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The Names Change!

Following a national trend, some time in the nineties, several places in Kerala, were renamed - most notably districts were renamed in English to match their Malayalam names. Many reasons were given to justify this change - ranging from linguistic, nationalistic and even declaring freedom.

One of the following maps reflects this change.

The left one is the map from Yearbook 2000. The right one from 1987. As you can see the contents have shrunk in details. The districts are no longer shown. Another big difference is the names of some towns. Trivandrum has become Thiruvananthapuram! 18 characters, making it probably the longest name of any capital in the world.

Alleppey has become Alappuzha, Quilon is Kollam and so on. Wait what about Trichur? Why is Trichur not shown as Trissur (in fact it has become Trissur!)? And where is Kannur, Palakkad...? This is inconsistent! Above all, following the same pattern, why is Kerala not changed to Keralam? Whatever name we use, consistency is very important. Today after the name change places are listed in all kinds of ways. The airlines still use Trivandrum, but changed to Chennai and Mumbai. But very many displays and books still use Bombay and Madras. If one looks at Encyclopædia Britannica for example, we see that very many Indian places are listed there (proportionally higher than some other countries). Do we expect them to change all these names? What about the cross references? If we cannot keep consistency within a map of our own state how we do expect the foreigners to use everything the 'right' way?[Just the other day, while watching a video movie in Malayalam, the company address is shown as Harmony, Kochin! This is a hybrid yet another new spelling! ]

And here is another from a webpage: do you see our beloved name Thiruvananthapuram?

In Kerala and the rest of India the names have been 'nationalized'. Why did this revelation come only after 50 years of independence? The founding fathers of the nation were not less nationalistic than today's fourth class polititians and pseudo intellectuals. Why didn't they think about the names? Gandhi even wrote his autobiography in Gujarati in spite of well versed in English. Tagore wrote Gitanjali in Bengali (translated into English by Tagore and C.F.Andrews) but Swami Vivekanada who rose from the cradle of Indian Reformation, wrote everything in English! None of them ever complained about the names! Language is only a medium. The natural differences here show only thing, we respect the language, not worhip any (not even the mother tongue).

Calcutta becomes Kolkotta

Bengal used to be the centre of reformation movements in India - religious as well as literature. After long years of leftist rule, now Calcutta has been nationalized as Kolkotta! This is probably the most absurd of all name changes. The reason is that the name is deribed from the temple at Kalighat. This became later Kalikata which was anglicized into Calcutta. Why din't the nationalists change the name into Kalighat? Kolkotta though used in Bengali is a much vulgar form than either the original Kalighat or the anglican Calcutta!

Pseudo nationalism or Modern Tuglaks

What is happening is not nationalism, but a pseudo version of it. These are Tuglak level changes. It is surprising that no one, not even the French Teachers in Mahee opposed such a foolishness. [We will see why French Teachers, shortly..]. I've heard some people vehemently opposing the 'colonial rule' and 'colonial names'! Behind the scene the same people are sending their children to the new 'English Medium' Schools, where neither English nor the medium subjects are properly taught!

Evolution of Languages

The fact is that the names have nothing to colonialism. The evolution of language may have been affected by the Colonial Rule, but that happened in either ways. So English borrowed copra ('koppara'), cashew ('kasu'), calico (Calicut), coir ('kayaru'), ginger ('Ingi') and many words from Malayalam and other Indian languages. Americans use the words 'Guru' and 'Pundit' in academic and journalistic circles much more than us today! These are modern acquistions as compared to the linguistic link between Sanskrit and Latin. For example, if we go further back, according to Websters International Dictionary even the most common English word 'man' comes from Sanskrit 'Manu'! Bind is bandha, 'september' comes from 'Saptha', Desember from 'Dasa' and so on and on. Evolution of languages is a continuous process, which happens even today.

Place Names

You may say the above examples have nothing to with the 'distortion' of our place names by the 'British'! Well, let's see the place names are distorted or not. First let's see what is happening in the rest of the World. Let's tke Europe, because there are many other languages there other than English.

The following table shows how a country / town is called in other languages and English.

As we see here, the countries and cities are called differently in different languages. In all European languages the place names are spelled and pronounced very differently. This is quite natural.This has nothing to do with colonialism, but has to do with the way pronuciation has evolved in different places. French or German cannot pronounce some English words as it is. The names are in a way translated or 'naturalized'.

For example, Norwegians do not insist that the English or French call 'Norway' as 'Norge'! Swedish do not insist the rest use 'Sverige'! But our 'natioanlists' or modern illiterates insist that all Indian names should be spelled as it is in English. This is transliteration, not translation, often used in dictionaries to show the pronunciation. Following this convention, (ie if we insist everyone calls Kochi as Kochi) then, we should use native names for all countries and cities. Then 'Norway' should be called 'Norge' in Malayalam too, because that is the way it is spelt in the mother tongue Norwegian!

