September 20, 2026

Who is a half Konkani? And how do we define someone as a “half Konkani”?

Well, if you live in a cosmopolitan city like Bengaluru, you will come across many such stories.

In a city where careers move at a fast pace, salaries are attractive and working hours are long, parents sometimes find little time to pass on their mother tongue to their children. This becomes even more evident in nuclear families, where both parents are busy with their professions and English often becomes the language spoken at home.

The situation becomes more complicated when a Konkani marries someone from another linguistic community. I have seen Konkani people marrying Kannadigas, Telugus, Malayalis, Bengalis and people from several other communities through love marriages. Over the past three years alone, I have personally witnessed six Konkani people marry Tamilians, five of them being women.

When one parent is not a Konkani, the chances of the child picking up the Konkani language naturally comes down. Traditionally, the mother often plays a greater role in introducing a child to the mother tongue. If the mother is a Konkani, the child may have a better chance of picking up the language. But if the mother is not a Konkani, then there will be less chance of child learning that language. The child either learns father’s language or English, and that becomes the primary and dominant language.

That is how a child born into a Konkani family can gradually become a “half Konkani”- Konkani by blood, but not necessarily by language.

For example, a couple who were both Konkani speaking, worked in the IT sector. They left home early and returned late. Because of this, they admitted their only child to a nearby daycare from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Interestingly, the person running the daycare happens to be a Malayalee and the child picked up the Malayalam language pretty quickly and was speaking Malayalam even at home and seldom spoke Konkani. Alarmed with this, the parents realised this and decided to put her in a daycare run by the Konkani people so that the child picked up their native language.

In another case, both parents of Konkani origin held a high-paying jobs and spoke only in English even at home. Their child picked up English very well and it became its mother tongue. So, this is one of the incidence of being a half Konkani.

These are not isolated stories. They reflect a larger reality: a language can disappear from a family not because people stop loving it, but simply because they stop speaking it.

The beautiful motto “Amchi Bhas Konkani” - Our language is Konkani, can lose its meaning if the language is not passed from one generation to the next.

And Then There Is My Story

Let me now tell you how I became a half Konkani myself.

The story dates back to 1951. That year, my maternal grandfather completed his B.Com. Instead of taking up a conventional job, he decided to start his own plumbing business in Tumkur.

He was barely 23, in 1953, when someone told him about a beautiful young Konkani girl had come to Tumkur and has been staying with her relatives.

“She is extremely beautiful,” they told him. “She looks like Madhubala or Nargis Dutt.”

My grandfather eventually saw her at the Church and, indeed, found her to be beautiful. But he was an educated Telugu-speaking young man and probably never imagined that she would one day become his wife. After all, why would a Konkani girl marry a Telugu man?

But life has a way of rewriting our plans. She was only 17 and had studied until the 5th standard. She was one of three children from her father's first marriage. Unfortunately, her mother had passed away and her father later remarried to another Konkani woman.

The stepmother began to ill-treat the three children harshly and gradually took complete control of the household. The situation became so difficult that their father, helpless and financially struggling, decided to send his daughter away to stay with his relatives in Tumkur until the matters settled down.

When my maternal grandfather came to know about the challenges that she faced, he approached the family with a marriage proposal. The relatives took this as an opportunity and informed her father. Her father being helpless and unable to bear the expenses of her wedding; agreed for it since my maternal grandfather, being educated and being financially independent had proposed to take up the entire the wedding expenses. But there was one condition put forth by my maternal grandfather that she has to teach the children Kannada language and that should become their mother tongue, not Konkani nor Telugu since they were living in Karnataka. They went on to have seven children, and not one of them learned Konkani.

The Story Continued

Years later, my mother (the eldest child of their marriage alliance) married a Telugu man from my maternal grandfather's extended family when she failed her SSLC examination and was reluctant to appear for the supplementary. Notwithstanding this, he eventually decided to get her married off fearing that finding a suitable alliance might become more difficult later. That’s how she married my father. And once again, Kannada became the dominant language at home.

So, here I was - a person with Konkani ancestry on my mother's side, Telugu ancestry on my father side, and Kannada as my mother tongue.

By language, I was Kannada.
By ancestry, I was partly Konkani and partly Telugu.
And by circumstances, I had become neither fully one nor the other.

Then Came the Twist

Life, however, had another plan for me. I eventually received a marriage proposal from a Konkani family, perhaps I looked like a Konkani! That’s how I married a Konkani girl. That marriage changed something within me. I began travelling to Mangaluru, Brahmavara, Kundapur, Udupi and other neighouring places to attend weddings and other family events. I experienced the Konkani culture more closely, listened to the language and slowly developed a genuine affection for it.

And then I made a conscious decision. I did not want the story of my maternal grandfather to repeat again. I insisted that my wife teach our children, only Konkani. In doing this, I was going against the linguistic choices made by my father and my maternal grandfather because I wanted my children to know the language that had been lost in our family generations earlier and want to take my maternal grandmother’s root. At the same time, I began learning Konkani myself, little by little.

Today, although I do not have a traditional Konkani surname, I can understand almost 90% of Konkani language and speak it reasonably fluently, perhaps 60–70%. I may not have been born into a Konkani-speaking household, but I have chosen to embrace that language.

Is a Surname Enough to Define a Konkani?

This is where I sometimes feel conflicted. In a world where many people are slowly losing their mother tongue, I am someone who is making a conscious effort to learn and speak Konkani.

Yet, sometimes, I come across people who do not completely accept me as a Konkani because I do not carry a Konkani surname.

But I have learned something important:

A language is not merely a surname.
A culture is not merely a family tree.
And belonging is not always determined by birth.

Sometimes, belonging is a choice. Sometimes, it is a journey. And sometimes, it is a language that you discover much later in life and fall in love with.

Five Votes Short, but won Fifty Hearts

This journey took another interesting turn during the recent election for the post of Joint Secretary of a prominent Konkani association. I lost the election by just five votes. My opponent received 55 votes and was elected, while I received exactly 50 votes. On paper, I lost but personally, I do not consider it as a defeat because those 50 votes represented 50 Konkani people who believed in me, trusted me and supported me. And perhaps that is more important than a designation.

So, who is a half Konkani?

Maybe it is someone who was born without the language, grew up without speaking it, but later discovered its beauty and decided to make it a part of his identity.

This is my story! I may not have a Konkani surname. I may not have grown up speaking Konkani. But I have chosen to learn it, speak it, preserve it and pass it on because I strongly believe languages survive not merely through ancestry, but through love, practice and transmission from one generation to another.

And therefore, after all these years, I can proudly say:

“Amchi Bhas Konkani!” Our language is Konkani.