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| Tuesday, 24 February 2004 |
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Letters | |
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Please forward your letters to editor@dailynews.lk in plain text format within the e-mail message, since as a policy we do not open any attachments.
The National Council for Elders issued National Identity Cards at Bambalapitiya Flats Community Centre on February 14 to the Senior Citizens. On seeing this publication I, too, went and obtained a Elders' Identity Card without much hassle. I was fortunate to have two passport size photographs and this helped me to obtain my Identity Card much easier than the others numbering to approximately one hundred and fifty senior citizens who had to wait to be photographed. I presume that these persons would have waited quite a considerable time to be photographed and thereafter obtained their Identity Cards. If the authorities informed in advance that it would be more beneficial if they brought their own photos it was possible they would have saved much of their valuable time and obtained the Identity Cards. I hope that the authorities will inform accordingly to those who wish to obtain such Identity Cards in future at any other forum. The Identity Card itself mentions that those who hold such Cards would expect that the bearer should be given priorities to health services. transport, postal and pensions, banking, Police and legal advise and office work. The National Council for Elders should take steps to advice all concerned to give these facilities to the Elders who hold Senior Citizens' Identity Cards on producing same. For example, it would be futile if a Senior Citizen wants to travel in a private Intercity bus from Colombo to Kandy is not permitted to enter the bus without waiting in a queue. Accordingly those who hold such Identity Cards would expect that all services mentioned in the Identity Card available and these services will be granted. It is suggested in addition concessions should be granted in buses, train fares, discount in supermarkets free entrance to flower shows and trade fares etc. The most important aspect should be to give priority to the senior citizens those who receive low interest rates on their provident fund savings deposited at various fiance companies, banks and enable them to higher interest rates as Senior Citizens. M. T. A. P. Fernando - Rawatawatte. While surfing the net to know how the latest events in Sri Lanka were reported in Latin America, I came across an interesting letter written in 1995 by a person named Marc Picard. Mr. Picard expresses his confusion about how "Sri Lanka" is written and pronounced in Spanish and enquires if that pronunciation is uniform across Latin America. Picard mentions that all began when a Peruvian student told him that the correct pronunciation was "esrilanka". A Mexican student told him that it was "Sir Lanka". Others mentioned the pronunciations "Siri Lanka" while many explained it is just pronounced as in the English language: "Sri Lanka". The sound "Sri" does not exist in the Spanish language and therefore the reason why we will come across different pronunciations of the name of our paradise island. Finally Picard reached to the conclusion that while some people in Spain pronounce "Esrrilanka", in Latin America "Siri Lanka" will prevail. This is a very interesting discussion from a linguistic point of view. In fact, I have found that among my Latin American friends there exist different ways of pronunciation prevailing "Siri Lanka" and a new one to add to Mr. Picard's list: "Shri Lanka". Another important point to be mentioned is that Spanish being a "gendered" language (there are female and male nouns and as a consequence articles and adjectives respond to this feature), nouns ending with the letter "a" are generally considered as female. My advice to my students is to always include Mr. or Mrs/Ms. (Sr.,Sra/Srta.) before their names to avoid misunderstandings. Another difficulty that will be found is how the term "Sri Lankan" is translated into Spanish. A recent book published in Latin America identifies the Sri Lankan nationality of the author of an article as "Singales" (which is really Sinhalese) and the funny thing is that the author is a Tamil. Again there are different versions: Sri Lankes and Sri Lankino. I prefer the first. When visiting Spanish speaking countries a Sri Lankan speaking Sinhalese will have to avoid the use of the term "putha" (son/daughter) as it resembles the term "puta" that means "bitch"! And when celebrating Valentine's Day Spanish speaker must be careful to express his love to his Sinhalese lover as the expression "Eres mia" (You are mine) might be understood as "You are a rat"! Names like "Mala" (Flower) can also lose their charming meaning as in Spanish "mala" refers to "bad woman"! Just to end this comments, the correct orthography for "Sri Lanka" in Spanish is the same and the geographical/historical name is "Ceilan" with and accent in a. Rossana Favero-Karunaratne - Colombo. The MoU or whatever they choose to call it has been ceremonially signed by the honorary secretaries of the SLFP and the JVP, fanfare and merriment and a couple of fatalities. That's ok. It's all part of the game. But after the euphoria what? The answer to this is that all what is predicated and hoped for may not materialize that, too, is an integral part of the game, be it politics sport the aspirations and hopes of the people. You have to consider the plugged peace process that occupies a very important top position. The LTTE who originally refused to have anything to do with the Sandanaya is now playing a different tune and is willing to talk with any elected government. Certainly the LTTE warlords ran roughshod over military matters in the North and East. Perhaps due to the mild attitude of the Prime Minister and knowing fully well that the Sandanaya will not permit them to dance the merry devil. So we have the LTTE the unwilling bride forced by circumstances to bed down with the brawny Sandanaya to talk peace, how to achieve it? Millions of Sri Lankans - North, South, East, West and Central are watching the moves carefully. How will they start? What are the preliminaries? Where? Do we have to go to America, Norway, Canada and the North pole to discuss the internal politics of this little island spending millions of dollars and come back with an empty smile. Our good friend the Norwegians must shoulder a very large extent of blame for letting out state secrets and being very partial. Far back as 1956 when that glorious man Bandaranaike toppled the