Why go all the way to Europe? We have many Christian names already nativized to Malayalam. For example: Jacob has become Chacko, Davis is Devassy, Matthew is Mathayi...Within Kerala itself when lower castes used high-caste names, they had gone metamorphosis - so Govindan has become Konnan, Krishnan is Kittan and even the deity Sasthav was converted to Chathan! Such changes have happened even in Europe. Charles is Karl in Germany, Karle in Finland.

Here is another Table showing the names of different languages in their respective native tongue and English

Again none of the countries insist that the languages should be spelt or pronounced in English as they are done in their native tongue! If we follow the examples of our modern Indian 'Tuglaks' all should have done so!

Jesus or Yesus ? ¼àØØí,åçÏÖáØí

In Malayalam we call Jesus Christ as çÏÖádµßØñá. This is correct because in the language of Israel - Hebrew - that is how the name is pronounced. Then we call Him in English as Jesus, pronounced ¼àØØí by us Malayalees as well as by the Englishmen. Following the arguments of native pronounciation, we should have called çÏÖáØí in English also. There is also another reason why we should have called çÏÖáØí. The letter 'J' is pronounced as 'ya' in most European languages except in English! This is clear from names like Jugoslavia (for Yugoslavia) in Serbian language. Johan is pronounced 'yohan' , Jon as 'yon' in most European Languages. A notable difference here is Spanish where 'J' is pronounced as 'Ha'! So Jose, a common Spanish name, is pronounced 'Hosé' çÙÞæØ. Californian Silicon Valley City, San Jose, is wrongly pronounced in many Malayalam papers as ØÞX ç¼ÞØí instead of ØÞX çÙÞæØ.

So how do we pronounce Jesus in English? Though çÏÖáØí should have been the correct pronounciation, since 'J' is pronunced 'Ja' in English, we have to accept the pronounciation ¼àØØí. In this case, it would have been better if the first English guys who came across the word had known that European spelling 'Jesus' should have been put as 'Yesus' in English. This having not done, now we are bound to continue the existing usage instead of inventing new ones (unlike what we are doing now in India!).

ØíxàËX, ØíxàÕX

In Kerala the name "Stephen" is pronounced as 'ØíxàËX". Nothing wrong with that. But if we strictly follow the English way (since the spelling and name are more English than native) it should be pronounced 'ØíxàÕX'. Writer R.L.Stephenson is 'ØíxàÕXØX'. But in many European countries Stpehen is written and pronounced as Stefan (as in Stefan Edberg, Swedish Tennis player), so we can as well do that! But at the same time, if we insist writing ØíxàËX in Malayalam, for the English spelling Stephen, is right, then we have to also accept that writing "Trichur" in English is right! The issue is not a question of right and wrong, but more of a convention or tradition. This truth is forgotten in the 'over educated' Kerala now.

Non Trivial Issue

Many of you may say: What the heck, I don't care how you call these places. Afterall it is a trivial issue. But it is not! As such the changes are linguistically wrong and it also is a reflection of what silly activities we are indulged in, 50 years after independence! Within a language, the names should be consistent except for historical exceptions like Calicut and Kozhikode, Holland and The Netherlands etc; across languages such consistency is not to be expected.

It's astonishing that no one said a word against such changes. All were unanimous in 'getting rid of' the British (little do they realize that the Brits had left India in 1947, there is no need to evict them again! Who are running the English medium schools: Sahibs or pseudo Sahibs?) and gaining cheap popularity. Where were our College teachers? If not the English, at least the French teachers should have known such differences in pronunciation!

In Kerala, like the rest of India, language policy is totally mixed up. Languages are not taught the right way - neither English nor Hindi. Learning a language and using a language as the medium of instruction are two different things. Humans learn the language in the following order : listen, speak, read and write. In Indian schools including the so called CBSE English Medium schools it is done in the opposite order - write, read, speak and listen. One does not learn any better English by studying Mathematicas, Physics or Chemistry in English. A 2000 words English vocabulary (+ technical words) are good enough to express any scientific ideas. If anyone wants to learn the language, it should be taught in the language class, not in the science class. Medium of Instruction is an issue of its own and will be discussed in another article later.

The language policy is controlled either by 'English worshippers' or by illiterate politicians who declare themselves as 'anti-English' and 'nationalists'. Neither of them are right.

More Examples of Evolution of Names and Words

We all know what "copra" is. Copra is today called "æµÞdÉ" in Malayalam also. But if we look at the word "Copra" in Oxford Dictionary it says "Copra: [Port. & Sp. f. Malayalam koppara.] Dried coconut kernels, from which oil is obtained." ie the word "copra" originated from the Malayalam word "æµÞMø"! Then why did we change the Malayalam word and the pronounciation to "æµÞdÉ"? This was a reverse change in the wrong direction!!!