Talk:Sri Lankan place name etymology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is currently subject to editing restrictions, as laid out during a previous dispute resolution process. If you are a new editor, or an editor unfamiliar with the situation, please follow the guidelines laid out here. If you are unsure if your edit is appropriate, discuss it on this talk page first.

	Sri Lankan place name etymology was a nominee for Geography and places good article, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
April 7, 2008 Good article nominee Not listed

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

WikiProject Sri Lanka (Rated B-Class) This page is within the scope of WikiProject Sri Lanka, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on Sri Lanka on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. B This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.) WikiProject Tamil civilization (Rated B-Class) This article is within the scope of WikiProject Tamil civilization, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Tamil related topics. If you would like to participate, please feel free to visit the project page to join. B This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project’s quality scale. ??? This article has not yet been assigned a rating on the Project’s importance scale.

/archive

Contents 1 Structure of the full article 2 new structure 2.1 Issues with the section "Focus of Research" 2.2 Issues with the section "Geolinguistics distribution 2.3 Issues with the section "Anthropological and political relevance of place names in Sri Lanka" 3 we need to keep editing restriction tags and politics and build consensus 4 Sources 5 List of sources 6 removal of sources 7 Kularatnam and his value for the article 8 The Ceylon Antiquary and the value to this article 9 Gnanaprakasar 's value 10 K. Velu Pillai, Yalpana Vaibhava Kaumudi 11 Dr. Jane Russellś value for this article 12 Indrapala (1965). 13 Indrapala (2007). 13.1 Discussions regarding the corpus of sources and pioneering studies 14 Additional references by Bodhi dhana 14.1 validation of sources etc

[edit] Structure of the full article

(I wrote the following off-line before seeing Jasy J's 10:51, 3 June 2008 comments. Also Taprobanus|talk]]) 12:50, 3 June 2008But I think what I wrote below fits in ). Let us think of the full article title as "Place names in Sri Lanka". Regarding Jasy J's proposal, I think if we get away from the ethnic division (sinhala, tamil, etc), as he has done, and look at etymology from the point of place names and relate them to source languages (i.e, often, all the way to sanskrit, pali etc., as well as sinhala and tamil), we could have a useful article. Jasy J notes that sinhala places names have the X+Y structure. This is true for Tamil place names too, as he himself notes. The modern western place names are much more person-centered, (the classic exceptions being Anuradhapure ~6 century(?) BCE and Alexandria ~4th (?) Centry BCE). Note that the persons who come to this encyclopedia are NOT mostly interested in detailed etymology and philoloogy. Readers want a simple readable account of current place names and how they evolved from ancient place names. The place names depend on (i)location, i.e, place names in the western, southern, eastern, nothern etc. provinces, (ii) language (iii) Maritime versus inland. There was some consensus among scholars about most place names including those in the North and East till about 1970s (this is seen in Kathigesu Indrapala-1965 London University Thesis, and also Michal Roberts -J. South-Asian Studies, vol XXVII, p 103). Domastic politics in Sri Lanka brought new attempts to re-interpret or dispute place names in the North and East. We cannot solve political disputes. We can only present the existing views as they are, giving the different versions as necessary.

So, I suggest a slight revamp of Jasy J's list and rewrite it for the full article to contain:

• (item 1) Brief Introduction (which in effect introduces the subject annd summarized the body of the article)
• (item 2) Structure of place names (this is mostly, X+Y, tracing X and/or Y to source languages, provincial, historical influences). Evauation of sources of place names for toponymics: (ephigraphic records, historical-literary sources, chinese, arab, portuguese, dutch writings, maps etc.)
• (item 3) big towns (this illustrates the principles shown in the previous section where ever possible)
• (item 4) touristic places (ditto)
• (item 5) minority-language place names (Portuguese, Dutch, Malay, Vedda)
• (item 6) Allonyms (Completely different names in different languages)
• (item 2 was placed here by Jasy J.) illustration of a certain pattern: X-pitiya, X-goda, X-gala etc and similar formations in Tamil
• (item 7) multiple interpretations, e.g. Jaffna, and several other placenames in the North and East. In the earlier version "place names in the north and east" which existed till about Feb 2008, this was the topic treated, as the place names in other regios seemed best left out for another article.
• (item 8) etymological curiosities like reborrowings, blendings, distortions
• (item 9) interesting semantics (kiribathgoda=milk rice village, Duplication Road)

I moved up Jasy J's item about structure (X+Y) to item 2 as that might simplify the discussions in giving a logic to the later items. However, item 2 is rather technical and we could re-evaluate how to handle it, break it up, and set up a paragarph structure etc.Bodhi dhana (talk) 13:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

This seems a very constructive suggestions to me. I agree that the most important points for readers would be a) morphological structure b) geographical distribution c) notable places d) historical evolution. I think the (alleged) instrumentalization of this topic in the ethnic conflict is also notable and should be treated in a subsection, but let's get the non-political facts first, and when we have a nice article about facts, we can talk about utilization of these facts by interested groups. Jasy jatere (talk)

I though we wanted to keep away from Etymology, because that's when all the arm chair non neutral racialist interpretation of etymology using sources that suites certain POV get's in the way of writing an encylopedic article. Just stick to Toponyms like Jasy sugeested earlier on. Also I dont agree to submerge languages such as Tamil and Sinhala. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 13:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Just let me first answer Jasy J regarding a certain POV, weasel words in the first sentence, the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka with Tamil sounding names appear to have etymologies originating in the Sinhala language. This is a summary of the content of that article, and a paraphrase of what is said about place names in the North and East by Casie-Chetty (mid 19th century), Velupillai (1918) in "Yalpana Vaibhava Kaumudi ", Gnanprakasar (1918?), Paul E. Peiries (1905?), Horsburgh (1916), Geiger (1938), Tambimuttu (1948), Karthigesu Indrapala 1965), i.e, mostly Tamil writers, (and I skipped all Sinhala etymolgists and historians, like Mudliyar Gunasekera 1891, Gunasinghe 1980, to Medhananda 2003, to avoid claims of Ethnic bias). This "point of view" was commented upon and accepted as valid by Historian Michale Roberts (J. South-Asian Studies, no.1, p 80-110, 2004) after pointing out the problems in A. J. Wilson (a political scientist) who had taken up a Tamil Nationalist point of view, using a new interpretation by Pathmanathan (1978). Refernces were given to Roberts, after consulting the academics who maintain the place-names website [1]. I was the main editor of that article and I simply wrote the majority academic view which had been held for over 1.5 centuries. But I did give references to the minority view, and referred even to Kularatne, although Kularatna did not provide an academically sound discussion (i.e, he states things without justification or citation, which may have been O.K. as it was at a seminar, published subsequently by the politically non-neutral "Tamilnation"). Note that Kularatne was not at all denying that many place names in the North and East have a sinhala origin, but he was claiming that there are "Tamil place names" OUTSIDE the north and the east. We tried to include that claim as well, even if incompletely presented by Kularatne, and even though the WP article was about the North and the East.Bodhi dhana (talk) 14:42, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Meanwhile I see a comment by Taprobanus. I did not suggest "submerging" Tamil or Sinhala. We don't have to use the writings of "armchair etymologists". We use only the established wrtten material. An essential part of Toponymic presentations hangs on etymology, philology etc. An encyclopedia article presents the existing view points rather than "new" research by some "armchair" editor of the WP. That is, we use published sources which are usually quoted in the field.Bodhi dhana (talk) 14:42, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

An encyclopedia article presents the existing view points rather than "new" research by some "armchair" editor of the WP Are you attacking me contrary to No personal attack. We all signed the SLR pledge. It has been proven again and again that we cannot agree to write a neutral encylopedic article on this ubject matter because of the racialist POV that creeps in to this. That's why Jasy is a better person to sparehead this effor than anyone else me included. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 14:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Not at all. It applies to anyone who tries to put in analyses which are not justifiable from acceptable published sources which are usually quoted in the field.Bodhi dhana (talk) 15:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

First off please do not try to discredit A. J. Wilson. He has not taken any "Tamil Nationalistic view". This is not Sri Lanka- this is wikipedia and in wikipedia we follow the rules not Sinhalese point of view. I have already shown that Prof A. J. Wilson's books on political science are indeed reliable. The complaint on prof A.J Wilson is funny since Bodi was the one promoting the use of Geocities website on wikipedia and now oppose a book written by a person in their field of expertise, published by a respected publishing company. So please stop deviating this discussion back to the same discussion that was had on another article!

