Talk:Marathi-Konkani languages

Scope

Hello Kwamikagami, please could you explain the rationale behind your changing the name of the sublanguage dialect group Maharashtrian Konkani in multiple articles?The Discoverer (talk) 01:02, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

RS's say it's a dialect of Marathi, so I'm following them. All we have for it being one of the Konkani lects is Ethnologue, which is not a RS for classification. We also have a content fork between Marathi language#Dialects and Konkani languages that we need to work out. Do you have any advice or sources? That was on my to-do list for this evening. — kwami (talk) 06:32, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

On the Konkan coast (part of the west coast of India), the language spoken in the north is Marathi and the language spoken at the south is Konkani (ISO:gom). As you move along the coast, the dialects gradually change from Marathi to Konkani in such a way that it is not possible to determine exactly where Konkani ends and Marathi begins. A group of some of these dialects that are midway between Marathi and Konkani is called by ISO and Ethnologue as 'Maharashtrian Konkani' (ISO:knn). As a result, you will find Marathi sources that claim (ISO:knn) as a part of Marathi, and Konkani sources that claim them as part of Konkani. My opinion is that we can consider them to be a subset of both (as shown in the Venn diagram).

What I am concerned about is your use of a new term 'Konkani Marathi'. Has this term been used in any sources? The fact is that both ISO:gom and ISO:knn are referred to simply as 'Konkani'. 'Maharshtrian Konkani' and 'Goan Konkani' are just terms used by ISO and Ethnologue to differentiate between the language (gom) and the dialect group (knn). I know you have good intentions, but I'm afraid that this term may be WP:OR, and secondly as per WP:COMMONNAME, we must use the most commonly used name (which in this case would be Maharashtrian Konkani). As you are aware, the coverage of Konkani on the English Wikipedia is quite a mess already; even though you have a good knowledge of linguistics, I kindly request you not to increase the confusion by introducing new terms. The Discoverer (talk) 07:38, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

A different name may be appropriate. Is 'Maharshtrian Konkani' used by RS's? IMO we need to include ISO names in the lead of an article, but we don't need to use them as the name of the article if our sources have s.t. else.

One obvious solution to the classification problem would be to move 'Konkani languages' to s.t. like 'Konkani–Marathi languages'. Then we could just list the varieties according to whichever order makes sense, and not worry about which language they belong to. — kwami (talk) 08:45, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your understanding, Kwamikagami. The names Maharashtrian Konkani and Goan Konkani chosen by Ehnologue are effectively what we would have disambiguated in Wikipedia as Konkani (Maharashtrian) and Konkani (Goan), so 'Konkani (Maharashtrian)' could be one alternative. I haven't come across any other alternative names in literature. Marathi sources generally handle each constituent of knn as an individual dialect. I will try to find out with my friend who is a Konkani major how Konkani lit. refers to them.

mr, knn and gom could possibly be grouped into a Konkani-Marathi family, but I'm not sure whether other constituents of the Konkani family (Kukna, Katkari, etc) can be put in the same family as mr. And vice versa, can other dialects of mr (Varhadi, Khandesi, etc) be grouped with Konkani (Goan). The Venn diagram will help you understand this.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a complex and touchy area, and we have to be careful with what we include in which language. For example, Samvedi and Vadvali, which are listed as independent languages in the Konkani family are also listed as dialects of mr. One may even find sources that state that Konkani language (gom) is a dialect of mr. The Discoverer (talk) 14:37, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

That's why I thought it would be good to unite the two lists. If s.t. is both a dialect of Marathi and a Konkani lang, then it seems more straightforward to list it under Konkani–Marathi than to list it twice.

Or perhaps we could choose a RS that does not have a dog in the fight, such as Masica. He lists Marathi, Konkani, and Bhili, with the Marathi dialects of Konkan distinct, and Konkani from Savantvadi south, with Khandeshi as transitional between Marathi and Gujarathi. — kwami (talk) 00:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't merge them unless this is backed by solid sources. As Masica says, Khandeshi is between Marathi and Gujarati; based on the premise for merging Marathi and Konkani, I think we can't group Khandeshi in a family that doesn't include Gujarati as well.

Does Masica list two or three types of Konkani? Is his classification available online?

