Konkani phonology
Phonology of the Konkani language of India
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Konkani[note 1] is a southern Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-European family of languages spoken in the Konkan coastal region of India. It has approximately 3.6 million speakers.[citation needed]
Konkani is the official language of the Indian state of Goa and a minority language in the Konkan Division of Maharashtra state, and the Malabar Coast of Karnataka and Kerala states, where Konkani speakers emigrated during the Bahmani, Maratha, and Portuguese conquests. It is also one of the official languages of India.[citation needed]
This article is restricted to Konkani dialects spoken in the states of Goa, Karnataka, and Kerala, where the largest number of Konkani speakers are found.[citation needed]
The Konkani language has 9 oral vowels (each with a nasal counterpart), 36 consonants, 5 semi-vowels, 3 sibilants, 1 aspirate, and many diphthongs.[1]
Vowels
Vowels show a contrast between oral and nasal ones.[2] Different types of nasal vowels are a special feature of the Konkani language.[1]
Vowels
- One of the most distinguishing features of Konkani phonology is the use of /ɵ/, the close-mid central vowel, instead of the schwa found in Hindustani and Marathi.
- Vowel length is not phonemic in Konkani. Vowels in monosyllables are longer than vowels in polysyllabic words. Vowels are shortened after phonemic aspirates and fricatives.[2]
- Whereas many Indian languages use only one of the three front mid vowels, represented by the Devanagari grapheme ए, Konkani uses three: /e/, /ɛ/ and /æ/.
- Konkani cannot be described as a language with phonemic stress or tone.[3]
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | (Alveolo-) palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | plain | m | n | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| murmured | mʱ | nʱ | ɳʱ | |||||
| Stop/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | t͡s | ʈ | t͡ɕ | k | |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | t͡sʰ | ʈʰ | t͡ɕʰ | kʰ | ||
| voiced | b | d | d͡z | ɖ | d͡ʑ | ɡ | ||
| murmured | bʱ | dʱ | d͡zʱ | ɖʱ | d͡ʑʱ | ɡʱ | ||
| Fricative | (f)[note 2] | s | ɕ | h | ||||
| Approximant | plain | ʋ | l | j | ||||
| murmured | ʋʱ | lʱ | ||||||
| Flap/Trill | plain | ɾ | ɽ | |||||
| lateral | 𝼈[4] | |||||||
| murmured | ɾʱ | |||||||
- The palatal and alveolar stops are affricates. The palatal glides are truly palatal but otherwise the consonants in the palatal column are alveopalatal.[5]
- Phonemic palatalisation is found in all obstruents, except for palatal and alveolars. Where a palatalised alveolar is expected, a palatal is found instead. In the case of glides, only labial glides /ʋ/ and /ʋʱ/ show this contrast, and among the other sonorants, only unaspirated consonants exhibit this.[5]
- In initial position, many speakers substitute unaspirated consonants for aspirates. However, the vowel is shortened after phonemic aspirates and fricatives, preserving the contrast.[5]
- Aspirates in a non-initial position are rare and only occur in careful speech.
The consonants in Konkani are similar to those in Marathi.
Dialects
The Goan standard dialect of Konkani, the Antruz dialect[citation needed], is based on Goan Hindu Konkani which was originally the speech of the Hindus from the Novas Conquistas,[note 3] but it is now spoken by Hindus all over Goa with minor variations. It is also spoken by the Christians of the New Conquests who form a small percentage of the Goan Christians. The vast majority of Goan Christians live in areas called the Velhas Conquistas.[note 4] Their speech varies considerably from the speech of the Goan Hindus. They also speak two considerably different dialects: Bardes Christian dialect, spoken in Bardes and Tiswadi which form the northern part of the Old Conquests and Saxtti Christian dialect, spoken in Sashti and Mormugao which form the southern part of the Old Conquests. However, these two dialects have certain common features which can be referred to as Goan Christian Konkani features. The major Konkani dialects of Karnataka are the Saraswat dialect, spoken by the Saraswat Brahmins of the coastal districts of Karnataka, and Karnataka Christian dialect, spoken by Christians in the coastal districts of Karnataka. The Saraswats and Christians of Karnataka also speak considerably different dialects since they came to Karnataka from different parts of Goa and at different times. The Saraswats came from southern Old Conquests (Sashti and Mormugao)[6] in the sixteenth century because of Portuguese religious persecution. The Christians came in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mainly from Bardes and Tiswadi.
Writings and Scripts
A good number of writings are available in four of the dialects mentioned above: Goa Hindu, Bardes Christian, Canara Christian and Canara Saraswat. The Canara Saraswat dialect includes the speech of the Gaud Saraswats as well as that of the Chitrapur Saraswats as the differences between these two varieties of speech are minor. Sashti Christians generally use the Bardes dialect for writing. The Goan Hindus use the Devanagari script in their writings but the Goan Christians use the Roman script. The Saraswats of Karnataka use the Devanagari script in the North Canara district but the Kannada script in Udupi and South Canara . The Canara Christians use the Kannada script.[7] The Devanagari script has been promulgated as the official script for Konkani in Goa.
Vowel Rounding in Christian Dialects
In the Christian dialects (Bardes Christian and Saxtti Christian), there are fewer vowel phonemes as the vowel ə has merged with o. See table below:
| Bardes Christian | Sashti Christian | Standard Konkani | Glossary |
|---|---|---|---|
| dhor | dhor | dhər | Hold |
| koḷo | koḷo | kəḷo | Bud |