Latin sources of the first printed Konkani and Marathi grammars (1640–1859)

• Autor(a) principal: Fernandes, Gonçalo
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10348/9885
• topic: History of Linguistics; Missionary Linguistics; India; Konkani grammar; Marathi grammar; 19th century; Portuguese Patronage

This study describes the first printed grammar books of Konkani and Marathi, two closely related statutory provincial languages spoken in Goa and Maharashtra states, respectively, in India. From 1640 to 1859, there are works by Thomas Stephens, S.J. (1549–1619), by an anonymous Portuguese Franciscan or Jesuit, living at Thane, near Mumbai, around the middle of the 17th century (New Goa 1858), and by Francesco Saverio di Sant’Anna, O.C.D. (1771–1844) (New Goa 1859). These gram- mars were written in Romanized scripts and based, undoubtedly, on the model of Latin grammar. I compared them with the Latin grammars by William Lily (ca. 1468–1522) and Manuel Álvares, S.J. (1526–1583), whose works were amongst the most influential grammars in the 16th and 17th centuries, trying to find correspondences between them. In sum, Thomas Stephens was clearly motivated by the English tradition, maybe by William Lily; the anonymous Marathi grammar had Stephens’ Konkani grammar as its main source; and Sant’Anna’s grammar was influenced by Latin and Portuguese grammarians, but it is impossible to identify its specific sources.