L15: Intangible Heritage — Phrases & Idioms (1)

Good morning, everyone! Good morning, good morning. Let me see those position papers — yes, pass them in as you sit down, I will read them after class. And before we begin today I want to say that I read the best position papers from last week already and I was genuinely impressed by the quality of argument. Some of you are thinking very carefully about these issues. Very good. Alright. Quick recap before we plunge into today's topic, which I am personally very excited about. In Lectures 13 and 14, we went deep into the Gaunkari and communidade system — the village-level collective governance institutions that formed the social and economic backbone of traditional Goan life. We traced the system from its pre-Portuguese origins through its formalisation under the Codigo das Comunidades and into its current contested status. Today we do something quite different. We are going to talk about language — not the history of language policy, which we will cover in Unit III — but language as a carrier of cultural memory. Specifically, we are going to examine Konkani phrases, idioms, proverbs, and loanwords that preserve the history of four hundred and fifty-one years of Portuguese contact. This is Lecture 15: Intangible Heritage — Phrases and Idioms, Part One. [0–10 minutes: Introduction] Let me begin with a small demonstration. I am going to say a few words that almost every Goan knows and uses, and I want you to think about where these words come from. Pao. Bhaji. Caju. Ananas. Tomat. Batata. Padeiro. Balcao. Janella. Almari. Sapato. Chabbi. Meza. Now — pao is bread. Bhaji in this context is a vegetable stall. Caju is cashew. Ananas is pineapple. Tomat is tomato. Batata is potato. Padeiro is the bread-seller. Balcao is the front verandah. Janella is window. Almari is cupboard. Sapato is shoe. Chabbi is key. Meza is table. Every single one of those words is Portuguese, or directly derived from Portuguese. And every single one of those words is used daily, without any sense of foreignness, by Konkani speakers — both Hindu and Catholic. They are not felt as borrowings. They are felt as Konkani. This is what linguists call deep lexical borrowing — when a language absorbs vocabulary so thoroughly that the borrowed words feel native. Now multiply those words by hundreds. Because there are hundreds of such words in everyday Konkani. And each one of those words carries, if you look closely, a little piece of cultural history. Today and in Lecture 16 we are going to open that treasure chest. [10–40 minutes: Core Content] Let me organise what we cover today into three categories: first, material culture vocabulary — words for objects, foods, and spaces; second, social and institutional vocabulary; and third, proverbs and idioms that carry cultural attitudes and historical memories. First, material culture vocabulary. We have already started with the obvious ones — food items and household objects. Let me add a few more and explain the history behind them. Vindaloo — I know this as a dish, but do you know what the word means? It comes from the Portuguese vinha d'alhos — wine and garlic. The original Portuguese dish was carne de vinha d'alhos — meat marinated in wine and garlic. Goan cooks adapted this dish with local spices, substituting coconut vinegar or palm vinegar for wine, and adding the red chilli that had come from the Americas through the Portuguese trade routes. The result was vindaloo — an entirely new dish that carries its Portuguese etymology in its name. Sorpotel — this is another dish. The word comes from the Portuguese sarapatel or sarrabulho — a Portuguese dish of offal cooked in blood and vinegar. The Goan sorpotel, made from pork liver, heart, and meat in a spiced vinegar sauce, is a transformation of that Portuguese dish into something that uses Goan spices and techniques. The name persists, though the dish has evolved substantially. Balchao — a Goan preparation of prawns or pork in a spicy, tangy tomato-vinegar sauce. The word likely comes from the Portuguese word for a type of fermented shrimp paste from the Macanese cuisine. Again, the word marks the crossing point between Portuguese and Goan culinary traditions. Now, these food words are not mere linguistic curiosities. They are evidence of a specific kind of cultural exchange — the kitchen. The kitchen is often where cultural mixing happens most intimately and most permanently. Portuguese sailors and administrators ate with Goan cooks. Goan cooks adapted European techniques and ingredients to local tastes. The resulting cuisine is neither European nor traditionally Indian — it is specifically Goan, and it is one of the most celebrated regional cuisines in India. Let me move to the built environment vocabulary. Balcao — we have mentioned this. But consider also: verandah — this word entered English from Portuguese, which took it from Konkani or perhaps Gujarati — veranda or varanda, meaning a railed gallery or porch. Mosquito — this is a Portuguese word that entered English via the trade routes. Corridor — from the Portuguese corredor. Janella — window — from the Portuguese janela. Porta — door — from the Portuguese porta. Telha — roof tile — from the Portuguese telha. The house vocabulary of Goa is substantially Portuguese-derived. And this reflects a material reality — the style of house that became dominant in the Old Conquests was a Portuguese-influenced design with specific architectural elements. When you say janella in Konkani, you are not just saying window — you are recalling the long wooden windows with their shutters and oyster-shell panes that are the signature of the old Goan house. Now, the interesting question is: what happened to the pre-Portuguese Konkani words for these concepts? Some persisted alongside the Portuguese borrowings. Others were largely displaced. In some cases, the Portuguese word and the native Konkani word exist side by side, carrying slightly different nuances. The Portuguese word is often more formal or associated with the Catholic community; the native word more associated with the Hindu community or with more traditional contexts. Second — social and institutional vocabulary. Here the borrowings are particularly revealing. Padri — priest — from the Portuguese padre. This word is used in Konkani universally, by Hindus and Catholics alike, to refer to a Catholic priest. But it has also been extended colloquially to refer to any religious