Konkani is a Southern Indo-Aryan language, not a dialect of Marathi, and the distinction was argued in scholarship and in court for the better part of a century before it was settled administratively. It became the official language of Goa under the Official Language Act of 1987 — in the Devanagari script, with Marathi also permitted for official purposes — and entered the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution in 1992. It is written in two scripts by two populations. Devanagari carries the official register, school textbooks and most modern literary prose; the Roman script, Romi, carries tiatr, the mando texts, Catholic liturgy and a long periodical tradition. Only the Devanagari script has official status, and campaigns for parity for Romi have been running since the 1987 Act. The dispute is live, is argued in the state's own newspapers, and is best understood as a question about which written tradition the state funds, not about which speech is authentic.
AntruziIndo-Aryan, Southern
The New Conquest inland variety that became the base of the standardised literary Devanagari Konkani. That a standard was drawn from an inland Hindu taluk rather than from the far more populous coastal ones is itself part of the script argument.
बोलने वाले: The Ponda taluk and its surroundings
BardeshiIndo-Aryan, Southern
North Goan coastal Konkani, from Bardez and Tiswadi, with a large Portuguese-derived vocabulary in domestic, administrative and culinary use.
SaxttiIndo-Aryan, Southern
Salcete Konkani, the language of the mando texts and of much of the tiatr stage, and the variety most Goan migrants carried to Bombay, East Africa and the Gulf.
Pednekari and KudaliIndo-Aryan, Southern
The northern fringe around Pernem and across the Terekhol, shading into Malvani and heavily influenced by Marathi.
Karwari and Canara KonkaniIndo-Aryan, Southern
The southward continuation into the Karwar estuaries and beyond, including the Saraswat and Catholic Konkani carried down the coast by migration from the sixteenth century onwards.
Goan MarathiIndo-Aryan, Southern
Marathi has a long liturgical and literary presence in the New Conquest temples and in Goan Hindu schooling, and remains a permitted official language. Its role, rather than its existence, is what is disputed.