From the Publisher's Desk
At the outset we offer our humble pranams to let us salute at the wisdom of H.H.Srimad Samyamindra Thirtha Swamiji, Pattashishya of H.H.Srimad Sudhindra Thirtha Swamiji of Sri Kashi Math Samsthan, whose concern and care for the community was abundantly manifested in His desire to produce a Tamil-Konkani Vocabulary for the benefit of our people residing in the State of Tamil Nadu for decades, and are slowly finding it difficult to express in the mother tongue, Konkani. Late Prof.R.K.Rao’s Konkani-English-Hindi Vocabulary (Now out of print) was a model in this regard.
We thank His Holiness for providing us the opportunity to publish this Vocabulary, which is a pioneering attempt in the field of Tamil - Konkani transcription. The Team of Contributors have put in sincere efforts over an year’s time to compile this volume. Several uphill tasks and challenges were faced by the compilers. We are sure that more words can be added to this Vocabulary. We are also sure that some of the words contained herein might have more accurate diction. However the focus has been to arrest the trend noticed among the Konkani speakers who often borrow words from Tamil even when our own words exist.
We would love to call this a WORD BANK. We welcome our people to enrich the deposit of our own words and encourage withdrawal of such words as necessary to suit an occasion. Perhaps bringing out further titles like "Learn Konkani (Through Tamil) in 30 Days" type of book can be a good support. Let there be a conscious effort to promote our mother tongue.
Organizations can conduct several contests for children as well as grown up members to improve the usage of Konkani amongst the family members.Konkani figures in the UNESCO's list of endangered Indian languages. Let us vow that it will not worsen at least during our lifetime. And also keep it alive by ensuring that we allow the future generations to inherit a good credit in the Word Bank that they can be proud of.
Anand G.Kamath,
P.G.Kamath Foundation
