An Investigation into the Sociolinguistic Prehistory of Konkani

INSPIK aims to investigate the sociolinguistic prehistory of a language called Konkani, which is spoken in scattered pockets across four states (Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala) on the western coast of India. As a southwestern Indo-Aryan language neighbouring Dravidian languages such as Kannada, Tulu, and Malayalam, Konkani is intriguing from a language-contact perspective. Konkani has, until recently, remained in a diglossic low relationship with other local and colonial literary, more powerful languages. In the absence of any written materials in Konkani prior to the 16th century, resources to undertake historically-oriented research on the language have been limited. INSPIK proposes an innovative use of Sanskrit/Kannada/Prakrit inscriptions discovered in todays Konkani-speaking regions, oral histories of migration recorded in Sanskrit Puranic texts, modern dialectological documentations of Konkani and other neighbouring languages, and comparative analysis of contemporary linguistic data to reconstruct a sociolinguistic prehistory of Konkani. Recent research has revealed that the Konkani language structure shows robust traces of prehistoric long-term, stable Dravidian and Indo-Aryan language contact. INSPIK will develop the idea further by examining previous language documentations complemented with new data collected for the project. Drawing on these linguistic data, and the insights gathered through inscriptions and ancient literary texts, INSPIK will then critically apply the sociolinguistic typological framework to identify the possible prehistoric sociolinguistic settings during the formation period of Konkani. At the end of the project, INSPIK will introduce an innovative methodology for undertaking historical research on languages with limited written materials, apply the sociolinguistic typology framework to a lesser-known language and test its limitations, and contribute data on Konkani to the Kiel South Asian Typological Database.