The Kokni Muslim community in South Africa is scripting a remarkable story of preservation of language and culture, according to a new study on diaspora and linguistic.
Over 8,000 kilometres across the Indian Ocean, the papad in Cape Town tastes as good as the ones made in Raigad. There are more similarities. A group of Muslims converses in the same dialect brought by their ancestors from Maharashtra.
The Kokni Muslim community in South Africa is scripting a remarkable story of preservation of language and culture, according to a new study on diaspora and linguistic. Kokni – pronounced Konkani otherwise – has been existing there for over 125 years since the migration of the community members from Raigad and northern Ratnagiri for better opportunities.
"The language and speech distinctions among the Koknis in South Africa and their links with coastal Maharashtra have been maintained because of their strong village-based identities... This contrasts with the trend to mainstream identity and languages in diaspora conditions and is hence remarkable," said Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi, professor of Linguistics at the Deccan College, Pune. She added that unlike the migration of Gujarati, Tamil and Hindi speakers, the smaller migration of Kokni-speakers to South Africa was little-known.
"Hindi and Bhojpuri speakers migrated to South Africa from different villages in colonial times with their distinctive dialects," said Kulkarni-Joshi.
TShe added, "Gradually, differences between these dialects levelled-off and the distinct features of each were dropped to develop into a Koine (a common, standardised dialect)," said Kulkarni-Joshi.
The preservation was because the diaspora maintained their linkages with their villages, funded projects like schools and kept returning to their villages on sabbatical. Marriages were arranged in extended families from their villages of origin or from the local migrant community hailing from the village. These factors ensured strong village links and language maintenance, said Kulkarni-Joshi.
Cape Town's Rylands has streets named Latvan Road, Habsan and Latvan societies and a shop named Janjira. In 2010, a local cricket tournament modelled on the IPL had teams based on villages of origin like Latvan Lions and Habsani Royals.
While those aged between 50 and 55 years speak Kokni, youngsters are more confident expressing themselves in English, said Kulkarni-Joshi. However, the language retention was strong when it came to kinship terms and food items. A strong marker of Kokni identity is retained in cuisine and cultural practices like preparing quilts and papads.
The study launched in 2015 was jointly funded by the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, South Africa, and the Indian Council of Social Science Research with Prof Rajend Mesthrie of the University of Cape Town as the South Africa lead and Kulkarni- Joshi as the India lead assisted by Ruta Paradkar.
The field work comprised collection of data and speech samples from around 90 people in Cape Town. Details of their family's native village in the Konkan were noted to "determine the connection between South Africa and Kokni and how the language diverged". Data was collected in the Konkan in the Morba, Murud and Shrivardhan (Raigad) and Kalusta and Latvan (Ratnagiri).
"The Kokni in Maharashtra has not been standardised. We could identify three broad regional varieties of Kokni, namely, that spoken in Latvan (North Ratnagiri), Kalusta (Chiplun) and Habsan (Murud, Janjira and Srivardhan in Raigad) from where migrations had occurred. Unlike the formation of Koine in Bhojpuri... village distinctions have been maintained in South Africa and there has been no Koine formation for Kokni in Cape Town," Kulkarni-Joshi explained.
In A Time Capsule
Marathi and Konkani are said to have descended from Maharashtri Prakrit
A small number of speakers are spread across a vast geographical expanse leading to dialectal variations
Koknis arrived in South Africa after 1875, most became wholesale and retail general dealers and butchers
(Source: Kokni in Cape Town and the Sociolinguistics of Transnationalism by Rajend Mesthrie, Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi and Ruta Paradkar, 2017. Language Matters.)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "JANJIRA")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}