Scientists propose phonetic fixes to Devanagari script for Konkani

Konkani, a language spoken along India’s western coast, may soon get a writing system that finally matches the way it actually sounds. A team of researchers from Goa University, the University of Mumbai, Government College of Arts, Science and Commerce in Quepem, and the University of Zagreb has published a detailed proposal for modifying the Devanagari script so that it better represents the phonological system of Konkani. The study, led by Swapnil Fadte and colleagues, appears in the journal SN Social Sciences and argues that the official orthography of Konkani suffers from a persistent grapheme–phoneme mismatch that creates ambiguity in pronunciation, spelling, and language learning.

Konkani is officially written in Devanagari, the same script used for Hindi and Marathi, but the language has historically been written in multiple scripts including Roman, Kannada, Malayalam, and Perso-Arabic. The Goa, Daman and Diu Official Language Act of 1987 recognised Devanagari as the official script, yet the script was never tailored to the specific sound system of Konkani. When a script designed for one language is applied to another without adaptation, certain symbols may represent sounds that do not exist in the new language, while unique phonemes of the new language may be left with no representation at all. This is precisely the situation the researchers document for Konkani.

One of the clearest examples involves the Devanagari symbol ऋ, which in Sanskrit and Hindi represents the vocalic [r̩], and the retroflex [ʂ], neither of which reflects the nature of Konkani. On the other hand, some unique vowel and consonant phonemes of Konkani are left with no representation in the script. The researchers point to the Konkani word written as चोर, which is ambiguous as regards its number. It is the pronunciation of the word that signals the correct number: [t͡sor] means the singular ‘thief’ while [t͡ʃɔr] means the plural ‘thieves’. The grapheme च is used to represent two distinct consonant phonemes in Konkani, namely [t͡s] and [t͡ʃ], so a reader cannot tell from the spelling alone which sound is intended or whether the word is singular or plural.

Such cases pose language learning and writing challenges for native and non-native speakers alike. The mismatch becomes more complicated due to the rigid nature of scripts compared to the evolving nature of languages. Some proposals for modifying the script to suit Konkani did come from Konkani linguists and lexicographers, including the writer Shenoi Goembab as early as 1947, but these were not really pursued further. Although there are some orthography rules proposed to cater to issues of the above kind, their application is kept limited. To give an example, the diacritic ॅ is suggested for showing the open vowel ɛ in Konkani, but this rule is restricted to writing only those words that are borrowed from English. What this rule misses is that in Konkani /ɛ/ is a phoneme present in native words of the language too, not just in borrowed words. Such selective rule framing has created confusion among language learners.

The researchers advocate script modification that addresses the phonological requirements of Konkani. Devanagari character set modifications mainly include repurposing existing but underutilized diacritics or introducing minor changes as regards language-specific characters of Konkani. Notably, all necessary characters already exist within the Devanagari Unicode block, yet their use is constrained by current orthography norms. Revisiting these conventions would enhance written accuracy and phonetic-based orthography rules. Because the standardization of written Konkani is relatively recent, implementing such changes may be both timely and practical, especially from a computational point of view.

The proposal builds on a body of prior work by the same group. In 2022, Fadte and colleagues published an acoustic analysis of vowels in Konkani in the ACM Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing. In 2023, the team presented an empirical analysis of oral and nasal vowels of Konkani and introduced the Konkani Phonetic Transcription System 1.0 at the Speech and Computer conference. These studies provided the empirical phonetic foundation for the current orthographic proposal, grounding the character modifications in measured acoustic properties of the Konkani sound system rather than in impressionistic description.

The researchers examine the limitations of the Devanagari script as applied to Konkani and advocate targeted modifications. Some symbols present in the script, such as ऋ representing [r̩] or the retroflex [ʂ], do not represent the nature of Konkani, while some unique vowel and consonant phonemes of the language are left with no representation. The modifications mainly involve repurposing existing but underutilized diacritics and introducing minor changes to language-specific characters. Because all necessary characters already exist within the Devanagari Unicode block, the changes do not require new font engineering or encoding approvals, only a revision of current orthography norms that constrain their use.

From a computational perspective, the timing is favourable. Konkani is a low-resourced language, and the relatively recent standardization of its written form means that implementing phonetic-based orthography rules now may be both timely and practical. Grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, speech synthesis, speech recognition, and text processing tools for Konkani would all benefit from a script whose symbols map more transparently onto the language’s phonemes. The researchers argue that revisiting current conventions would enhance written accuracy and support phonetic-based orthography rules, reducing the ambiguity that currently forces readers to rely on pronunciation rather than spelling to disambiguate meaning.

The study, published in SN Social Sciences, received no funding and the authors declare no competing interests. All authors contributed equally to the work. The researchers hope that their examination of the limitations of the Devanagari script for Konkani will prompt a renewed discussion of script modification that addresses the phonological requirements of the language, ending a long period in which earlier proposals from Konkani linguists and lexicographers were left unpursued.

Subject of Research: Phonetic-based enhancement to Devanagari orthography for Konkani

Article Title: Phonetic-based enhancement to Devanagari orthography for Konkani

Article References: Fadte, S., Vaz, E., Redkar, H., Thakkar, G., Karmali, R., Wagh, R., & Kundaikar, T. (2026). Phonetic-based enhancement to Devanagari orthography for Konkani. SN Social Sciences, 6(8), Article 347. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-026-01628-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43545-026-01628-w

Keywords: Phonetic-based, enhancement, Devanagari, orthography, Konkani, scientific research