figure. You will hear a Goan Hindu jokingly call a pandit a padri, and the word carries a slightly comic or affectionate register in that context. Festa — feast, celebration — from the Portuguese festa. The word festa in Goan Konkani refers specifically to the annual village feast, the patron saint's celebration. It has a specific, warm cultural resonance. When a Goan says 'amchi festa' — our festa — there is enormous emotional weight in those words. The festa is the most important annual event of the village community, the occasion for homecoming, for the renewal of community ties, for the elaborate cooking of the traditional feast dishes. The word itself, borrowed from Portuguese, has been completely claimed by Goan culture. Comunidade — we have discussed this at length in the last two lectures. But note that the word itself is Portuguese. The Konkani-speaking gaunkars adopted the Portuguese name for their own ancient institution. Fabrica — the church building committee. From the Portuguese fábrica, meaning factory or workshop. The fabrica was the committee responsible for the physical maintenance of the church building — a specifically Portuguese institutional term that entered Goan Catholic communal life. Agosto — August, the month. The Portuguese names for months are used by many Goans even today. Agosto for August, Setembro for September, Outubro for October, Novembro, Dezembro. The colonial calendar entered the language. Third — and this is the richest category — proverbs and idioms. Proverbs are the most compressed and most revealing form of cultural expression. They encode not just vocabulary but attitudes, worldviews, social values. And Konkani proverbs — particularly in the Catholic communities of Salcete and Bardez — contain a fascinating mix of indigenous wisdom and Portuguese-influenced values. Let me give you some examples. There is a Konkani saying: 'Jo zata, to zaunk zata' — What happens, can happen. This is essentially the Goan version of Que será será — a fatalistic acceptance of life's uncertainties. The sentiment is not specifically Portuguese — fatalism is found in many cultures — but the particular form of this saying in Salcete Catholic Konkani has been shaped by centuries of exposure to Portuguese folk wisdom. There is another saying related to the padeiro — the bread-seller: 'Padreachem ani padreiro achem — dono payim borem' — Both the priest and the bread-seller — both are good at their work. This captures the village world where the padri and the padeiro were two of the most familiar daily presences. Then there are sayings that reflect the social hierarchy of the Gaunkari world. 'Gaunkar dada naka kadum' — Don't argue with the gaunkar elder. This preserves the social authority of the gaunkar class in folk memory. There are also proverbs that reveal the syncretic religious world. 'Devachi item, devak dile' — What is God's, give to God. This is structurally a Christian sentiment, but it echoes similar sayings in Hindu devotional traditions. It lives comfortably in both communities. I also want to mention the Portuguese loanwords that went in the other direction — Goan and Indian words that entered Portuguese. Curry — from the Tamil kari. Monsoon — from the Arabic mawsim via Portuguese. Caste — from the Portuguese casta. Pagoda — from the Tamil pagavadi or the Sanskrit bhagavati. Many words that entered European languages from Asia came through the Portuguese presence on the western coast of India, and Goa was central to that linguistic traffic. [40–55 minutes: Activity and Discussion] Alright, I want to do a wonderful exercise with you now. This is going to be fun and also educational. I am going to ask each of you to think of one word or phrase that you use at home — in your family, in your village, in your neighbourhood — that you now suspect might be Portuguese in origin. Just one word or phrase. Think for two minutes. It might be a food word, a household word, a word your grandmother uses. Write it down. [Allow two to three minutes] Good. Now let us hear some of them. Dilnoza, what did you come up with? [Allow student response] Interesting! And does your family know it comes from Portuguese, or did they think it was just Konkani? [Allow response] Exactly — most families have no idea. These words have been naturalised so completely that their foreign origin is invisible. That is the measure of how deep the cultural integration has gone. Francis, what about you? [Allow student response] Good. Now let me ask a broader question for everyone to think about. So let me ask you: when a language absorbs so many words from another language — hundreds of words for food, household objects, institutions, social life — does that mean the culture has been dominated or that it has been enriched? Is there a point at which borrowing becomes loss? Think about this, because it is directly relevant to the language debates we will discuss in Unit III, when we look at the post-1961 question of whether Konkani had been sufficiently 'de-Portuguesed' to serve as an official language. [Allow brief discussion] Good. I want to flag the answer to that question is genuinely contested. Some Konkani purists have argued that the heavy Portuguese borrowings corrupted the language and that purification is needed. Others argue that the borrowed words are now authentically Konkani — they have been transformed, adapted, claimed — and removing them would impoverish the language. We will come back to this. [55–60 minutes: Summary and Assignment] Let me summarise. Today we explored Konkani's intangible heritage through lexical borrowings from Portuguese. We covered material culture vocabulary — food words like vindaloo and sorpotel, household words like balcao and janella; social and institutional vocabulary — padri, festa, comunidade, fabrica; and proverbs and idioms that encode cultural attitudes and social memory. We also noted that traffic was not one-way — words like curry, monsoon, and caste entered European languages through the Portuguese presence in Goa. Your assignment for next week: interview one family member — parent, grandparent, uncle, aunt — and ask them to list five words or phrases they use regularly at home that they think might be Portuguese in origin. Bring the list to class. In Lecture 16, we will continue this exploration with a deeper look at idioms, expressions, social phrases, and the emotional and psychological dimensions of this linguistic heritage. See you then!