Bodi, understand that there is absolutely no consensus that Sinhalese people came before Tamil people to Sri Lanka. This is same for the other version which claim that Tamil people came before Sinhalese people. So let's not even go to that discussion and open up a Pandora's box. Your claim that there was some sort of consensus before 1970 that Sinhala place names can be found in North and East Sri Lanka. This is your claim and I say that you are wrong. It is now up to you to bring RS to show me that I am wrong. On the other hand, I have reference that go back to late 1800 that all place names in the north were of Tamil origin. Same could be said about the Eastern sides also. So there is no point having this sentence in the lead as it is a disputed fact and certainly POV. If you want to add disputed facts, then you must also add the fact that there are Tamil place names in south Sri Lanka. So either we add the second part too or we remove the pov sentence from the lead. Watchdogb (talk) 15:11, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for watchdog's inputs. I am only QUOTING Michael Roberts and gave his reference, and I mentioned the others (for which I did not give detailed references because you all know them too). So your disagreement regarding what Wilson has written or omited on this issue), is not with me. We can also quote Wilson because he is a very important scholar in the Political sciences field and where relevant, his view need to be recorded. These are the views of scholars in the field, and our job is to summarize the material and put it into an article. Let us take just any example, say, place name Vaddukkodei, and you have presumably material from 1800, also there is material in Tennent, Tourner, from Dutch VOC maps, possibly Portuguese material etc., or you take the place name Illupaikadavi, and we just put the references together and there need not be any dispute. Similarly, when we are discussing a place name anywhere else in the Island, the SAME principles apply. There is a place called "Nallur" near Panadura (south of Colombo) and there is no question that it is a Tamil place name, and I for one do not know if it had some other name in the ancient past. We are NOT discussing who came to Sri Lanka first (a chicken and egg question)! We are looking at a given set of place name, and we take what is written about it by scholars who may not agree on some items; and just reporting the current views is the job of the encyclopedia writer. We use some judgment to weed out obvious errors that even the best scholars may make (e.g, in a date, or in an etymology where a writer may ascribe a word to Kannada when it is evidently from Persian). If you have 1800 CE information please bring it out. The toponymist/etymologist researcher, armchair or professional, can go beyond what an editor does, and do his own research - but they don't concern us as editors until that research becomes available in the published literature. By the way I have no objection what ever to Jasy J or Watchdog or anyone else spearheading this, as long as we stick to the basic principles which are sufficient to create an article.Bodhi dhana (talk) 16:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

as long as we stick to the basic principles which are sufficient to create an article which includes creating an encylopedic article without peacock terms and adhering to the neutral point of view without undue importance to one point of view. Let's give the Jasy the time to revamp it and then discuss the finer points because we have proved that we cannot do it by ourselves. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 16:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

(reply to bodi) Beautiful! So we are on the same page about two main things - A. J. Wilson and the fact that who came first does not matter. So let's move forward! Watchdogb (talk) 17:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] new structure

I have implemented the new structure in the big lines, as presented here on the talk page. There are stylistic issues and content issues, but the basic skeleton should be there. I copied the content from the last version and some stuff from Bodi dhana's January version. Notice that I have been indiscriminate in my use of sources. The principle was for now that any source is fine. I may have inserted some stuff which will surely be contested. I did this not because I have a certain POV, but in order for all view points to be there. If some of them are irrelevant, we can still remove them. The one source I did not include is the Daily news article, for reasons given above. I tagged the relevant sections for {{neutrality}}. Hopefully, we can chart the differences and come to an agreement. I also put some etymologies on the basis of first-come first-serve. If there are disagreements, move them to "disputed etymologies" and we'll see. There are also some gaps, and I suppose some of the relevant stuff is buried in the version history. Forgive me if I did not dig it all up or screwed up sources or the like. Jasy jatere (talk) 17:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC) —This is part of a comment by Jasy jatere , which was interrupted by the following:

I have a concern with Trincomalee. The way it's written right now it seems like that the place was named by Sinhala origin. I totally contest this. In addition it is cited to nothing so please fix this issue Watchdogb (talk) 18:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Now that I see history I see that it came from the geocities website. I am going to remove this claim until citation is given. Watchdogb (talk) 18:04, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The etymology as such is not completely implausible, so I think a ^{[citation needed]} would be better than outright removal. This will make it easier for other users to add quality sources, and in the long term it will make for a better article. I suppose you have some information about competing etymologies, so why don't you move the passage to "Disputed etymology" and add a competing etymology from another source. Jasy jatere (talk) 22:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. The sentence you added back remained without being cited for a long time after the website was shown to be a non-RS. It was tagged with fact tag on 15:18, 20 February 2008 and removed on 10:49, 3 March 2008 with fact tag remaining over 10 days. There is no point on adding the Trincomale part to disputed etymology as it takes more than a un referenced sentence to make something disputed. I am not nit picking your wonderful work just trying to help. Watchdogb (talk) 22:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I was not aware of the etymology being questioned before. Not sure whether you are talking abt Trinco or Batticaloa, by the way Jasy jatere (talk) 23:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry my mistake - It's Trinco Watchdogb (talk) 00:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Issues with the section "Focus of Research"

The Hybrid place name is totally pov and I dispute it 100%. It claims that some academics say that Sinhalese people lived in North and East was before Tamil people (invaders from south India) came into these place. I say this is nonsense and I dispute that these claims are even in the citations given. On the contrary I have reference that says that who came before whom is disputed with most Tamil scholars claiming that the Tamils were in these places as early as Sinhalese and Sinhalese scholars opposing this views. I have no time to wast on crap like this and I have tagged with fact tags. If these claims are not cited in the next 24 hours it will be removed.

I am also removing some material claiming some sort of buddist shrines being in Northern and Eastern provinces as the website that back this claim is dead and upon reading it (via archives) its clear that the website definitely violates WP:RS. Watchdogb (talk) 20:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I have also asked for page number to verify the factuality of the claims. If this cannot be given in sufficient time the claim will be removes Watchdogb (talk) 20:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Issues with the section "Geolinguistics distribution

It is perfectly done as it is written taking into account both accounts. I removed the neutrality -section tag Taprobanus (talk) 21:41, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Issues with the section "Anthropological and political relevance of place names in Sri Lanka"

In my view it should be a neutral sentence just illustrating that these etymologies are used for political purposes by both sides and end of story. Taprobanus (talk) 21:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] we need to keep editing restriction tags and politics and build consensus

As soon as Jasy J introduce his new structure, I see that watchdog has gone ahead and introduced an Eelam claim map (i.e, a POLITICAL CLAIM MAP). I strongly object as this is going to get as back to square one of total disagreement. Also, even before we could study Jasy J's version, it has been successively edited and tags removed, All this is contraray to the SLR agreemnts.Jasy Jay's version should stay in place for discussion, and then changes can be added. I aim to revert to JasyJ's version, and I put back retraint tags, as we need to DISCUSS and come to agreement to ensure that no inappropriate action is done.Bodhi dhana (talk) 01:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I did not add any "eelam map". All I did was remove sentence that was added back even thought it was removed after remaining without citation for over a week. Jasy did not know about this and I had pointed it out so that Jasy can edit but at the same time follow wikipedia rules. I had also removed citation to the geocities websites as we had achieved consensus on that it was not a reliable source. These two things were problem in the past but it has been fixed by due process and there is no need to break this even if a new version is being written. I had not changed any content that were not discussed before. Watchdogb (talk) 03:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to remove the map. It was me who put it in there. I thought it would nicely illustrate the areas where etymology is used for political ends. And while there are of course different opinions about the legitimacy of the LTTE claims, I think that the majority of the public agrees that a) these claims exist and that b) they cover more or less the area indicated on the map. So if you remove the map, just explain inhowfar an illustration of these claims would call into question the quality of the article.Jasy jatere (talk) 07:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I do not have the time nor the will nor the necessary knowledge to write this article on my own, that's why I work on a collaborative encyclopedia ;-). So please do not hesitate to contribute to the article. I think that the tags I put in there could stay in place, they were seen as an indicator of the provisional state of the site. In the following weeks, we should aim at reaching a consensus on a section per section basis and then remove the tags of that section Jasy jatere (talk) 07:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

In this article, WP:Reliable sources applies as a policy, like anywhere else. This would mean that we have to go for sources in international peer reviewed journals, like

• the International Journal for Dravidian linguistics,
• Journal of the American Oriental Society,
• Journal of South Asian Studies,
• Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft etc

or otherwise books of reputed publishing houses, or written by scholars who contribute to international peer reviewed journals on a regular basis. As a precaution, I would not take monographs by local scholars published on the subcontinent as reliable sources per se, because there is a high risk of POV. They can be treated as RS if the work is accepted in the internation community, which means cited in independent RS, as is the case for instance for Karunatillake's Sinhala grammar.

