani folktale e-book with an interactive voice and text synchronisation, has won the runner up of ‘Publishing Next’ industry awards in 2015 for the best digital book of the year.

The Konkani Heritage Museum in the premises of the museum has a collection of articles related to Konkani life, culture and tradition. Here, they have displayed over 1,500 items such as agricultural tools, hunting tools and kitchen utensils that were used by various Konkani-speaking communities.

Along with these, a fibre glass replica of the Gommateshwara statue in Shravanabelagola is also present. This art piece features the first acknowledged stone slab inscription in Konkani dating back to 981 AD, at the statue’s pedestal. It is written in Devanagari script as Sri Chavundaraje Karaviyale Sri Gangaraje suttale karaviyale, which translates to ‘Chavundaraya made this and Gangaraja made the surrounding structures’. Other items exhibited here include furniture with exquisite carving, and domestic items such as donom pelo, gulabdani and aydan. New articles are continually added to the collection, reveals S Subraya Nayak, who maintains the library and museum.

The next section is the World Konkani Hall of Fame. It has the portraits of 102 Konkani stalwarts who have done exemplary work in various fields such as politics, literature and education. The portraits present here have been specially commissioned to Ramadas Shevagoor, who has hand-painted all the portraits. It has portraits of eminent Konkani people.

The next section in the Centre is the Smt Lakshmi Narayana Kamath Vishwa Konkani library, which preserves and promotes Konkani literature. The library contains 10,000 books: 2,000 in the Devanagari script, 6,000 in the Kannada script and the rest in English. The World Institute of Konkani Language at the Centre  provides in-house reference material for researchers.

The Centre also houses Bhandasaal, an ethnic Konkani shoppe. The name of the shoppe translates to traditional trading place in Konkani and these were prominent in the medieval port towns of Canara as well as Goa and Malabar regions. It has a lot of traditional Konkani items such as earthen utensils, gumta (a folk musical
instrument), mementos and various others for purchase.

World Konkani Centre also facilitated a digitisation studio for the digital conversion of old scripts. The Centre has signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Xavier Centre for Historical Research Goa for the digitisation of 17th century Mhamai Kamat records. As of now, 17,000 documents have been digitised. It has also signed another MoU with Rastrakavi Manjeshwara Govinda Pai Memorial Trust, Kerala for the digitisation of around 4,500 books collected by M Govinda Pai.

With so many such efforts under its belt, the World Konkani Centre has been working tirelessly to preserve their culture, language and traditions for the future. To know more about their efforts, visit www.vishwakonkani.org.