Konkani is Independent language & not a dialect

Maharashtrians think Konkani is a dialect of Marathi. That is why Konkani does not have its own script." This set me thinking. I am a linguist and I am interested in language and linguistics. So I found me asking myself as to whether Konkani is a dialect of Marathi or an independent language by itself.

The reason behind arising such question is that our own people used Konkani only for oral communication but when it came to writing, the people in pre-Portuguese Goa wrote in Marathi. During the Portuguese regime, the Christian converts used Portuguese for written communication, while the Goan Hindus continued to use Marathi and Muslim community adopted Arabic script. As a result of this, the development of Konkani suffered a set back. 

Having or not having a script is not the criterion in deciding whether a tongue is a dialect or an independent language. Even English (bestowed with the honor of being an international language) had to borrow the Roman script from Latin. Russian and other Slav languages has no script till St Cyril formulated for them the Cyrillic Alphabet (being a mixture of Greek and Roman scripts) And for those who are ignorant, Konkani has its own script where 1st Konkanagari inscription is found on Gomateshwara statue, later Konkani was started writing in 6 scripts – Roman, Devanagari, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati and Arabic! Because Konkani is spoken all along the Konkan coast which lies in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala besides Goa. 

Coming to the vocabulary, as Konkani is one of the several daughters of the mother language Sanskrit, there are bound to be similarities as there are in Hindi / Marathi / Gujarati / Punjabi, etc. or Bengali / Oriya / Assamese etc. So this cannot be considered to be a ground for labeling Konkani as a dialect of Marathi. Even the syntax among most Indian languages is more or less similar. Hence, it is safe to conclude that while Konkani may not be as advanced as Marathi, it is not as underdeveloped to be considered a mere dialect.

Over the years, the vocabulary has undergone a drastic change. Try comparing an issue of the newspaper of the 1970's with one of today. While the spelling (orthography) has standardized, the language has become more and more marathisized. Authentic Konkani words have come to be replaced by Marathi derivate eg. 'fikir' instead of 'usko' 'Khali' for 'rito', etc. and this pains a true lover of the Konkani language. Agreed, we need to develop Konkani, but in this way? Do we have to konkanise Marathi words and use them? And then when an onlooker reads this, he is bound to get the impression (like my Maharashtrian friend) that Konkani is a dialect of Marathi and that it does not have its own full-fledged vocabulary to express ideas.

“Konkani is the official language of Goa and has found a place in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India. There is an inscription written in Konkani dated 1187 A.D. whereas even the earliest Marathi manuscript are of 16th century. It is no surprise that when poet Jnaneshwar wanted to create his masterpiece Jnaneshwari, he had to take up study of Konkani which was very prevalent (1209 A.D.) After 16th century both Marathi and Konkani have taken their own developmental course and it is natural that today they appear as two separate  languages