Margao, Oct 10 (TOI): Finance secretary Daulat Hawaldar on Friday emphasized that the death of a language is a great cultural loss to the community who is dependent upon it whilst urging Goan Konkani mogis (lovers) to protect and preserve their mai bhas (mother tongue) from the onslaught of English that he opined carried a 'false sense of prestige' for those aspiring to learn it for the sake of the economic opportunities available through this dominant global language worldwide.

Hawaldar made this remark during his address as the chief guest at the 54th Konkani Bhasha Mandal (KBM) annual day celebrations held at Gomant Vidya Niketan (GVN) auditorium, Margao, after felicitating the 14 KBM awardees - Fr Mousinho Athaide (KBM Service Award), Savio Pinto and Prakash Dattaram Naik (KBM literary Award), Vincy Quadros (Late Chandrakant Keni Memorial Columnist Award), K M Suktankar (Late Roque Barretto Memorial Literary Award), Mahesh Nilkant Naik (Jose Piedade Cardoso Memorial Craftsmanship Award), Aruna Rajesh Patnekar (Felicio Cardozo Memorial Educationist Award), Shantaram Varde Valaulikar (Ramnath Manorkar Memorial Translation Award), Yeshwant Sadanand Palekar (Manohar Rai Sardessai Memorial Children's Literature Award), Sandesh Prabhudessai (Ligorio Furtado Memorial Trust Journalism Award), besides four educationists - Shubham Sushant Kamat, Kesham Kalidas Naik, Prerna Palekar and Supriya Jogle. Hawaldar also released the KBM souvenir in the presence of KBM president Chetan Acharya.

Stating that one witnessed a lot of energy in a Konkani speaker, Hawaldar pointed out that though he hailed from Kolhapur, Maharashtra, he was residing in Goa since the past 25-30 years. Hence, Konkani was not an alien language to him despite not being his mother tongue.

Paying a tribute to the visionary late Pedro Correia Afonso, the guest of honour Goa Konkani Akademi (GKA) president Madhav Borkar urged Konkani writers not to be egoist or self-centered and to read the literary works of others so as to improvise their works. Borkar also sought debates amongst Konkani literateurs to further enrich Konkani.

While KBM vice-president Jose Lourenco welcomed, KBM general secretary Surel Tilve proposed the vote of thanks.