I agree with you that it's best to chose an RS that is uninvolved, but I would also like a source that is accessible online, for verifiability (this was the advantage of Ethnologue). IMO, instead of taking sides, it could be a better idea to mention the different classifications in the sources and let the reader decide for himself. The Discoverer (talk) 04:23, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Ethnologue should not be used for classification unless we have nothing better. It's simply too full of errors, and we have no idea who they're basing themselves on.

Accessibility is nice, but quality is far more important. Masica is widely available in libraries.

Any lect of Marathi or Konkani would be appropriate for Konkani–Marathi, just as any lect of Indic or IE European would be appropriate for Indo-European. They don't have to fall under both.

For Konkani, Masica says,

These [the Konkan dialects of Marathi] are to be distinguished further from Konkali proper, centered on Goa, but extending slightly to the north (Savantvadi) as well as to the south (coastal North Kanara District of Karnataka State), with an important outlier in South Kanara, centering on Mangalore, and another in Kerala, around Cochin. (For a documented discussion of the "Konkani–Marathi controversy", see Pereira 1971.)

Another such Griersonian language construct was "Lahnda", discussed in section 2.1.13 above. Elsewhere, "normal" taxonomic problems exist, sometimes complicated by politics, on a scale appropriate to the subcontinent: is Konkani a separate language or a dialect of Marathi? Is Halbi a mixture of Oriya and Marathi, a dialect of Marathi, or a separate language? Is Khandeshi a dialect of Marathi or of Gujarati, or a separate language?

A retroflex flapped lateral /ḷ/, contrasting with ordinary /l/, is a prominent feature of Oriya, Marathi–Konkani, Gujarati, most varieties of Rajasthani and Bhili, Punjabi, [etc]

The historical difficulty can perhaps be laid to rest by remembering that Gujarati, like many languages, has mixed antecedents as well as diverse dialects: it has connections with Konkani as well as with Rajasthani.

Thus the erstwhile Marathi–Konkani *tsh has become a pure [s] and (losing also its aspiration) has merged with the original /s/ phoneme.

Chatterji set up a classification with Marathi and Konkani forming a group of their own, so that Southern Indic had two subbranches, Marathi (Marathi–Konkani) and Sinhalese (Sinhala–Maldivian).

In Masica's bibliography,

Southworth, Franklin C. lg76. The verb in Marathi–Konkani. IJDL 5.2: 298–326

Masica's appendix on NIA languages,

• (KONKANI)-1 – S-most contiguous NIA lg., main 1g. of Goa (and of Savantvadi area immediately to N), and important lg. of the polyglot N and S Kanara Dts of coastal Karnataka to the S; also spoken by large emigrant colonies in Bombay and Kerala; literary cultivation of so-called Standard Konkani in sixteenth–seventeenth centuries seems to have been mainly of foreign inspiration (grammars, dictionaries, catechisms, translations); of an alleged earlier literature, supposedly destroyed by the Inquisition, no trace has been found; considerable literary cultivation of several modern dialects, however (see bardhexi, manglluri, antruzi, karwari, saxtti); efforts underway to develop unified modern literary lg.; now commonly written (and printed) in Devanagari, Kannada, Roman, and occasionally) Malayalam script; 1,522,684 in 1971.
• konkani-2 – also konkan standard; form of MARATHI spoken in coastal Maharashtra (= the Konkan), i.e. in Thana, Kolaba, Janjira, and N. Ratnagiri Dts; many local names acc. to caste; not to be confused with KONKANI-1.
• konkani-3 →
• koknā, also kokni, kukna - a Bhili dial. of N Konkan, Sur at , and Dadar-Nagarhaveli; 152,987 in 1971; same (?) as LS1's konkani-3.

My comments in blue:

Any lect of Marathi or Konkani would be appropriate for Konkani–Marathi, just as any lect of Indic or IE European would be appropriate for Indo-European. They don't have to fall under both. In that case we are not compelled to merge Konkani and Marathi, we can just list the lects under Konkani langauges

These [the Konkan dialects of Marathi] (knn) are to be distinguished further from Konkali proper (gom), centered on Goa, but extending slightly to the north (Savantvadi) as well as to the south (coastal North Kanara District of Karnataka State), with an important outlier in South Kanara, centering on Mangalore, and another in Kerala, around Cochin. (For a documented discussion of the "Konkani–Marathi controversy", see Pereira 1971.)

