CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday withdrew an order changing the anglicised names of 1,018 places in the state that triggered an outcry over the inconsistencies in transliteration. Tamil official language and Tamil culture minister K Pandiarajan said the government would absorb all feedback and reissue an order soon. Prior to that a transliteration protocol would be released.
The two-year initiative of the government that included consultations among linguists and scholars at the district and state level, culminating in an order on April 1. It was released in the public domain last week. “We are working on alignment of views by experts on transliteration standards from Tamil to English. Hopefully, we should get this released in two or three days. The government order on the change of English names for Tamil names for places has been withdrawn,” the minister tweeted. The order drew flak in social media amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, and leaders and scholars questioned the rationale behind the standards adopted for transliteration.
If Coimbatore became Koyampuththoor, Vellore turned Veeloor and Madurai Mathurai. The ‘Pettais’ of Chennai regained their originality – Saidapettai, Jalladiyaanpettai, Chintadaripettai. The changes made to Erode to Erodu triggered sharp responses from the local elected representatives, since the phrase came from Eru Odai (two streams). The inconsistency becomes clear when Tiruvarur becomes Thiruvaroor while Vidur remains Veedur.
Pandiarajan said the government would come up with a transliteration protocol, akin to Mandarin to resolve the issues of inconsistency. “Most of the feedback is about inconsistency. We intend to bring out a transliteration protocol and based on which the translations would be done. We are not going back from the attempt to get the English word to be the same phonetically as Tamil name. A place will have only a name and that name will be in Tamil,” he told TOI. A team of linguists are working on the initiative to come up with a protocol first as there are three transliteration protocols in vogue.
Pandiarajan said it would make the job easy since years have passed by and some of the names were 200 years old. “We will ensure that a minimal number of changes happen. We will choose a protocol which is accepted by the linguists; which is easy to abide by; which has minimal number of changes and we will announce it quickly,” the minister said.
MDMK chief Vaiko on Wednesday said Tamil Nadu should be changed to ‘Thamilnaadu’ given the wrong pronunciation of North Indians and Egmore should be ‘Elumpoor’ as ‘Ezhumboor’ would cause confusion.
Pandiarajan said the previous order was only about communicating the recommendation of the task force, represented by six departments, including Tamil development, revenue, rural development, municipal administration and registration.
The two-year initiative of the government that included consultations among linguists and scholars at the district and state level, culminating in an order on April 1. It was released in the public domain last week. “We are working on alignment of views by experts on transliteration standards from Tamil to English. Hopefully, we should get this released in two or three days. The government order on the change of English names for Tamil names for places has been withdrawn,” the minister tweeted. The order drew flak in social media amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, and leaders and scholars questioned the rationale behind the standards adopted for transliteration.
If Coimbatore became Koyampuththoor, Vellore turned Veeloor and Madurai Mathurai. The ‘Pettais’ of Chennai regained their originality – Saidapettai, Jalladiyaanpettai, Chintadaripettai. The changes made to Erode to Erodu triggered sharp responses from the local elected representatives, since the phrase came from Eru Odai (two streams). The inconsistency becomes clear when Tiruvarur becomes Thiruvaroor while Vidur remains Veedur.
Pandiarajan said the government would come up with a transliteration protocol, akin to Mandarin to resolve the issues of inconsistency. “Most of the feedback is about inconsistency. We intend to bring out a transliteration protocol and based on which the translations would be done. We are not going back from the attempt to get the English word to be the same phonetically as Tamil name. A place will have only a name and that name will be in Tamil,” he told TOI. A team of linguists are working on the initiative to come up with a protocol first as there are three transliteration protocols in vogue.
Pandiarajan said it would make the job easy since years have passed by and some of the names were 200 years old. “We will ensure that a minimal number of changes happen. We will choose a protocol which is accepted by the linguists; which is easy to abide by; which has minimal number of changes and we will announce it quickly,” the minister said.
MDMK chief Vaiko on Wednesday said Tamil Nadu should be changed to ‘Thamilnaadu’ given the wrong pronunciation of North Indians and Egmore should be ‘Elumpoor’ as ‘Ezhumboor’ would cause confusion.
Pandiarajan said the previous order was only about communicating the recommendation of the task force, represented by six departments, including Tamil development, revenue, rural development, municipal administration and registration.
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