Kokni in Cape Town and the Sociolinguistics of Transnationalism

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article continues the initial documentary work on South African Kokni begun in Mesthrie, Kulkarni-Joshi and Paradkar (2016). The language (known as Konkani in India) has been in existence for over 125 years in South Africa, with Cape Town as its main base. We characterise the extent to which the language is still used and the social circumstances under which this takes place. We highlight historical research on the strong transnational mobility of older speakers in Cape Town and their keen awareness of village roots in India. Our investigations on the Konkan coast of India confirm the strong historical and linguistic links between the area and Cape Town. We present our preliminary findings on the dialect characteristics of the Cape Town variety, mainly in relation to morphological variation, based on our fieldwork of 2016–2017. There is initial support for the hypothesis that significant variation based on villages of origin persists well over a hundred years after the initial migrations. We conclude by addressing some dilemmas concerning language maintenance and shift.