The trouble with Goan Place Names

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Sure, we’ve all heard of the ruckus created by the vandals of the MNS and Shiv Sena about changing the names Bombay and Poona to their Marathi equivalents. Their task is not yet complete though, with names like Sion, Parel, Sewri and Versova still waiting to be changed to शीव, परळ, शिवडी and वेसावे – in English I mean.

Since these organisations love to engage themselves in the occupation of name changes under the banner of getting rid of colonial vestiges, I wonder how they'd fare in Goa. Goa is rife with village names not just being spelled the Portuguese way, i.e., according to Portuguese spelling rules, but in some cases with names suitably modified to suit the Lusitanian tongue.

Take the classic case of the capital city of Goa, written पणजी in Devanagari and pronounced /pɔɳʥĩ/ in Konkani. The Portuguese of the 17^th century AD would quite obviously not have been able to pronounce the hard, retroflex /ɳ/ (written ण in Devanagari Konkani), and would have simply approximated it with a normal /n/ (represented न in Devanagari Konkani). Neither would they have been able to pronounce ज /ʥ/ very well, and would have replaced it with the sound /ʒ/, very common in Portuguese.

What they would have been able to pronounce rather easily is the nasal twang at the end of the word, with the जी being spoken through the nose. Portuguese is full of such nasal endings (take for example the Portuguese word for 'yes' - sim, pronounced /sĩ/).

Taking into account all these phonetic conveniences, one would arrive at the new Lusitanised spelling of Pangim, pronounced /pɐnʒĩ/ the Portuguese way.

And a similar metamorphosis would have occurred with Goa’s second largest city, written मडगांव in Devanagari Konkani, and pronounced /mɔɽɡãw/ in Konkani. Again, the hard ड or /ɽ/, would have proved a tongue twister to the descendants of Vasco da Gama, and therefore was suitably modified to a /r/. The /-ãw/ ending would conveniently be spelled –ão in Portuguese. Hence, one arrived at the new spelling of Margão, now pronounced /mɐrɡãw/.

This, however, was just the tip of the iceberg. With place names such as कळंगुट, हणजुणें, म्हापशें, and पाळोळे next in line, one needs to be rather conversant in the Portuguese way of writing to figure out that these are the (now) famous locations of Candolim, Calangute, Anjuna, Mapuçá, and Palolem.

The region itself, known in Konkani as गोंय /ɡɔ̃j/, came to be rechristened Goa /ɡoə/ in Portuguese.

Goa passed on to Indian hands on the 19th of December, 1961 (since known as Goa Liberation Day). The place names with Portuguese-based spellings now came to be pronounced according to English spelling rules, resulting in a phonetic orgy –

- Pangim, now morphed into Panjim, came to be pronounced /pʰændʒɪm/, nowhere close to the Konkani /pɔɳʥĩ/.

- Candolim, originally /kan̪d̪ɔɭĩ/ in Konkani, turned into /kʰændəlɪm/, which might more or less be how you currently pronounce it!

- The southern Goan taluk of केपें /kɛpɛ̃/, which the Portuguese spelled Quepem, now came to be called /kwɛpɛm/.

Below is a (growing) list of Goan place names in Konkani, Marathi, Portuguese and English, with the English names being pronounced according to English spelling rules in most cases, resulting in the 'funny' sounding names one seems to encounter in Goa today. The progress in most cases is clear, with the Portuguese name/spelling being derived from the Konkani name, and the English name/spelling being a corruption/derivation of the Portuguese name.

Click here to view the list.

It should prove to be some sort of guide to how the place names are intended to be pronounced, irrespective of spelling.

Interestingly, Bombay too was an English corruption of the original Portuguese name, Bombaim /bɔ̃bãĩ̯/. Contrary to urban legend, this name had no connection with the original Marathi मुंबई.

Updated 2009-03-29