Tracing the Roots of the Konkani Language

Nandkumar Kamat
 

A scientifically truthful, objective reconstruction of the history of Goa is like solving an anthropological jigsaw puzzle while standing on the quicksand of our prejudices and popular myths.

The boundaries of what we consider as Goa or Goem were always in flux till 1793 when finally the present geopolitical and administrative boundary was drawn.

Very little is known about the demographic changes and the details of migration from Goa during previous millennia. But it can be proven that ancient fragments of the Goan identity still exist outside Goa. A lot of debate has taken place about the origin of the Konkani language and the actual number of Konkani speakers. Anthropologically and culturally, however, a lot of field-based research work is necessary to identify all the speakers of Konkani in western India. The real antiquity of Konkani would be discovered only through an organised and systematic anthropological effort directed at the linguistic islands of Konkani speaking communities outside Goa.  In Sirsi district of Karnataka, which was once the heart of the Kadamba kingdom, Konkani speaking Siddhis are found. Basically they belong to the Negrito genetic lineage from Africa. This small isolated Konkani speaking tribe might have forgotten their African ancestry but they have retained a curious blend of culture and rituals. Very little attention has been paid to study their language and culture.

Recently while doing some basic research work as a member of the committee appointed by the state government for ethnographic survey of the Dhangar/Gouly community of Goa, I came across two interesting references in the classical magnum opus The Scheduled Tribes by K S Singh, of Anthropological Survey of India (OUP, People of India, national series, Volume III, paperback edition, 1997) regarding the Konkani speaking scheduled tribes outside Goa.

The first striking reference was to the Kokna tribals, also known as Kokni, Kukni or Kukna.  They were the original inhabitants of the Konkan.

They speak Kokni - an Indo-Aryan language at home and Marathi with others.

They are concentrated in Nasik, Thane and Dhule. In Gujarat, their major concentration is in Valsad and Dang districts. In Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the Kokna are distributed in 60 villages. In recreating the history of Konkani, very little attention has been paid to these original inhabitants of the Konkan, their tribal lexicography and Kokni sociolinguistics. It is possible that their ancestors were the first settlers of the Konkan and most probably the seeds of the modern Konkani language are hidden in their ancient speech. We don’t have even hundred words from Kokni language of the Koknas and this shows the absolute intellectual poverty of our scholars to go beyond the present boundaries of Goa, before exclaiming “Goa-as the heartland (mulpeeth) of Konkani sanskriti.”

The truth may be entirely different, shocking and exciting. What we have in Goa may be a replacement population of technologically superior settlers, who might have occupied the cultural and ecological space of original Kokni speaking tribal inhabitants. It is a miracle that despite being refugees from Goa, these tribals retained their original language. Here, I offer another example, that of the Gamit tribals who call themselves Konkan Marathas in Maharashtra and Vasava in Gujarat. Gamit means a villager. They have synonyms like Gamta, Gavit, Mavchi and Pandvi. They have no connection with the fishermen group - Gavit or Gabit found in Canacona. They are distributed in the hilly terrains and plains of Surat, Valsad, Dang and Bahruch districts of Gujarat. In 1920, the British ethnographist, Enthoven had recorded the history of their migration to Gujarat and Maharashtra from Goa. Is it not striking that tribals in thousands had to migrate from Goa in the past and we have done nothing to explore these puzzling anthropological fragments - the intellectually challenging gems?

In Maharashtra, the Gamits are mostly distributed in the Mumbai division. They speak Konkani (not Kokna) and use the Devanagari script for written communication. In Karnataka, the Gamit including all the subgroups are notified as scheduled tribes. There were just 34 of them in 1981. Perhaps this Konkani speaking tribal group is already extinct in Karnataka.

The Siddhis, Kokna and Gamit together account for a million Konkani/Kokna speakers outside Goa. This is ethnographically a substantial population because there are only a million Konkani speakers in Goa. Kokna and Gamit are proto-Australoid people which means their arrival in peninsular India dates 50-60 thousand years back. They must have settled in the western ghats of the Konkan including Goa before migrating to other places. This is puzzling because after descending from the Vindhyas, below the Narmada-Tapti valley and after trekking an unknown and hazardous territory to reach Konkan and Goa, they had to reverse this journey after establishing tribal settlements and occupying these peacefully for thousands of years. What were their fears, impulses and compulsions which made them refugees and strangers in their ancient homeland?

Was it climate change, deforestation, natural calamities or the onslaught of the Sanskrit speaking colonisers?

Enthoven has not given any satisfactory answer. And in the past 83 years nobody has asked the right questions. Such mass exodus in space and time from Goa to Maharashtra and Gujarat points to some terrible event or catastrophe in Goan history. But there are no records of large-scale tribal migrations in our local history. The Kokna and Gamit tribals might have lost the ancient folk memories. They were originally austric speakers. Later they must have adopted the Indo-Aryan language of Kokna and Konkani. So, the only means of understanding the history of their migration from Konkan and Goa remains their language and perhaps their traditional knowledge.

If the Kokna tribals began to use the Indo-Aryan language, Kokna at an uncertain period then it could be probably the prototype of ancient Konkani language. It must have been a dominant tribal language in the Konkan before the rise of dynasties like the Satavahanas.

The organised dynastic rules systematically destroyed the tribal janpadas - their self-governed republics in Konkan. Other dominant languages under the royal patronage replaced Kokna.

Time stood still for the Kokna tribe as history took its’ own course. Development of maritime trade and the urbanisation of the Konkan meant the marginalisation of the tribals.

For Gamit it must have been a traumatic social transplantation in Maharashtra and Gujarat.

We still do not know their exact ancient location in Goa. But I suspect that they must have been inhabitants of the western ghat foothills in Sattari and Sanguem. The Gamit retained the Konkani language. This actually proves the greatness of Konkani and the resilience of Goa’s original tribal inhabitants.


Dr. Nandkumar Kamat
May 4, 2003

This article also appeared in The Navhind Times, Goa

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