‘Make place name sound the same as Tamil in English’

Tirupur: The district administration has invited petitions/suggestions seeking to change names of villages, towns and cities if their pronunciations in English were different from Tamil.
During the recent session for grants to Tamil development department in the state assembly, the government had passed an order wherein it said it would take steps to change names of places to ensure they were pronounced the same both in Tamil and English. For instance, as per the government records, Thiruvallikeni is spelled and pronounced in English as Triplicane. As per the order, it would be hereafter pronounced as Thiruvallikeni in English too.

Following the government order, the district administration had formed a district-level five-member committee for the purpose. Headed by the collector, it has Tamil development department’s joint/assistant director, district revenue officer, land survey assistant director and district registrar as its members.

So far, only a few petitions/suggestions have reached the Tamil development department. One suggestion was to change Udumalpet as Udumalpettai as pronounced in Tamil. Another petition said Chevur was pronounced as Cheyyur in English and it should be changed as Chevur as in Tamil.

“Even Tirupur should be changed as Thiruppur, because the latter could only be pronounced as same as in Tamil. Likewise, Avinashi should be spelled as Avinaashi,” said K P Avinaashikutti of Rakkiyapalayam.