Konkani needs an independent script. That was the unanimous opinion of the two-day seminar on “the contribution of periodicals in the development of literature”, which concluded at Bishop’s House in Kodialbail here on Sunday. The seminar was held under the combined organisation of Sahitya Academy and ‘Raknno’ weekly.

Majority of the participants who took part in the symposium expressed their urge to have a separate script for Konkani, which would ultimately help for the development of the language and literature.

Konkani includes the features of various languages like Devanagari, Marathi, Roman, Kannada and Malayalam, but the absence of its own script has affected a lot, both writers and admirers.

Hence, there should be a common medium to combine all these languages in a uniform chord - that was the clear message derived out of the seminar, according to the conveners.

During the valedictory held in the noon, Vicar General of Mangalore Diocese Fr Denis Moras observed that the richness of Konkani language should be attributed to the amount of literature and the writers. Such litterateurs must be encouraged in order to carry out their mission to the highest level, he advised.

Prizes were distributed to the winners of various literary competitions conducted by Raknno. ‘Zaith’ Editor Devidas Kadam, programme co-ordinator Damodar Mauzo, ‘Raknno’ Editor Fr Francis Rodrigues, Sahitya Academy representative Kurshid Alam were present.

The two-day seminar featured papers like, ‘The problems and challenges’, ‘Periodicals: the only patroniser to poetry’, ‘Serialisation of novels in the periodicals’ and ‘Periodicals nourish short stories’.

‘Develop unicode’

Speaking at the inaugural programme on Saturday, Journalist Sandesha Prabhudesai said that there is a need to utilise the modern media to give a shape to the Konkani literary movements. He said there is a need to develop unicode for the Konkani language. It is sad that spell-checker and dictionary is not being developed.

Speaking on ‘The contributions of periodicals in the development of literature,’ Journalist Santhosh Kumkar Gulvadi said literature is subjected to time. “As the time changes, the mode of literature also changes,” he said.

Lamenting over the domination of English language over Konkani, Mr Gulvadi said: “We need English. At the same time we should love Konkani language as well.”