Given the excentric location of Sri Lanka and the war, comparably little international scholarship has been done in that area. As a matter of fact, there are very little sources which respond favourably to the criteria above. This means that we either have to strip a large part of that article or loosen our criteria for sources somewhat.

In order to counter systemic bias, I think we should also accept less reliable sources, but indicate this, like we do with WP:SLR#QS. The most obvious and somehow problematic way would be to indicate the nationality of the researcher. This will give readers unfamiliar with the local languages an idea about possible conflicts of interest.

So basically the question is, does wp need a short article with close to no sources, or a more extensive article which gives an overview of research in the area even if it is not published on the international level. I for one think that usefulness of wp increases with the number of sources given.Jasy jatere (talk) 08:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

PS: we should really get rid of newspaper articles as a source for etymologies. Even in other parts of the world, their coverage of linguistic topics is abysmal. Newspaper articles can be useful to illustrate certain (unscientific) POVs, though.Jasy jatere (talk) 08:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Very nice summary of WP:RS and a lot of insight! This is the type of editors we need to tackle all of Sri Lankan related articles. I agree with you that wikipedia articles would be more useful if we had more sources comparing to less. Watchdogb (talk) 12:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

My apologies to Watchdog. Agree with Jassy J that we need to go paragraph by paragraph, and put in the material stone by stone. Regarding sources, newspaper etymology is what I meant by "arm-chair etymology", and they are usually not relaible. Regarding other sources, we don't have the same volume of research for place names in Sri lanka, as for, say England or France.

The criteria given by Jassy J are exactly what I have in mind. Let us apply them to ref.4 (same as ref. 5). here we find that (i)The reference is not cited by ANY academic works - if you know a citation to the Kularatnam paper please present it (only place it is discussed is in [geocities/place.names/] (ii)the author Kularatnam has published no papers either before, or after on the subject of place names, linguistics, ethnography etc- if you can find a reference please let us know. (iii)the speakers at this "conference" are all of one particular ethnicity (iv)the paper is publicizd by the "Tamilnation" website and the "Ilankai Tamil sangam" website. These are, unfortunately, political organizations and so we have the use of "etymology" for politics, and fit in with the section entitled "# 5 Anthropological and political relevance of place names in Sri Lanka". But we need to see if it some how qualifies as an objective study. So this makes us examine the publication more carefully. As Jassy J mentioned, perhaps we need to mention the ethnicity of the author and accept some modified criteria, although I find that a bit odious as the criteria should be (a) content and (b) acceptance by the academic community. Clearly, the lack of any references to Kularatnam's etymological work (ref. 4 or ref 5) anywhere in academic publications shows that it has not gained a place in academia ( I searched the usual data bases including JSTRO, athens, google scholar). let us look at its contents. Kularatnam decides that a place name is of Tamil origin on the simple principle, viz., if "the names or at least principal parts are Tamil", and gives examples. Thus Mulai, mulla (corner), found in Achamulai, Athiadimulla (Badulla dt.). He fails to realize that "mulla" is a word which is also found even in sinhala-prakrit, pali and Sanskrit (e.g., many meanings, some cogante with the Tamil, given on page 538-540 of the Pali text society Pali-english dictionary, or corresponding Sanskrit dic.). The Tamil word is not exclusively Tamil at all, but most likely from a common Indic lingusitic source!. One can also check this in Burrow and Emmeneau's book on Dravidian Etymology, and it is clear that Kularatnam has NOT done his homework. Reading through Kularatnams's article, it is easy to realize that we have a very superficial etymological paper, with NO REFERNCES WHAT SO EVER to supporting literature, ephigraphic records, or even a reference to an etymological dictionary. We cannot use the Kularatnam paper as an authoritative reference in an encyclopedia. It is worse than some of the newspaper-etymological articles that we have rejected!

So I feel that we must reject the Kularatnam reference(e.g.,Ref.4 and ref.5) as it is NOT acceptable, except for the purpose of illustrating the mis-use of etymology for political purposes. We must write the article using references which have gained acceptance among scholars in the field (as seen in the existence of a sizable number of citations). We must follow the principle of neutral point of view without undue importance. the WP:NPOV requires that fringe views, minority views, should NOT be given undue importance.Bodhi dhana (talk) 17:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Bodi, please stop stirring the same old discussion over and over again. I am getting tired of rewriting and reproducing things twice in this discussion. All your claims about Kularatnam's source is not sourced and are purely your thoughts. I am not going to rewrite the same discussion that I had with you earlier (now in the archive). I can easy disprove that half of your claim above about Kularatnam's source not being used by scholars once by giving this. Clearly it is a WP:RS book citing this exact citation without any explicit attribution. It's pretty clear that your opinions are just that. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 19:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of sources

Regarding the sources, I think we can distinguish several tiers:

Western sources:

keep

(published in the West)

• Spencer, Jonathan (1990). Sri Lanka: History and the Roots of Conflict. Routledge. ISBN 04-150-4461-8.
• Michael Roberts, J. South Asian Studies, vol XXVII, no. I (2004)
• ^ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (ceylon Branch), vol III, p174-224 (1961)
• ^ K. Indrapala "Dravidian settlements in Ceylon and the beginning of the Kingdom of jaffna", 1966 University of London (Ph. D thesis)
• ^ Paranavitana, S. (1956). Sigiri Graffiti, Vols. I & II. Oxford University Press.
• ^ http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items05/071205-5.html University of London, Ph.D Thesis 1965; also Evolution of an Ethnic Identity 2005.
• ^ Pfaffenberg, Brian & Chelvadurai, M. The Sri Lankan Tamils, (1994). P.88 The Sri Lankan Tamils. Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-8845-7.

Asian Sources: (published in Asia)

• Gnanaprakasar, Swamy (2003). A Critical History of Jaffna. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services. ISBN 81-206-1686-3.
• Kularatnam, K (1966-04-23). "Tamil Place Names in Ceylon outside the Northern and Eastern Provinces". Proceedings of the first International Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies, vol. 1: 483–493, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: International Tamil Conference.
  Resolved.
  use only for synchronic claims
• ^ K. Velu Pillai, Yalpana Vaibhava Kaumudi, ISBN : 8120619137, (1918 English Edition)
• ^ Dr. Jane Russell, "Communal Politics in the Donoughmore Era, 1931-1947", Thisara Publishers, Colombo 1982, and Ph. D thesis, University of Sri Lanka
• ^ B. Horsburg, The Ceylon Antiquary, vol ii, part I 1916
  Resolved.
  not RS. Remove
• ^ * Indrapala, K (2007). The evolution of an ethnic identity: The Tamils in Sri Lanka C. 300 BCE to C. 1200 CE. Colombo:Vijitha Yapa. ISBN 978-955-1266-72-1.

Newspapers

remove

• Scott, Andrew. "Romance of Colombo's place names", Daily News, 2002-01-05. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
• ^ :: Daily Mirror - Appreciations ::
• ^ a b c d Tambimuttu, Ceylon Observer, 14 October 1948;

Websites

remove

• ^ Hussein, Asiff. Dutch heritage of Sri Lanka. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
• ^ http://www.ucchilaw.com/copies/derivation_city%20name.htm
• ^ Sri Lanka Info - Reiseinfos - Verkehr - Motorräder
• ^ Ville Carte Migamuwa
• ^ Perera, D. G. A.. Travesty of our place names. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.

unclear

• ^ Buddhist shrines in Northeast
• ^ K. Supphia, "Yalpana Vaipava Kaumudi"

Keeping in mind what is written above about source quality, I think we should keep everything in the Western category, and get rid of everything in the categories website and newspaper. I suppose that the "unclear" things can go as well. As for the "Asian" sources, we will have to decide on a case by case basis. But let's see whether we can already reach an agreement for the other categories. All this applies only for sourcing facts. I do not want to imply anything about their value to illustrate opinions, popular misconceptions or the like. Jasy jatere (talk) 20:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I am for gettinmg rid of Websites, Newspapers and unclear Taprobanus (talk) 20:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] removal of sources

Please leave in the sources for now until we have reached consensus which sources to keep. We are on a good path, so in a few days the issue should be settled. Also the fact that there might be peacock terms is not a reason to remove a source, but rather a reason to reword the sentence. Jasy jatere (talk) 20:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok lets start then ? Watchdogb (talk) 02:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The second paragraph of the Hybrid place names is makes claims without having a reference to back it up. The most problematic sentence comes in with "Similarly, many local temples were replaced by Hindu shrines....". This sentence is backed by a dead link, which upon being looked (via archives) is clearly an attack site and a lobby site. This site says Tamils are anti buddhist and are replacing ancient buddhist sites and other landmarks to reflect the Tamil (South Indians) view. This website totally fails WP:RS. The last part of the paragraph that starts with "It also led to any remnant ..." is not related to the topic at hand. What does Veddas assimilating into Tamil or Sinhalese have to do with this article ? Even if there was a link it is definitely not the place to have this claim.

