TheArte da Lingoa Canarim, the grammar of theKonkani language,[1] was composed by the 16th-century English Jesuit priestThomas Stephens, thus making Konkani the first among the modern Indian languages to have its grammar codified and described.[2] The system was expanded upon by Diogo Ribeiro and four otherJesuits and printed inRachol (located in the Indian state ofGoa) in the year 1640. A second edition was then developed and introduced in 1857 byJ.H. da Cunha Rivara, who possessed a great passion for Konkani. Consequently, three versions of theArte exist:
Grammatica da Lingua Concani, composed by Padre Thomaz Estevão of the Company of Jesus and edited byJ.H. da Cunha Rivara. Nova Goa: Imprensa Nacional. 1857.
Konkani has been known by a variety of names:Canarim,concanim,gomantaki,bramana andgoani. It is calledamchi bhas ("our language") by native speakers andgovi, orGoenchi bhas, by others.[3][verification needed] Pro-maharashtri agitators tend to call itgomantaki orgoanese, because they claimKonkani spoken outside Goa is a recent dialect of the "classical language" Mahratti.
The namecanarim orlingua canarim, which is how Thomas Stephens himself refers to it in the title of his famous grammar, has always been intriguing. It is possible that the term is derived from the Persian word for coast,kinara; if so, it would be means "the language of the coast." The problem is that this term overlaps with Kanarese or Kannada. It is therefore not surprising to findMariano Saldanha calling absurd the appellationlingua canarim, since the language of Goa, being derived from Sanskrit, has nothing to do with Kannada, which is a Dravidian language. The missionaries, who certainly travelled to Kanara as well, must have realized the infelicity of the term, but, not being philologists, continued to follow the current practice. Thus Stephens speaks of thelingua canarim, and a Portuguese missionary called his workArte Canarina da lingoa do Norte, referring to theKonkanised Marathi[citation needed] of the northern province ofDamaon, Bassein, Bandra (Salsette Island) & Bombay.[4]
All the authors, however, recognized in Goa two forms of the language: Theplebeian calledcanarim, and the more regular, used by the educated classes, calledlingua canarim brámana or simplybrámana de Goa. Since the latter was the preferred choice of the Europeans (and also of other castes) for writing, sermons and religious purposes, it was this that became the norm for all the grammars, including that of Stephens'. The licence of the Ordinary given to his work refers to it as "arte da lingua canarin bramana". For his Purāṇa, Stephens preferred to use Marathi, and gives explicit notice of his choice, even though he also notes that he mixes this with the local "language of the Brahmins" so as to make his work more accessible.[5] He was therefore well aware of the difference between Marathi and what he chose to callcanarim.