I have a lot to report on this result. Please give me time to collect the vocabulary in use in at least twenty-five Konkanni communities before a statement. W R Da Silva
On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 3:32 PM MD <[email protected]> wrote: > I asked AI what is jealousy in Konkani and I got fairly accurate response: > AI Overview > Jealousy in Konkani is commonly expressed as मत्सर (Matsar), दुस्वास > (Duswas), or इर्शा (Irsha). Other terms include असुया (Asuya), किंवाटो > (Kinwato), and द्वेश (Dwesh). A common idiom for feeling jealous is पोटांतु > उजो येवप (potantu uzo yewp), which literally means "fire in the stomach". > Key Konkani Terms for Jealousy: > > Matsar / मत्सर (Noun): Envy/Jealousy. (mosor) > Duswas / दुस्वास (Noun): Envy/Jealousy. > Irsha / इर्शा (Noun): Jealousy. > Jalkayo / जळकायो (Noun): Envy. (zalkai) > [Potantu uzo yewop] / पोटांतु उजो येवप (Idiom): To feel jealous. > [Mosrak wakat nam] / मोस्राक वकत नां (Phrase): "There is no medicine > for jealousy" (common proverb). > > These terms are used to describe feelings of insecurity, envy, or > possessivenes > > On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 7:27 AM John de Figueiredo < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> William, >> It is remarkable what you have accomplished. >> To your question, “is it worthwhile?” I will quote the famous Portuguese >> poet Fernando Pessoa: >> “Tudo vale a pena >> Quando a alma não é pequena” >> (Everything is worthwhile >> When the soul is not small) >> Just keep going. >> John M. de Figueiredo >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> On Apr 14, 2026, at 9:25 PM, William Robert Da Silva <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> >> It is my opinion that attempting an AI or any other online common model >> for writing Konkani first needs an understanding of Konkanni in at least >> four different scripts, not beginning in English. For example, the ergative >> of Konkanni, although used by all, a majority of speakers and writers are >> ignorant of its presence and shape. The transitive, intransitive and >> causative in Konkanni is not done properly. vochonk is written as >> vochunk, roddonk as roddunk. It is a zaunv form, it is not kor or koroi >> form, and its equivalent in English is: intransitive. But ti bori zali, >> zavunk. to boro zalo, tem borem zavunk. To uttlo, uttonk, not uttunk. Intr. >> in English but za in Konkanni. kor, korunk. koroi, koronvk. These forms in >> Romi are not uniformly used by all. There is immense variation, even in FN. >> I propose, first agree on a soroll form or common form of Konkanni. Don't >> go for bamonn (with Marathi-speaking and writing past elders) form of >> Konkanni. It is recent, most recent. But they do have a base Konkanni if >> they care for it: Chan'neache rati, maddache savllent etc. Goinchea >> mhojea... etc. Monglluranchea xarant ek cheddum dekilam, kazar >> mhojelaguim zata mhonnon tannem sangilam etc. >> There is a lot to explain, which I have worked out over thirty years of >> field research, but I did not come to put it down. The MSS were stolen at >> Alvas, Mudubidri and the Lexicon work of 1988-1991 was suppressed by the >> promoters. St Aloysius College. And its re-starting was suppressed again by >> SAC dtb U. There is a lot to report. Is it worth while? WRDS >> >> On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 1:31 AM John de Figueiredo < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Thank you, Frederick, for this helpful information >>> John M. de Figueiredo >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>> On Apr 14, 2026, at 12:43 PM, Frederick Noronha < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> >>> Prof John and all, >>> >>> Google Translate handles Konkani *only **moderately well.* Its >>> performance varies widely depending on the dialect, script (Devanagari, >>> Roman, Kannada, Malayalam, Perso-Arabic), and sentence complexity. It >>> manages simple phrases and everyday communication. But it struggles with >>> literary or technical texts. Especially those involving regional idioms or >>> culturally specific expressions. It often produces awkward or inaccurate >>> results. This could be because of its relatively limited digital corpus for >>> Konkani compared to major languages. It’s a helpful starting tool, but not >>> fully reliable for precise or complex translation. At the moment, it is >>> focussed on Nagari (Devanagari) Konkani, though Romi abilities were also >>> promised in the past. See Meet the Goan American who Mangified Google >>> Translate in Konkani | Prudent Media Goa >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Mh0VcPD20 >>> >>> <1.png> >>> >>> >>> Google Translate does not primarily “translate into Romi Konkani” as a >>> fully separate linguistic output; rather, what you often see at the bottom >>> (Roman script after Devanagari output) is usually generated through what >>> they're calling a *transliteration layer*. In simple terms, the system >>> first produces the Konkani meaning in Devanagari, and then applies a >>> rule-based + statistical mapping that converts those sounds into Latin >>> letters based on likely phonetic equivalents (for example, “क” → “ka”, “च” >>> → “cha”). This Roman output is therefore closer to a *phonetic >>> rendering of the Devanagari text* than a true native Romi Konkani >>> orthography, which has its own historical spelling conventions and >>> variations. Because of this, the Romi line can look inconsistent or >>> “non-standard,” especially with vowels, aspirated consonants, and regional >>> pronunciation differences. >>> >>> This might make sense to those who are in the tech domain: AI >>> translation for Konkani—especially across *multiple scripts >>> (Devanagari, Roman/Romi, Kannada)*—is not a single “one-click” system >>> working perfectly end-to-end. Instead, most systems combine three >>> components: (1) *neural machine translation (NMT)* to convert meaning >>> from source to target language, (2) *script normalization*, and (3) >>> *transliteration >>> layers* that map sounds into different writing systems. >>> >>> Techies keep calling Konkani a "*low-resource* (limited training data)" >>> data. I suspect much of the text produced over decades and even centuries >>> have not been scanned; and if they have been scanned in >>> government/taxpayer-funded projects, these have not been adequately shared >>> or utilised. Many digitisation projects have been announced in Goa since >>> even the 1980s and 1990s, but what's the outcome of this is not exactly >>> clear. Systems like Google Translate often rely on broader >>> Indian-language models and then approximate output, especially for Roman >>> script, which is usually generated via phonetic transliteration rather than >>> a native Konkani orthographic model. >>> >>> Current research-grade systems like *AI4Bharat’s IndicTrans2* (used in >>> academic and open-source Indic NLP work) are believed to outperform >>> commercial tools for many Indian languages, including Konkani. These have >>> trained specifically on multilingual Indic corpora and supposedly handle >>> script mapping more consistently. They might lack user interfaces that the >>> commercial tools have. Microsoft Translator and Google’s system are >>> blaming the limited training data and uneven coverage across scripts for >>> their lack of accuracy. >>> >>> Another interesting tool is Konkanverter.com. It works *quite well for >>> basic Romi transliteration*, especially when converting from Devanagari >>> or Kannada into Roman script in a consistent, rule-based way. Its strength >>> is that it follows a *standardised orthography model*, so outputs are >>> fairly predictable and useful for learners or documentation. It is however >>> still a *rule-based transliteration engine, not a dialect-aware AI >>> system. * So it does not truly “understand” spoken variation or >>> regional pronunciation differences. >>> >>> Konkanverter.com sometimes struggles with *dialectal variation and >>> ambiguity in *Goan sub-dialects (Bardez, Saxtti, Antruz) and Catholic >>> vs Hindu usage differences. Many Konkani words change pronunciation and >>> vowel quality across regions, but Konkanverter generally maps one standard >>> form rather than adapting to those shifts. It has been called a *clean >>> script converter, not a dialect-sensitive transliteration AI. I*t >>> performs well for formal text but only moderately for capturing real-world >>> spoken variation. I find it rendering Romi script better than others. >>> Please note: I am not a technical person, but have used both *Google >>> Translate* and *Konkanverter.com* a fair bit for my own purposes. Those >>> who are into this subject could correct the above..... >>> >>> FN >>> >>> _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ >>> _/ Frederick Noronha फ्रेडरिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا >>> _/ AUDIO https://archive.org/details/@fredericknoronha >>> _/ http://goa1556.in +91-9822122436 784 Saligao Goa >>> _/ Goanet :: 30 years of discussions. [email protected] >>> _/ http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/ >>> _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ >>> >>> >>> On Mon, 13 Apr 2026 at 09:08, John de Figueiredo < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> Konkani is now one of the languages in Google Translate. >>>> Congratulations to those who made this possible. Looks like it is available >>>> in Devanagari only. I tested a few words and they were fine. With AI it >>>> should be easy to include other scripts. >>>> John M. de Figueiredo >>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>> >>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>> Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>> an email to [email protected]. >>>> To view this discussion, visit >>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/E11C911D-637A-4358-B3C8-67B9A591A33F%40sbcglobal.net >>>> . >>>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> To view this discussion, visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/CA%2Bmqab_8%2BbxxFcai6NNwMNUi75q7fhaYaBh5sv8O9vqzkrT8sw%40mail.gmail.com >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/CA%2Bmqab_8%2BbxxFcai6NNwMNUi75q7fhaYaBh5sv8O9vqzkrT8sw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >>> . >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> To view this discussion, visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/6BFD9DB8-0B2B-4BBE-A3C6-7FD41F832101%40sbcglobal.net >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/6BFD9DB8-0B2B-4BBE-A3C6-7FD41F832101%40sbcglobal.net?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >>> . >>> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Goa-Research-Net" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion, visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/CA%2BvNr4LawEMb95GLNcJGNTX6XAFm_%2ByKw4j_FsmtDzjuOt%3DP7Q%40mail.gmail.com >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/CA%2BvNr4LawEMb95GLNcJGNTX6XAFm_%2ByKw4j_FsmtDzjuOt%3DP7Q%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Goa-Research-Net" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion, visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/E5CB2E91-EE16-4A44-A48D-858A3B786174%40sbcglobal.net >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/E5CB2E91-EE16-4A44-A48D-858A3B786174%40sbcglobal.net?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Goa-Research-Net" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/CAJJW6om05WkJQibtq_NXKoH0Ckzma4UYk9JX1NVhgm3HgjbhvQ%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/CAJJW6om05WkJQibtq_NXKoH0Ckzma4UYk9JX1NVhgm3HgjbhvQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group. 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