Paragraph three of the Hybrid place names has a section that says "A detailed study was presented by Dr. Karthigesu Inthirapala in 1965". I have no idea what this has to do with this article at all. This is a wikipedia article and clearly this sentence is not encyclopedic - it's an ADD.

Oh and I will be removing sentences that have remained with a fact tag for over 24 hours. Watchdogb (talk) 02:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Likewise any citation that is missing a page number (thus violating to verify) will also be removed if it page numbers are provided in time Watchdogb (talk) 02:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The argumentation abt the shrines and Veddas seems fine to me. I think that we could remove all web and newspaper sources from the factual sections, but leave them in the political section for now. So go ahead and remove the stuff about shrines and Vedda

I suppose the " detailed study presented by Dr. Karthigesu Inthirapala in 1965" is his PhD from ULondon

^ K. Indrapala "Dravidian settlements in Ceylon and the beginning of the Kingdom of jaffna", 1966 University of London (Ph. D thesis)

although the year is of course one year off. I suppose Bodi could check for the correct year of publication. If that's true, it is one of the finest sources we have, bcs it is a PhD defended at a non-partisan university

I do not know your professional work load, but 24h for people to respond to fact tags seems a bit short to me. There are people around who would surely have their word to say, but are not 24/7 on wikipedia. Another problem is that libraries are not open all the time, and that books may be borrowed, or have to be ordered from other libraries, which can take a week or so. Sound scientific work cannot be rushed.

This is even more true for page numbers. It is common scientific practice to quote page numbers for very specific claims, but not for general claims that are found all over the book.

I agree with you that for new additions, a citation can be required, but since the article in its current state is a patchwork of c&p I did, it is normal that some citations have been lost. We should give other editors the chance to contribute until the end of the weekend I think.

I value the commitment to improve the article, but let's do it on a step-by-step basis. This might take one week from now, but will be more time-efficient since it avoids reverting etd. Jasy jatere (talk) 08:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The 24 hour deadline comes from SLDR which covered this page per consensus. According to SLDR, a material that is not cited can be removed in 24 hours from the time the fact tags are added. After seeing your comment I think I can live with letting these statements stay for longer.

(edit conflict)

One thing that is absolutely required in wikipedia is full citation. This means you say where you got the information. It is WP:OR to summarize the whole book and say that the claim comes from the whole book.

Pardon me, this does not sound very convincing. It is common practice to do exactly that. For instance "The End of History and the Last Man argues that the spread of capitalism and democracy is unstoppable now" is a legitimate summary of the book, and does not need page numbers, because it is in the whole book. Similar is "The origin of species argues against the biblical world view and for an evolutionary model". Jasy jatere (talk) 13:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

In addition to that wikipedia required information to be verified which, among other things, also means that any reader of the article should be able to verify the citation. Giving the whole book would mean the reader has to read a whole book before they can verify the claim made on the article.

excactly. Some issues are too complex to be put onto a limited number of pages, so if you want to verify them thoroughly, you will need the whole book. Does that come as a surprise?Jasy jatere (talk) 13:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

So page number is a must for claims

This is neither common scientific practice, nor wp policy. From Wikipedia:Cite#Provide_page_numbers

Page numbers are not required when a citation accompanies a general description of a book or articleJasy jatere (talk) 13:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

and specially for claims that are currently tagged with "page number required" tags because these citations make controversial claims. Watchdogb (talk) 12:18, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

This actually begs the question. Most of the tags can be removed.Jasy jatere (talk) 13:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Why should controversial claims need page numbers any more than other books? Take the book Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder. No need for page numbers to get the message, even if it is probably controversial. Where page numbers are needed is when it is unclear whether a particular claim is made in a book or not. If you say "Darwin was an Young Earth Creationist, as can be seen from The origin of species", you can be asked for a page number, or a chapter number. If you say Mein Kampf is antisemitic, there is really no point in asking for page numbers. Jasy jatere (talk) 13:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

What a joke. Here is my whole point in a sentence. The given citation does not back the claim. I just read the whole book and in the whole book the claims that are made on this article are not covered and backed. Furthermore, I have citation that gives contrary claims to what is written in the specific section of the article. Which means that the disputed claim is not backed and therefore is false claim. So it is my claim that the citation is falsely used to cite false claim and that the views presented, and cited, are not the ones that reflect the view expressed by the authors of the citations. Now it the ball lies in your court to try to prove me wrong! Watchdogb (talk) 13:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

In analogy to that, for the works cited in the political section of this article, would you question that the researchers do indeed make these claims?

A more detailed scientific study by Dr. Karthigesu. Indrapala carried these studes further, and pointed out that over a thousand place names in Jaffna have Sinhala origins.

What part of Indrapala's position needs to be supported by page numbers? That s/he made the study? That s/he claims that there are over 1000 placenames? Is the fact that this book contains this information controversial at all?Jasy jatere (talk) 13:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The whole thing because I just read the book and it does not have this claim. Now it your job to verify that the claim made is correct. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 13:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

So all this points to the need for more time to verify and determine a citation etc. So I, like all others, are pressed for time, as we do other things, and if things are changed too rapidly, we end up reverting and redoing the same thing. As the available material on the subject is limited, we may have to judge the articles in newspapers and websites etc. That is, if the newspaper or website is reporting news, or reporting what is said in other sources in an accessible manner, then such a source could be good. On the other hand, if the newspaper or website is presenting unsubstantiated armchair stuff, it goes out. Regarding Watchdog's reference to Spencer about Kularatnam, watchdog has proved exactly my point. Kularatnam's article is cited by Jonathan Spencer regarding the use of etymology for political purposes. I also said that the reference is useful in paragraph 5 (anthropology-politics) of the wp-article. So we agree on that. But you have not established that the Kularatnam article has any etymological value. It fails by all the criteria (place of publication, lack of internal substantiation, references, evident errors in etymology etc etc) that all of us, Jasy J etc., have listed. If you can do so, you have to show the standing of Kularatna's article by citations supporting what Kularatnam says, as Kularatnam himslef DOES NOT give any supproting evidence [Re-read Kularatnam's article which is available online via "further to kularatnam" . In any case we must follow the principle of [[WP:NPOV|neutral point of view] without undue importance. the WP:NPOV requires that fringe views, minority views, should NOT be given undue importance. I point out that Kularatna's is a fring-view article based on political use of etymology. This claim is established by Spancer's use of it. You cannot base a very large component of the article only on Kularatnam which is just good for Sec #5, as shown by Spencer's use of it (and that is the ONLY use of it found in academia, as I already stated).Bodhi dhana (talk) 12:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

If Spencer cites Kularatnam's etymological findings as linguistic evidence, this promotes K to a reliable source for linguistics. If Spencer cites K for his political stance, this does not promote K to a reliable source for linguistics. Google books does not let me see the relevant page, but I ordered a hard copy of the book, so I hope to be able to verify the relation between Spencer and Kularatnam next week. Jasy jatere (talk) 13:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Bodi is making more false claim. Kularantam's source is used to say that there are claim that Tamil authors claim that there were Tamil names in southern sri lanka (as the sinhala authors claim that there were sinhala names in Jaffna). Nowhere in the article does it say that kularatnam is biased or is using false claims, instead it covers the Tamil view via Kularatnam's claim. This is exactly what is called NPOV that we need to used. Watchdogb (talk) 13:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kularatnam and his value for the article

Let's take a look at what Kularatnam says himself:

Not having had any training in linguistics, the present writer has had to be satisfied with merely listing the toponyms on the basis of apparent similarities, and refraining from definite conclusions.

What does this mean? It means that K does not make any claims about etymology of the words, whether they are loan translations or have always been Tamil, he simple records what is being used now. This means that this source cannot be used as historical evidence. This also means that the introductory note by Sachi Sri Kantha misses the point when it says

he has drawn from multiple examples the strong influence of Tamil language in the place names of Sri Lanka, outside the boundaries of the Northern and Eastern provinces.

