Tamil Nadu is set to rename over a thousand places in the state to ensure that the English names can accommodate the chaste Tamil pronunciation of these areas.
For example, ‘Thiruvallikeni’, an old settlement of Chennai, can no longer be written as ‘Triplicane’ in the official spelling; Coimbatore will now be spelled as Koyampuththoor; and Mylapore will now be ‘Mayilaappoor’.
Ambattur, known for housing a large industrial estate in the State, has been rechristened as “Ambaththoor.” A major tier-II city in the northern belt of the State — Vellore — is to be known as “Veeloor”, The Hindu reported
The Tamil Nadu government issued a 37-page notification and appended the entire list of 1,018 names of the places, as they are pronounced in Tamil, the present English name corresponding to it, and the change suggested.
The order follows an announcement in the Assembly two years ago that anglicised names of the areas be changed closer to their original names in Tamil, The Hindu report added.
Officials in the department of Development of Tamil Language say that the changes will be made with immediate effect, however, older official documents will be left as it is.
State Tamil Development director G Vijayaraghavan told the newspaper that the committee that proposed the changes comprised revenue officials, local administration officials, highway officials, and Tamil scholars.
“The idea was to match the spelling of a place’s name with what a common man pronounces,” he said.(F.P)
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One can neither condone or oppose the action taken by successive victories rulers including BJP to start changing names of places in sympathy of current trend or mood. Some are valid, patriotic and meant to wipe of bad memories as is proven recently in riots and protests following killing of George Floyd by American police officer in Minnesota many black people would like to remove statues of slave traders too. If each generation can legitimately prove that spelling name of a town to match pronouncing we can still be at the mercy of English which ultimately is dominant language.