A new beginning for Konkani

The Vishwa Konkani Bhasani Sanskriti Kendra, in a first-of-its-kind-initiative, brought together 60 youth from Goa, Karnataka, and Kerala on Tuesday for a socio-cultural exchange in an effort to bridge the gap between the three regions, with an explicit objective of kindling love for the mother tongue.

The Konkanis, being a linguistic minority, are not doing any better demographically as their numbers are dwindling due to various social factors. “The Konkanis are progressive by nature, 90% of them speak more than three languages and 65% speak English fluently,” said Gurudutt Baliga, a researcher on Konkani language and culture.

“The lingo-social bridge happened so spontaneously that we had little time to create a melange of activities for the youth of three states. These were the youth who are beneficiaries of the Vishwa Konkani Scholarship Scheme.

One of the components of the scholarship is to help them understand, write, read and interact in Konkani through language games, language skills development and delivery system apart from helping them in excelling in core subjects.

The Kendra also runs a mother tongue motivation and training academy,” Baliga said.

The lingo-cultural bridge also had their first heritage walk in Mangalore’s rich Konkani areas. There are hardly 25 lakh Konkani-speaking people across the world. The Kendra will soon reach out to the youth in Konkani-speaking areas of other states in widening the bridge,” said director of the Kendra Basti, Vaman Shenoy.