Same goes for the rebuttal

Prof. Kularatnam has not backed any of his claims even with the aid of an etymological dictionaty.[2],

Why should he, if his claims were not etymological anyway. He actually hedges the conclusions very much

: I agree. Watchdogb (talk) 13:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

::I think you meant you agree, Jasy is saying that the cliam of the personal website is wrong too about Prof K:)))Taprobanus (talk) 14:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

From the foregoing it seems very likely that some time in the past, the North, Central and North-Western Provinces as well as the coastal tracts as far as south as Colombo were inhabited by Tamil-speaking people, as is amply demonstrated by archeology and history.

This statement is so general that it is hard to disagree with it.

What does that mean for the wp article? I think it is impossible to use K as etymological source, but we can use his list for the synchronic claims.

As a side note, I am impressed by the way that the readers of K interpreted his paper. The Tamil rejoices, while the Sinhalese is furious, but if they had taken care to read the paper, they could as well have kept silent, because there is nothing in that paper which would warrant either reaction.Jasy jatere (talk) 13:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Bottom line I agree with Jasy we can use it in this article but not to make any etymological claims. Thanks for the patient clarification once and for all professor Taprobanus (talk) 14:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Ceylon Antiquary and the value to this article

This book is not WP:RS. First off we do not even know who the author is. A google search of his names (B.Horsburgh) gives other hits but none that connects to this particular person. We do not know his field of expertise so I dispute that he is an expert of etymology. Second, the book that is quoted in this article does not have a ISBN or any other important information. Furthermore, it is not published by a respected publishing company. The only hit for the exact book comes from the unreliable and racist geocities webpage. The title of the book itself is definatly one sided which is "sinhala place name in north". This book makes enormous claims contrary to the controversial stand about the first people to Sri Lanka. It cites very little (3 sources 2 of which is not even a cite). I dispute that this article is WP:RS and totally object the use of this book on this article. Watchdogb (talk) 15:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The book makes claims such as

Tamil invaders came, drove out the Sinhalese, destroyed the few Buddhist shrines there were, and practically blotted from the country all evidence of Sinhalese settlement, except that contained in some place names

.This claim is very racist and presents opinion, without any citation whatsoever, as truth. This is defiantly not a scholarly like book and filled with false claims and more racist wordings. Watchdogb (talk) 15:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

In addition the author of the book makes claim purely on how the names sound in Sinhalese and Tamil. This is the exact same thing that is done by Kularatnam. Further this author just throws his opinion around the whole book and other claims such as "maybe". This is poor description and poor way of writing a scholar book. This book is a definite racist, politically motivated book that passes as a blog of personal opinion rather than a scholar publication Watchdogb (talk) 15:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The rules we need to keep in mind are WP:VERIFY and WP:CITE, I think you make a case for that the book fails both 15:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. For the record, it is fine for RS to produce opinions, nothing wrong with that, but they should be marked as such. It is also fine for RS to have original opinions, not taken over (cited) from someone else, this makes for the novelty of the work. It is furthermore also no problem to use hedges as "maybe", but the conclusions will be weaker then, and should not be overstated.Jasy jatere (talk) 16:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It might still be interesting to have it in the article as an illustration of the kinds of books the topic has spawned, maybe with some quotes. Just a suggestion. Jasy jatere (talk) 16:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem the suggestion Jasy makes. I agree to it. Watchdogb (talk) 16:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gnanaprakasar 's value

Clearly a non academic persons historical musings, cannotbe used to make facts. Has to be attributed. Taprobanus (talk) 22:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] K. Velu Pillai, Yalpana Vaibhava Kaumudi

Agian a non academic perons ancient musings, unverfibale. If ISBN number and page numbers are used then it has to be attributed. Taprobanus (talk) 22:26, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dr. Jane Russellś value for this article

An academic whose publication by an academic source is acceptable as long as page numbers are providedTaprobanus (talk) 22:26, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Indrapala (1965).

copied from above wrt content of this work

What a joke. Here is my whole point in a sentence. The given citation does not back the claim. I just read the whole book and in the whole book the claims that are made on this article are not covered and backed. Furthermore, I have citation that gives contrary claims to what is written in the specific section of the article. Which means that the disputed claim is not backed and therefore is false claim. So it is my claim that the citation is falsely used to cite false claim and that the views presented, and cited, are not the ones that reflect the view expressed by the authors of the citations. Now it the ball lies in your court to try to prove me wrong! Watchdogb (talk) 13:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, why don't you substitute the present claims with the other claims you found, including page number. Then people who have read the book (not me) and disagree can provide other citations to the contrary, if there are any. Go ahead Jasy jatere (talk)

I choose to only oppose the claims that are supposedly taken out of the whole book because the whole book does not back up this claim. Watchdogb (talk) 17:37, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

But there might be other stuff in the book which might be worthwhile to include. Something must be in thereJasy jatere (talk) 17:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I am still looking to see the if this article can be used in wikipedia at all. Apparently this has not bee published and WP:RS demands (in bold :) ) that the sources must be published. Watchdogb (talk) 18:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

This is the relevant section scholarship but obviously Indrapala is an acredited scholar and a historian his Phd thesis will pass RS requirement (borderline) but what we need is that we should be able to verify from page numbers as to what the claims for facts are. Taprobanus (talk) 18:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

After research I figured that this source is WP:RS. We, however, need to verify because the whole book does not support claims made in this article. Watchdogb (talk) 22:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Just for clarification: do you have the book or just the summary from the website? The website summary might not be adequate, I fear Jasy jatere (talk) 08:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

PhD theses should pass RS without problem, nothing with borderline. But university should be checked for partisanship. A PhD thesis is compiled over several years and read by a qualified scientific committee, which only accepts the thesis if it is according to scientific practice. This is a much stronger validation than normal peer review. PhD theses are not always published, but you can normally write to the university and ask for a copy/photocopies, so it is available for verification. Jasy jatere (talk) 08:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Apparently there is no such copies available, it was lost. So all what we have is snipets from non reliable websites that have a POV which we now have to belive are really what the original thesis was ? How can we ? Taprobanus (talk) 12:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

What does that mean, apparently? Jasy jatere (talk) 14:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

(deindent) If no such copy is available, we are not able to say anything about this work, and hence we should remove it from the list of references. Jasy jatere (talk) 14:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

If the thesis is lost, then the currently archived versions on racist websites are not WP:RS. I agree with Jasy Watchdogb (talk) 15:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Watchdog, I would call the POV websites notracist, just my opinion but indeed it is a loss because the work cannot be verified. I will post the relevent citations for it being lots then we can close it. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 16:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Indrapala (2007).

Clearly a RS source that is self published by an individual who has standing as a historian Taprobanus (talk) 22:24, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not self-published. Kumaran Book House isn't a vanity press, it's one of the better ones of the Tamil houses that has a presence on both sides of the Strait. Their standard in relation to their Tamil academic publications tends to be quite good, their English non-fiction is a little more spotty. Basically, I'd say stuff they publish has the same value as non-fiction published by a second-tier popular publishing house in the West - that is to say, a few notches above self-published works, but well below works published by one of the reputed academic publishers. -- Arvind (talk) 20:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

---

[edit] Discussions regarding the corpus of sources and pioneering studies

I see topics opened up individually for Gnanaprakasar, Vellupillai, Horsburg, Indrapala(1965) etc., in the discussion. These are what one could call classic sources and pioneering studies (CSPS). To list some of these: Rasaynayaga (Ancient Jaffna 1926), Gnanaprakasar (1928) , vellupillai (, Christopher Britto 1888, Yalpana vaipavamali, this differs from Velupillai's related work), Konecar Kalvettu (Ed. Canmukarattina Aiyyar, Jaffna, 1909) and Vaiyaapatal(16th century Tamil work, Arulprakasam 1953), C. S. Lewis (Manual of the Vanni District, 1895), Denham (British civil servants who wrote adminstrative reports which contain discussions of place names, customs of people etc., for the benefit of the Britsh Governor), "A record of Buddhist Kingdoms" by J. Legge (Oxford, 1886). The medieval "Kadaimpoth", i.e., the "Compendium of Property Boundaries" has been a topic of recent research and published by the Government Printer for all to study (Govt. Printer, 1975), and it has become a topic of several Ph. D thesis. Similarly, there is the 8th century "Nampoth"- list of ancient Buddhist place-names. This is already referred to and studied in the CSPS. The classic colonial works by Turnour, Emmerson Tennant(1859) are in the CSPS class. Other even earlier colonial sources which are important for place-names work is Baldeus (Dutch), de Queyroz ( 1620 ), Robert Knox, Iban Batuta (14th century, trans. H. R. Gibbs, London 1925), Chinese records from Pha-Hsien etc. Then there is the information on Place names available from Stone inscriptions (Ephigraphica Zeylanica, Ephigrapica Tamilica etc), The Pali literature of Sri Lanka since circa 3rd century BCE. Then there are records/discussion involving place names in the British and Ceylon Parliament debates (Hansaard) etc.

