Vocabulary and Grammar of Old Konkani Proses recoreded in Braga Codices.

2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 15520261
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Kumamoto University
• Principal Investigator: KODAMA Nozomi Kumamoto University, Faculty of Letters, Associate Professor, 文学部, 助教授 (60225456)
• Project Period (FY): 2003 – 2005
• Keywords: Konkani / Christian Literature / Mahabharata / Ramayana

Research Abstract

"Pre-Portuguese Konkani Literature" presented by L.A.Rodriguez at International Goan Convention '88 in Toronto made the romanized manuscripts of Ramayana and Mahabharata in Konkani prose, archived in Braga, Portugal, widely known among Konkani researchers in Goa. Publications of the rivised versions transcribed in Devanagari followed and the accepted assumption is that the existence of these manuscripts presupposes Konkani written works as their original sources that probably antedates the Portuguese arrival in Goa in 1610. The original romanizations with diacritics, which will be more valuable for historical studies of Konkani and Indo-Aryan phonology, still remain inaccessible. The present study concentrates on the research of the two bundles of codices, Nos. 771 and 772 of the District Archive of Braga, with special reference to their orthographical and linguistic aspects, in view of the need of encoding and electronically archiving the texts. After the manuscripts were examined in Braga and the printouts of the microfilmed copies were obtained, the researcher is convinced that the manuscripts bundled as No. 771 are the originally handwritten texts in Goa, probably in the latter half of the sixteenth century, judging from the use of a consistent orthographical method similar to that of the contemporary Christian publications. Yet he failed to discover any linguistic or orthographical traits that suggests an older source of established written works. References to the contemporary Christian literaturein Japanese, such as Feique monogatari, would be more encouraging as regards the nature of the texts. Typing of the texts is in progress with a view to a multilingual corpus of related dialects.