... is Konkani a separate language or a dialect of Marathi? ... This has been settled once and for all: Konkani is an independent language

• (KONKANI)-1 – S-most contiguous NIA lg., main 1g. of Goa (and of Savantvadi area immediately to N), and important lg. of the polyglot N and S Kanara Dts of coastal Karnataka to the S; also spoken by large emigrant colonies in Bombay and Kerala; literary cultivation of so-called Standard Konkani in sixteenth–seventeenth centuries seems to have been mainly of foreign inspiration (grammars, dictionaries, catechisms, translations); of an alleged earlier literature, supposedly destroyed by the Inquisition, no trace has been found; considerable literary cultivation of several modern dialects, however (see bardhexi, manglluri, antruzi, karwari, saxtti); efforts underway to develop unified modern literary lg.; now commonly written (and printed) in Devanagari, Kannada, Roman, and occasionally) Malayalam script; 1,522,684 in 1971. This is gom
• konkani-2 – also konkan standard; form of MARATHI spoken in coastal Maharashtra (= the Konkan), i.e. in Thana, Kolaba, Janjira, and N. Ratnagiri Dts; many local names acc. to caste; not to be confused with KONKANI-1.This is knn
• koknā, also kokni, kukna - a Bhili dial. of N Konkan, Sur at , and Dadar-Nagarhaveli; 152,987 in 1971; same (?) as LS1's konkani-3. This is kex

I see that there is some merit in the argument for considering Marathi and Konkani to be a single family, but I think this should be done only after clearly outlining and considering the positions of different sources to ensure we take a well founded decision. The Discoverer (talk) 06:08, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

As for your first point, that we could just list Marathi as another Konkani language, the lit seems to do the opposite, listing Konkani as a Marathi language. Doesn't matter to me either way, but I haven't seen any source classifying Marathi as Konkani. — kwami (talk) 06:12, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I did not mean that Marathi should be listed under Konkani, what I meant was to keep Marathi separate, and list the other dialects under Konkani languages. Classifying Marathi as Konkani or Konkani as Marathi would both be wrong. The Discoverer (talk) 06:53, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

That's not what I meant. No-one ever said anything about merging Marathi and Konkani. I'm talking about the article for lects related to Marathi and Konkani. If a lect is arguably either Marathi or Konkani, then it would be NPV to list it as only one. Listing all Marathi dialects said to be Konkani as Konkani would likewise be one-sided. But if we list all Marathi–Konkani lects as Marathi–Konkani, then AFAICT the POV issues would disappear. — kwami (talk) 07:07, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I did not misunderstand, neither did I mean that you suggested that. Give me a little while, and I'll get back to you with my thoughts on this. The Discoverer (talk) 07:58, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to consider it as a single Konkani-Marathi language family. Another reason is that both Konkani and Marathi appear to share a common ancestor: Maharashtri. Instead of making the change outright, I suggest we open a discussion on the Konkani Languages talkpage and place invitations for comment on the Konkani language and Marathi language talkpages, so that we can discuss all issues before we actually make the changes. The Discoverer (talk) 17:16, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

[copying discussion to article talk page]

Moving, since the discussion's died down. Merging several of the "dialects" of Marathi from that article to here. Apart from the fact that they need some serious cleanup, how's that? — kwami (talk) 04:03, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• Shouldn't the title be Konkani-Marathi languages, because these adjective prefixes must be in alphabetical order in English? What is used in literature?
• Now that it's one family, I think any references to the constituents of the family being dialects of any one language (Marathi or Konkani) should be removed for logical and POV reasons.

The Discoverer (talk) 05:04, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• Looks like you've already taken care of my second point. Thanks, The Discoverer (talk) 05:13, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I've never heard of alphabetical order (Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Uto-Aztecan, Oto-Mangean, Italo-Celtic, Tibeto-Burman, Mon-Khmer, Elamo-Dravidian, Pama-Nyungan, etc.), and all the refs I've found have the M-K order.

Per your comment, I've deleted Malvi. It's listed as a dialect in the Konkani article. (I'm assuming some varieties are obviously dialects of one or the other, and that it's the more divergent cases that are debatable.) — kwami (talk) 10:01, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake regarding alphabetical order. I guess I got confused with some other rule. The Discoverer (talk) 13:20, 19 November 2013 (UTC)