Are we going to study all of the above CSPS and evaluate them individually? NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT. We are editors writing an article, not trying to do research, and our job is to merely report the current positions refelected in the published works from renouned scholars (i.e, who have got many citations). We can readily refer to the CSPS as they have been evaluated and quoted by scholars. Horsburgh, Gnanaprakasar, Rasaynayagam, Velupillai etc have already been assesed and referred to in many many scholarly articles. We as editors have no status for going beyond that.

The evaluation is the job of scholars. WE DONT HAVE TO do this. Thus Dr. Indrapala's thesis (1965) does that. Dr. Jane Russell does that. Dr. Arasaratnam, Dr. P. A. T. Gunasinghe, and Prof. Michael Roberts etc., do that. The University of Ceylon History of Ceylon (edited by H. C. Ray, S. Nadesan, C. Nicholas and S. Paranavitana ), p 50 et sec. (1959) also did that for that time and covered all these CSPS. There are references and discussions of the work of Gnaprakasar, Horsbugh etc in those works. CSPS material is available from quotations in these susequent scholarly works. In this article we are ONLY interested in the toponymic aspects, and NOT in every topic discussed by, say Rasanayagam. The toponymic discussions found in Gnanaprakasar, Velupillai's Yalpana Kaumudi, Horsburg, Paul E. Pieries are already assessed, evaluated in these scholarly works. There is in fact NO REBUTTALs or etymological objections. We can provide a very large number of references to CSPS establishing that they form the corpus of disucssion in Sri Lankana toponymics. We as editors cannot ignore that.

The situation with respect to Kularatnam's article is the very opposite. It is NOT part of the corpus because we could not provide ANY citations evaluating or discussing it (except for its use in political activism - Spencer, and the rebuttal in geocities).

Indrapala's work is the very opposite to Kularatnam's. It is claimed by Taprobanus to be not available. In fact it is not available at the London University libraray but it is available from the tUniversity Department to suitable scholars (the library copies seem to have been stolen). Mimeograped copies are available at Asian-Studies depts in western universities like Cornell. The attempt to suppress this and other CSPS material has been notes by Dr. Michael Roberts and others. Thus Dr. P. A. T. Gunasinghle (footnote 49 in his thesis, p 24) notes that the corresponding copies in the Colombo Museum libraray of Horsburg's work (Ceylon Antiquary, vol ii etc), in the Colombo Public libraray, and also at the Libraray of the Archeological Department in Colombo have been stolen. Fortunately, this work is also available at the Cambridge University, Chennai University, and other universities. Anyway, there are interested parties trying to suppress the views expressed by Horsburg, Indrapala, and other CSPS. However, Indrapala's thesis work was the subject of a series of Journal articles, and it is additionaly available from articles of scholars who have already published evaluations of it. No rebuttals or critiques of Indrapala's evaluation of Toponymics has been published. Instead, we have re-affirmation of that work by other historians who have even recently expressed the "historigrahic integrity" of that work (See Michael Roberts, J. South Asian Studies, vol XXii, p. 102-104, 2004) and Roberts alludes to the very specific claims on toponymics given by Indrarartna. The people in the Geocites website tell me that Michael Roberts, on being querried, has deposited a note there affirming the "historiographic integrity" of Indrapala's work.

The removal of libraray material judged by interested parties to be contrary to their politics can in fact be used in section #5 of the article as evidence of political activism. Note that here we are NOT trying to establish who were the first inhabitants, who have the right to land, and other political questions. We are merely considering place names and see how they evolved through the ages. The CSPS provide enough material do do this sticking to the data faithfully.

Incidently, regarding Kularatnam's article, Jassy J says:

I am impressed by the way that the readers of K interpreted his paper. The Tamil rejoices, while the Sinhalese is furious, but if they had taken care to read the paper, they could as well have kept silent, because there is nothing in that paper which would warrant either reaction.

I would like to see some info, i.e., references, regarding these reactions. I couldn't find any (aside of the Tamil studies meeting, and the posting of it on the Tamil Nation, Tamil Sangam websites). The sinhalese reaction seems to be limited to the etymological discussion at http://geocities/place.names website where it is pointed out that Kularatnam needs to have checked Sanskrit and Pali sources; that is all.

Dr. Jane Russell's book is important because it does exactly what Spencer does, for the 1927-1948 period and on a much broader scale. Also, she provides some references useful for place.name studies. The book ( a Ph. D thesis by an Oxford Scholar) has been deemed the "definitive study of the period" by Prof. K. M. de Silva, and Prof. Michael Roberts (I can get references if needed), and others. The Indrapala (2006) book, though published in Chennai, is the work of a recognized scholar; we can use him cautiously, while noting that it may not have the same high status of peer review as the 1965 Thesis work.

Although there is no need to "validate" Horsburgh as that has been done by Scholars, it is necessary to comment on Watchdog's statement "The title of the book itself is definatly one sided which is "sinhala place name in north". Firstly, this is not a "book", but an article in a Journal volume, and the "Ceylon Antiquarian Society" of that era was the analogue of a corresponding British Association. Why is it one sided to say "sinhala place names in the North"? We talk of "Basque Place names in the South of France", or "Celtic place names in South-Eastern England". The topic the author has selected to study is "Sinhala Place Names in the North". Note that Kularatnam had chosen to study "Tamil place names in the south". There is nothing one sided in that either. What was wrong with Kularatnam's work was the poor etymology. The study by Horsburgh and his etymology has been reaffirmed by related studies/comments of Paranavithana, Arasaratnam, Indrapsla, Roberts and others. It is also not surprising that Horsburgh does not appear in the simple electronic-serach media like Google Scholar as the 1916 material on Sri Lankan toponymics is certainly NOT in cyperspace. Even the Royal Asiatic Society (London) proceedings for even recent times are not yet available electronically.

I see that there are various tick marks saying "resolved" put in there without full agreement by everybody, so I think that is provisional.

In conclusion, I see no problem what so ever with any of the CSPS, or specifically with Indrapala (1965)Bodhi dhana (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Your claims about the removal of the books by 'interested parties' and the motivations behind that are very interesting and would surely fit in the political section. Do you have sources for that? I mean quotable sources of course?Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

"The toponymic discussions found in Gnanaprakasar, Velupillai's Yalpana Kaumudi, Horsburg, Paul E. Pieries are already assessed, evaluated in these scholarly works." & "Horsburgh, Gnanaprakasar, Rasaynayagam, Velupillai etc have already been assesed and referred to in many many scholarly articles." That's great. Why don't you give a list of these references and we will incorporate the relevant parts in the article.Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Could you share the references of the journal articles which quoted Indrapala's work? These should be late 20th century, and I should be able to get a copy here. Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

It is nice that the people of the geocities website converse with you about the subject of their research, but how are we going to put this into the article?Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The sinhalese reaction seems to be limited to the etymological discussion at http://geocities/place.names website where it is pointed out that Kularatnam needs to have checked Sanskrit and Pali sources; that is all.

correct. And that is confused. There is no need to check Pali sources when you are making synchronic claims. And K does only make synchronic claims, unless I missed something in the article, which I would like to hear about.Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I see that there are various tick marks saying "resolved" put in there without full agreement by everybody, so I think that is provisional.