capitalist stronghold I can remember as a very small child, the elation, the hopes, the aspirations of the village folk. Parliament was like home. One blue and wild boy sat on the speaker's chair and everything was "Apey Anduwa".honestly S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike made a tremendous effort but could not succeed due to his mep partners mounting several barricades and stalling Banda from doing what he thought was correct for the Pancha Maha Balavegaya - Sanga, Veda, Guru, Govi, Kamkaru. We must say that the UNP under JR did not help with their surprise marches etc... and finally the great S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike paid with his life. It was so very sad if I might mention the very high quality agreement between two top patriots Bandaranaike and Chelvanayagam Pact if permitted to be implemented the country would have been a much better situation now. Will it be a repeat? Or "All froth and no beer" Maximum concentration is always required during the last lap. The moon landing which was very similar many many years, after we are still waiting for the benefit. Major S. Mervyn Dunuwille - Andiambalama. I refer to the letter captioned 'Moothoor and not Muttur' appeared on 05.02.2004. I fully agree with K.S. Sivakumaran when he says that the place names Anglicized by our foreign colonial rulers be replaced with original names. However his opinion with regard to the origin of some place names referred to in his letter are debatable. For instance 'Jaffna' is not the Anglicized form of the name "Yaal Panam'. Since earliest known history the Northern Peninsular was known as 'Nagadeepa'. In the Ptolemy's map (127 AD - 157 AD) Nagadeepa was mentioned as 'Nagadiba'. In the gold plate found from Vallipuram which belongs to the 2nd century AD 'Nagadeepa' has been mentioned as 'Nakadiva'. Several centuries later the name 'Nagadeepa' was confined to a small island and tamilized as 'Nainathivu', through word to word translation. The name Jaffna can be traced as early as 1560 AD in the map of Cypriyano Sanchez as 'Jaffna Patam' Subsequently it has been recorded as 'Jafni Patam' by Knox in 1681 AD, as 'Jaffna Patnam' by Ottens in 1730 AD and as 'Jaffna Patam' by Davy in 1821 AD in the maps prepared by them. The formation of the name Jaffna was caused due to an invasion by a foreigner named 'Chandrabhanu' from the island of Java with an army in 1270 AD. Though the enemy was defeated by king 'Wijayabhahu' of Dambadeniya he remained for sometime in the Northern Peninsular. Since then, the Sinhalese called the Peninsular 'Ja-Pane' considering the nationality of the invader. In Sinhala 'Pane' or 'Panna' means an area. The area occupied by 'Javaka' king was known as 'Ja-pane'. The Sinhala place names 'Ulapane, Valapane, Madapane, Thispane, Thumpane are some examples for this tradition. 'Yapane' is sinonym to Japane. It also reveals from the 16th Century Sinhala literature that the Northern Peninsular was known by the name 'Yapapatuna'. 'Patuna' means a harbour, 'Yapa' means a subordinate king (Yuwa-Pa>Yapa). Thus the similarity is clear between the names 'Jaffna Patan' and the Japana Patuna' or 'Yapa Patuna' probably the name 'Yalpanam' should be an imaginary place name invented by a Tamil author to indicate a place name in a mythical story. The name Batticaloa too cannot be accepted as the Anglicized form of the name "Mattakalappu'. It is well known that Mattakalappu is the tamilized form of the Sinhala name Madakalapuwa which means muddy lagoon. It should also be noted that there is no literary meaning in the word Mattakalappu in Tamil language. The ancient name for Trincomalee was 'Gonamale'. In Sinhala language 'Gona' is a name for the Deer or Antler. 'Malaya' or 'Male' means a mountain. The Tamil merchants began to settle around the harbour near 'Gonamale', after the fall of Polonnaruwa kingdom and tamilized the word as 'Konamalai'. After the construction of Hindu Kovil on this mountain in a latter period, it was named as Thirukonamalai. Further there are evidence to prove that upto very recent time there were many Sinhala villages in the Northern and Eastern provinces. The Anglicized place name 'Welligammo' mentioned in the Davi's Map (1821 A.D.) clearly shows that it was a Sinhala place name called Weligama which was Tamilized as Valikamam in the latter part of 19th century. Likewise the name Moothoor or Muttur is non other than the Sinhala place name Moodupura which means the town near the sea. The Kandy in Central Province was known originally in Sinhala as 'Kanda' which means the highland. During the Malabar rule it was pronounced as Kandy by the Tamils. The English too, followed the Tamilized form as it was easier for them to pronounce. The original name for the city of Kandy is Mahanuwara. W. P. W. WEERAWARDENA - Battaramulla. The feature by M. B. Dassanayake about Trinity College, and its completion of 132 years on February 20 is most interesting. I got a nostalgic feeling. Let me, as a former student (53-65) of this great school, remind the readers the impact Trinity College, Kandy had on society and those individuals who had the privilege of associating with it. Trinity was the first school in the island to start a farm and trained its students to become agriculturists. It helped them to mould their lives and learn and understand the life of a farmer. Credit should largely go to Mr. Sinnathambi who instilled discipline and decorum which undoubtedly helped them in later years. Trinity took a bold step, through its Social Service Society, in adopting two under-privileged remote villages in the Kandy District greatly transforming the lives of those poor and humble villagers. No other school in Sri Lanka has undertaken such a meritorious task in guiding the 'privileged' students in such an endeavour. I witnessed how the outlook to life and society in those Trinitians changed due to the participation in 're-awakening' those two villages. The school also exposed the students, through this society, to the inmates of the Open Prison Camp at Pallakelle to enable them to understand why crime is committed and how it affects not only those who commit but also the society. Trinity always inculcated brotherhood, fraternity and equality in its students which had a favourable impact on them who later moved to the larger society to become useful citizens with a clear outlook and correct perspective. In commemorating the completion of 132 years, it is important to know the impact Trinity College, Kandy had on the individual in particular and the society in general. DAYA GAMAGE - USA. |
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