The Konkani people are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group native to the Konkan region of the Indian subcontinent who speak various dialects of the Konkani language. Konkani is the state language of Goa and also spoken by populations in coastal Karnataka, coastal Maharashtra, and Kerala. Other Konkani speakers are found in Gujarat state. A large percentage of Konkani people are bilingual. Etymology The word Konkan and, in turn Konkani, is derived from or . Different authorities explain etymology of this word differently. Some include: Koṇ meaning top of the mountain. Name of aboriginal mother goddess, which is sometimes sanskritised to mean goddess Renuka. Thus the name Konkane, comes from the word , which means the people of Konkan. Sub-ethnic groups Endonyms In general, in Konkani the masculine form used to address a Konkani speaker is and the feminine form is . The plural form is Konkane or Konkani. In Goa Konkano now refers only to Hindus, and Konkani Catholics do not address themselves as Konkanos as they were banned by the Portuguese from referring to themselves this way. Saraswat Brahmins of Canara refer to the Konkanis as /. This literally means our tongue or people speaking our tongue. Though this is not common amongst the Goans, they normally refer to Konkani as or our language. Sometimes can be used in the Goan context to mean people from my community. Exonyms Many of the colonial documents mention them as the Concanees, Canarians, Concanies. History Prehistory The then prehistoric region consisting of Modern Goa and some parts of Konkan adjoining Goa were inhabited by the Homo sapiens in Upper paleolithic and Mesolithic phase i.e. 8000–6000 BC. The rock engraving in many places along the coast has proven the existence of hunter-gathers. Nothing much is known about these earliest settlers. Figures of mother goddess and many other motifs have been recovered which do not really shed light on the ancient culture and language. Traces of Shamanic religion have been found in Goa. It is believed that tribes of Austric origin like Kols, Mundaris, Kharvis may have settled Goa and Konkan during the Neolithic period, living on hunting, fishing and a primitive form of agriculture since 3500 BC. According to Goan historian Anant Ramakrishna Dhume, the Gauda and Kunbi and other such castes are modern descendants of ancient Mundari tribes. In his work he mentions several words of Mundari origin in the Konkani language. He