A couple of weeks back TULF president Anadasagaree in a press release had opposed naming of a housing scheme in Jaffana as Mahindapuram citing the move as counter-productive. Whether the move by the government was wrong or right, the incident in a way, I feel, as if history repeating itself.
The so called 'Tamil's historical homeland theory' has many a times been challenged and proved to have been untrue by many hard evidences. Among many such hard evidences the origins of names of villages have proved to have been a good source to challenge the homeland theory. Most of the villages in the North and East have originally had Sinahala names and have later been Tamilinised.
If go by a few examples such as Vavniya of which ealier name was Vav Nimava literary meaning the last place where the tanks end , Kokavil- Kokavila, Valigamamam- Valigama, Kamburupiddi-Kamburupitiya etc. A Tamil scholar in 1930s wrote a book in Tamil on this subject and claimed that Tamils have no right to claim North and East as their homeland citing many such examples. He have traced the names of many places in the North and East with originally bearing Sinhala names. Due to some mysterious circumstances copies of that book can hardly be found now.
When I asked some of my Tamil friends the meanings of the names of such villages they found that their were no meanings in Tamil for such names. Anyway, rebel will post a detailed note on the subject with descriptive examples in near future.
4 comments:
if i'm right , the govt desided against the naming of the village 'Mahindapura" and are going ahead with calling it " Douglas Town"..so i heard....
I agree with you, most of the Northern city/village names with sound ‘Ka’ originally used the word ‘Ga’. Example, GalAmuna, turned in to Kalamuna and eventually Kalmunai. This happened because of there is no sound ‘Ga’ in Tamil language. Some people always bend facts to fit the theory. It is rather easy to bend the history. Yes. It is a wonderful idea to list down all the names if you can. That will quite nice reference.
By the way, I don’t think there is nothing wrong with “Tamilanizing” names. Names should be comfortable in people’s tongues. Sinhalese too changed names like Colombo in to ‘Coloba’, Abraham in to ‘Abaran’ , Gregory In to ‘Girigoris’, etc..
‘Mahinda’ is an Indian name. so I don’t think anyone should have any problem with historical point of that. But after all, if Tamils in North have any problems with Indian origins, Rather like western names, we cannot do anything about it. So let it be Douglas town then..
// Due to some mystrious circumastances copies of that book can hardly be found now// may be because that book is crap?
Sam,
Douglas towm in after Minister Douglas Devananda of EPDP fame ....
g
Sam,
The point here is the so called " Tamil's homeland theory" that claims that the Tamils were the original inhabitants.Therefore, NE belong only to Tamils.
The problem is not Tamilanizing the names alone but claiming the palces as homelands. Judging the way things go It won't be suprisisng if some cities in the West, USA and Australia being Tamilanizied then ending up being climed as 'historical homelands'
Post a Comment