You are invited to comment in the relevant sections above.Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I see no problem what so ever with any of the CSPS, or specifically with Indrapala (1965)

As I see it, the main problem with I is not the content, but the difficulty to verify the content. We would all like to include a PhD thesis on the topic (correct?), but we cannot take the claims from a secondary source like a website for the real thing.Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree it is a RS source but can you verify it ? or do we have depend on secondary partisan, pov websites for it. All what Bofhi has to do is write to University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies and get a copy if it is available. Taprobanus (talk) 22:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Bodi still has not given any rebuttal to the main argument against Horsburg article being use as WP:RS. Lumping all of the discussed articles into one notion of CSPS does not take into account all the argument against each article. Bottom line is there is consensus against the use of both Horseburgh and Indrapal (for two distinct reasons). Watchdogb (talk) 23:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Additional references by Bodhi dhana

Bodhi dhana has indeed provided a lot of bibliographic references, which he seems to be very familiar with. Unfortunately, as someone on the periphery of this area, I am not available to ascertain which titles are designated by the references given. I have compiled a list of the references Bodhi has given and would ask fellow editors to fill in missing information to get a bibliographical database that is worthy of this name, to wit, at least title, author, year, publisher, address. Please refrain from commenting on the respective value of a title in this section, it will be better to have this one as compact as possible. Thank you

• Vellupillai,

K. Velu Pillai [1918], History of Jaffna - Yalpana Vaibhava Kaumudi (rep. 2004, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi) -- Arvind (talk) 20:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• Horsburg,
• Rasaynayaga (Ancient Jaffna 1926)

M.C. Rasanayagam [1926], Ancient Jaffna (rep 2004, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi) -- Arvind (talk) 20:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• Gnanaprakasar (1928) ,

N.S. Gnanaprakasar [1928], Critical History of Jaffna: The Tamil Era (rep 2003, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi) -- Arvind (talk) 20:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• Christopher Britto 1888, Yalpana vaipavamali, this differs from Velupillai's related work),

C. Britto [1879], Yalpana Vaipava Malai: The History of Kingdom of Jaffna (In Tamil) (rep 1999, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi) -- Arvind (talk) 20:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• Konecar Kalvettu (Ed. Canmukarattina Aiyyar, Jaffna, 1909) and
• Vaiyaapatal(16th century Tamil work, Arulprakasam 1953),
• C. S. Lewis (Manual of the Vanni District, 1895),
• Denham (British civil servants who wrote adminstrative reports which contain discussions of place names, customs of people etc., for the benefit of the Britsh Governor),
• "A record of Buddhist Kingdoms" by J. Legge (Oxford, 1886).
• 8th century "Nampoth"- list of ancient Buddhist place-names. This is already referred to and studied in the CSPS. The classic colonial works by
• Baldeus (Dutch),
• de Queyroz ( 1620 ),
• Robert Knox,
• Iban Batuta (14th century, trans. H. R. Gibbs, London 1925),
• Chinese records from Pha-Hsien etc.
• Ephigraphica Zeylanica, Ephigrapica Tamilica etc
• (Hansaard)
• The University of Ceylon History of Ceylon (edited by H. C. Ray, S. Nadesan, C. Nicholas and S. Paranavitana ), p 50 et sec. (1959
• Paranavithana,
• Arasaratnam,
• Indrapsla,
• Roberts Jasy jatere (talk) 21:53, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

We've had this problem from day one, citations have to be given fully and in verfiable manner, just a name and title ofthe book can be verified. We should stick to what Jasy has begun, discuss one citation at a time and most in the additional list is notthe main article body. I suggest we go back to what we were doing. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 12:00, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree! We have already discussed many of the main sources in their discussion above and came to consensus of at least one of the citations. Watchdogb (talk) 13:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

To move things forward a bit, I've added full details for a few of the older works. I know many of the books being referred to, so I'll add more as and when I have the time. -- Arvind (talk) 20:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] validation of sources etc

Sorry for the delay in replying as we had temporary loss of internet connections.

If you have an article referring to material in a Babylonian clay tablet, or a reference to an inaccesible journal but cited in a reputed article, we as editors may NOT have the capacity to examine the original sources. That is why we simply accept scholarly articles and scholarly journals where the scholars have the capacity and training to verify sources. Editors CANNOT do the job of the scholars, unless they take many years, and are trained, funded to do the needful.

• The Indrapala thesis IS available and can be examined in various universities including London. I have seen it in Chennai University and what is presented in several websites is varbatim correct. One website gives a word.doc, and the other is a pdf file and are clearly independent reproductions of the relevant pages. The thesis is no doubt avaialbe with scholars in Peradeniya, as departmental copies. However, as I said before there are two other props: (1) The Roberts article (J. South-Asian Studies) referes to it. Some one can say, J. South-Asian Studies is not found in every libraray. Neither is Kulartnam's article, except via websites. But I have a photocopy of the relevant pages of Roberts (referring to Indrapala) and I can scan the most relevant page and send it to anyone who wants to see it, given an e-mail address. (2)The Indrapala thesis was the basis of a series of articles in the CJHSS (ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies) during the late 1960s. So there is no problem in reading those. —This is part of a comment by Bodhi dhana , which was interrupted by the following:

Oh! So the claim from Indrapala's PhD thesis actually came from Robert's article ? If this is so, then you must cite the roberts article instead of Indrapala's claim. This is absolutely required by WP:RS which asks that you must provide the reference to where you got the information not where the information was originally present. Watchdogb (talk) 19:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

• So just because an editor has personal difficulties in locating a source, it does not disqualify the source, but it puts into doubt the editor's capacity to edit. An editor can claim that he cannot verify anything as the material is not available to him. That does not disqualify the sources. The Indrapala thesis, the Horsburgh article in the Ceylon Antiquary and Literary Register, vol II, Pt. 1, pp 54-58, and also Pt. III, p. 167 are available even more easily than the Kularatnam article(i.e, those who want to see the source will have to make an effort, or accept what the scholars have said, or accept what is on the web).—This is part of a comment by Bodhi dhana , which was interrupted by the following:

Wrong ! Horsburgh's article's accessibility is not contested. Instead, it's reliability is contested. Just because an something is published in a journal it does not make the journal reliable. On the contrary, the journal must be respected and know for peer review. Watchdogb (talk) 19:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

calm down, shouting won't get you anywhere Jasy jatere (talk) 09:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

• That attempts have been made to suppress these publications (as agreed by Tarobanus), is indeed useful for #5 as Jasy J notes. I can make a scan of a photocopy of a page in a book by Gunasinghe, published by the Sri Lanka Libraray association which states the loss of this material from several libraries in Sri Lanka. Fotunately, such methods cannot succeed as there are many copies of these sources.

• In dealing with sources, we are not interested in whether "politically correct" language is used. The Candadian Government's Indian citizenship act (1952) was based on a non-native government official testifying that the Indian (i.e, a native american) is acceptably "civilized". The implication is that all aborginals are uncivilized. (this law no longer exists). However, this does not mean that we do not use the material available from that era of the Indian Affairs Department of Canada, in doing research on Aboriginal Indians. You don't have to go back even a century, when you find that most colonial sources referred to Native peoples in India and Sri Lanka in terms which are not acceptable in today's "politically correct" language. That does not diminish the value of those sources to scholars. So Watchdog's approach cofuses "relaibale sources (RS), with "politcally correct" sources, which is an issue that Scholars have to deal with, and know how to deal with. In fact, there is NO politically unacceptable language, even in today's norms, in Horsburgh's article. Kularatnam had no criticism of it. Gnanaprakasar and Indraratna agree with it. I have no problem with looking up a webpage as long as I confine myself to that webpage, and have reason to believe that the webpage reproduces something verbatim. —This is part of a comment by Bodhi dhana , which was interrupted by the following:

No, absolutely not. I am not confusing anything here. I am clearly saying that the Horsburgh article is not reliable. Why ? Read above. For your information the consensus was achieved that Horsburgh article is not reliable. Watchdogb (talk) 19:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Watchdog says that":: Bodi still has not given any rebuttal to the main argument against Horsburg article being use as WP:RS" What is Watchdog's main argument? If I understand him right, he seems to consider Horsburgh's publication a privately published book? It is NOT. Horburgh publishes an article in a peer-reviewed journal, during the British Colonial Era. This article has found the attention of writers as varied as Natesan, Indrapala, and Gunasinghe. Gnaprakasar agrees with Horsburgh. We have been very one sided in not mmentioning any of the Sinhala etymologists. They too quote him. It is a standard reference. The Journal is available at the British Museum (not stolen yet!) Why is a long-standing, peer-reviewd journal published in the 20th century, under the British, not acceptable? Watchdog's objection to the title of the article (claims it is "one sided", that has no merit, as I pointed out that similar article titles are found in current European Topomomics association puiblications). There are mnay learned journals of the early 20th century which died around the 1930s, and did not have an ISBN. If Watchdog found ONLY the geocities website entry regarding Horsburg, then his search procedures are clearly incomplete. Please go to a university libraray and ask a trained librarian to do the search. Then Watchdog would find that in fact, there are two articles, and only the part II, p 54-58 is given in the Geocities website. There is also the article, p. 167, part III. The "Ceylon Antiquary and Literary Register" was also referred to for short by the name "the Ceylon Antiquary". It is not only WP:RS, but a classic component of the corpus of literature dealing with Sri Lankan toponymics.—This is part of a comment by Bodhi dhana , which was interrupted by the following:

