or communication and fulfillment of
spiritual, cultural and educational needs.

The Catholic community, however, had to face bitter
experiences. At first the Portuguese ruler imposed
Portuguese as their medium of communication. In the
course of time, the Portuguese Bishops of Goa and the
Portuguese missionaries realized that this was not
viable. And so in order to educate the Christians and
strengthen their faith, the Church authorities had to
take recourse to Konknni, which was spoken by the people.

Due to the existing political situation, under which
the Church of Goa lived, it was unthinkable to have
religious literature in Devnagri Konknni. Already the
medium of education was the Portuguese. The Goan clergy
was being trained in the seminaries through an
extensive use of Latin, Portuguese and other Western
languages. Therefore the only solution to impart the
Christian Doctrinal teachings to the masses in Konknni
was by using the Roman script.. It was against this
background that Roman (or Romi) script made inroads in
Konknni literature.

In the course of time, the Portuguese language could
not meet the bare economic needs of the people and
gradually they had to learn English in order to get
access to jobs outside Goa. Thus the Catholic community
was completely cut off from the Devnagri roots.

With the advent of Liberation and after the official
status was granted to Konknni with Devnagri as its
official script, the younger generation is now coming
in increasing touch with the Devanagiri script. If the
trend continues successfully, we hope that after 25 to
40 years or so, we will have a new generation to whom
reading Konknni in the Devanagiri script will be easy.
Till then, the present generation will need the
services of Roman script Konknni for at least another
30 to 40 years. This is a foregone conclusion.

However this is not to water down the bright chances
Romi Konknni journalism has in the future. If, in the
course of coming 25 years it makes large strides in
terms of excellent literary, scientific and religious
publications and keeps abreast with modern journalistic
trends, then Romi Konknni will not easily die but will
survive for a long time to come.

Present-day Romi Konknni media

The weekly Vavraddeanchi Ixtt and the monthly, Gulab
are the only complete Romi Konknni publications of Goa
today. Recently, in early October 2003, Ixtt celebrated
its 70th annual day and Gulab has completed