Language
Most Cochin GSBs speak a dialect of Konkani among themselves. Cochin konkani has incorporated large number of Malayalam words, extent of Malayalam influence varies from place to place. GSBs of Cherelai and Ernakulam and Tripunithura area of Cochin speak purer Konkani. As one moves southwards influence of Malayalam becomes more pronounced.
Almost all of Cochin GSBs write/read/speak Malayalam. Older GSBs hailing from predominantly GSB areas tend to speak grammatically wrong Malayalam with an accent. Malayalam spoken by Cochin GSBs is often caricatured in films and on stage in the past. Younger generation of Cochin GSBs have better command over Malayalam. A Good number of Cochin Konkanis have knowledge of Hindi. English is equally popular. Many GSBs of Cochin also understand Marathi as it is very close to Konkani.
There have been some efforts to develop Konkani, centred most around Cochin, but often they tend to be individual efforts. GSBs of Cochin by and large are indifferent to such efforts. T.D. High school of Cochin offers Konkani as third language. Konkani literature is insignificant save some poems and devotional songs.
Read more about this topic: Goud Saraswat Brahmins Of Cochin
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“It is a mass language only in the same sense that its baseball slang is born of baseball players. That is, it is a language which is being molded by writers to do delicate things and yet be within the grasp of superficially educated people. It is not a natural growth, much as its proletarian writers would like to think so. But compared with it at its best, English has reached the Alexandrian stage of formalism and decay.”
—Raymond Chandler (18881959)
“If when a businessman speaks of minority employment, or air pollution, or poverty, he speaks in the language of a certified public accountant analyzing a corporate balance sheet, who is to know that he understands the human problems behind the statistical ones? If the businessman would stop talking like a computer printout or a page from the corporate annual report, other people would stop thinking he had a cash register for a heart. It is as simple as thatbut that isnt simple.”
—Louis B. Lundborg (19061981)