I don't know if your confused or are acting confused. My claim of this unknown author's writing in a journal that is neither published by respected press or know to be a respected journal. The burden of evidence lies within you to provide things wrong. In any case there is another problem with that article anyway. The entire journal does not back the claims made in this article. I am clearly disputing this too. In light of this situation I would like to bring up some more information. The subject of the article written in some journal is clear. It tries to find the place names in Jaffna (northern regions) that are of Sinhalese origin. To do this the author must be either a mainstream, non controversial, popular Historian in Sri Lankan history or an expert in linguistics (Tamil and Sinhalese). This is even more important because the author makes claims based purely on his feelings (or so called knowledge). The author does not cite anything for his claim and the claims made in his article are almost all "I believe" or "possibly" type of claims. This author fails both and therefore is given undue weight in this article Watchdogb (talk) 20:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

The Journal "Ceylon Antiquary and Literary Register" is only used (in scholar articles) to only refer to Buddism in Sri Lanka and Sinhalese. It has not been used to cite History (specially Tamil history in Sri Lanka) and it has not been used to as a linguistic reference either. Even well respected journals like "Journal of South Asian studies" cannot be used to cite all articles.

sorry, this is incorrect. If a reputed journal publishes an article, it stands with its name for the correctness of the article. It is not upon us to decide what articles of a journal are accepted or not Jasy jatere (talk) 09:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

While "Journal of South Asian studies" is reliable in journals affiliating to South Asia it cannot be used as WP:RS in articles such as the Greek History or Canadian Politics.

Someone wanted to do that? Jasy jatere (talk) 09:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

This is specially true if an author who is an expert in South Asian studies decides to write on Canadian Politics or Greek History in a the "Journal of South Asian studies". This case also applies to our case where we have an author whose field of expertise is not known decides to write in a Journal (that is quoted only for Buddism and Sinhalese study) that concerns Place names etymology.

It is not upon us to decide which articles by a journal have passed proper peer review or not. Neither you nor I have the necessary knowledge of it. If a reputed journal publishes an article, you cannot argue with it. You could argue that the journal is not reputed, which might be easier, especially if they are known to publish anything (just as an example)Jasy jatere (talk) 09:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Specially when making controversial claims as he has done. Watchdogb (talk) 20:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Let me also do justice to Jassy J's request: "There is no need to check Pali sources when you are making synchronic claims. And K does only make synchronic claims, unless I missed something in the article, which I would like to hear about.Jasy jatere"

Kularatnam's write up includes both synchornistic and non-synchronistic claims. He takes current toponyms like "Mahrachchimulla", "Kulamulla", where every part of the word have standard Sinhalese meanings. neverthless he regards that the part "mulla" proves that they are Tamil, because Tamil has the form "Mullai" and so, assumes that the sinhala "mulla" must have come from the Tamil "mullai".

he does not assume anything. Please refer to WP:IDHT

Not having had any training in linguistics, the present writer has had to be satisfied with merely listing the toponyms on the basis of apparent similarities, and refraining from definite conclusions.

Nowhere does he claim that Sinhala borrowed from Tamil. I think folk etymology is not excluded by him, nor is descent from an older language, like Pali or Skt Jasy jatere (talk) 09:45, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

That is, he attempts to suggest that such current sinhala place names are in fact derived from Tamil, and ignores the fact that the sinhala word "mulla" has strong lineage with related Sanskrit/Pali roots. In fact, even the Tamil word is most probabaly from such roots. So to suggest that a current Sinhala place name is sourced from a Tamil place name requires a lot more work, even when it has a chance of being true. The same criticism is leveled at most other currently existing sinhala place names mentioned by Kularatnam, e.g, Nedimale, Munmale, Kothmale etc, and we can go down each line; but that would be too tedious to mention all the sinhala place names mentioned to have originated from a Tamil root. If K just took existing Tamil place names in the south and left it at that, then he would have limited himself to synchronous" toponyms, and there would be no problem with that, as Jassy J points out.Bodhi dhana (talk) 19:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I will no longer participate in discussions that does not follow WP:TALK format. We cannot and will never be able to resolve any issues in this way. Please go back to the format Jasy came up with and discuss by each every citation. Clearly you have points against and for each citation, what prevents you from discussing it line item by line item. I am done responding in this manner. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 22:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Taprobanus Jasy jatere (talk) 09:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

---

Hi I am not a regular on WP. But Bodhi Dhana has invited me to take a look at this page as it may overlap with my interests. I am on a travelling scholarship and he wants me to help in getting a couple of documents from libraires. I am looking at South Indian and Sri lankan material for my work and might be able to oblige a bit, before I return to Madurai. I have looked through the discussion, and seems that I might already be able to get you a photocopy of some pages of the "Yalpana Vaibhava Kaumudi"(englsih version). I see that your immediate discussion is focused on: (i)Ceylon Antiquary and Literary Register (ii)J. South Asian stdies. I should probabaly be able to help you with articles from these from the libraries that I would be visiting in N. America, as long as the request is limited to a few pages, and does not come in one big demand.Peri-sundar (talk) 21:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Peri-sundar, great that you can help. The sources list could profit from you input in several ways

• first, we have to establish which sources we are talking about by getting full bibliographical references
• Then we have to establish whether these sources actually exist
• Then we have to see whether they are reliable sources
• Then we have to discuss how to summarize the source

I think we are still stuck on points one and two, with some bits of three popping up here and there. So if you could check the bibliographic data and the existence of these sources, that would be great! Jasy jatere (talk) 08:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, thanks Peris-Sundar. I have no objection to Taprobanus/Jasy J suggestion of going citation by citation. We were just trying to clear up matters common to several citations in one shot. Now I think we have been discussing the citation reg: Horsburgh. Watchdog's present objection seems to be that the " Ceylon Antiquary and Literary Register" deals only with Buddhism .... He doesn't give evidence why he thinks so, as seen from its name, it pusblished anything Antiquarian that was submitted by scholars of the period. I will let Jasy J to summarize the present situation and get this back to a formal structureBodhi dhana (talk) 18:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I have other concerns and I have proven beyond doubt that Horsburgh article is not WP:RS. Too bad some people seem not to see these concerns - none blinder than those who refuse to see. Watchdogb (talk) 12:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I invite Watchdog to one again put down, in brief point form, these extra concerns he has, in order of priority, regarding the two Horsburg articles.Bodhi dhana (talk) 13:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• A facsimile of the 1918 edition of Velu Pillai's Yalpana Vaibhava Kaumadi (or, at any rate, the English translation thereof) was recently reissued by AES. It's very easily available from any good book store in India and, one would presume, in the West. No great mystery there. Note, though, that it's a 1918 book, and hence carries a huge health warning re its reliability.
• The British Library claims to have a copy of Indrapala's thesis in its Document Supply Collection, as anyone can verify by searching for "Indrapala" in their online catalogue. My next trip there won't be for some months yet, but basically, anyone should be quite easily able to verify what the book says. Note, though, that Indrapala (2007) retracts much of what the thesis said, on the basis that our knowledge of Sri Lanka has moved on. -- Arvind (talk) 20:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. This confirms the availabiltity information I too mentioned. But it is also correct, as Taprobanus and others pointed out, that several publicly available documents in several pIaces are missing. I have also looked through most writings of Indrapala. It is not clear that Indrapala has retracted anything in his 2006 book, The evolutiuon of an ethnic identity (please give some specific differences relavant to the place-names issue). In regarding Place names Indrapala (1966 and 2006) is in agrrement with Gnanaprakasar, Vellupillai, Lewis, Horsburgh etc. Also, Indrapala's "Dravidian Settlements ...(1966)" is in agreement with the more brief discussion in The University of Ceylon History of Ceylon, Edited by Profs H. C. Ray, C. Nicholas, S. Natesan and S. Paranavithana (1959)p50 et sec.. I do not know of a 2007 book by Indrapala, and I assume Vadakkan-Aravind means the 2006 book. Also, when the details are looked at, that no substantial change has been made is mentioned by other historians (e.g., Michael Roberts), except for megalithic civilizations which were not covered in the 1966 work. Since we are trying to resolve place-names/etymology issues, any specific differences/retractions relating to place names would be interesting. I think there are noi retractions regarding place names.Bodhi dhana (talk) 00:45, 14 June 2008 (UTC)