CHENNAI: Minister for Tamil Official Language and Culture K Pandiarajan announced on Thursday that the notification issued for change of names of 1,018 places in the State has been withdrawn. The Minister was responding to a query from Gopal Srinivasan, Chairman of TVS Capital Funds on the social media platform, Twitter.
“We are working on alignment of views by experts on transliteration standards from Tamil to English. Hopefully, we should get this released in two to three days. The GO on the change of English names for places has been withdrawn. Will absorb all feedback and reissue shortly,” Pandiarajan tweeted.
Srinivasan had said, “If the government really wanted to help restore authenticity, it should first provide a standard for English spellings,” quoting Dravidian ideologue Su Ba Veerapandian.
The notification, dated April 1, was released on June 10, and subjected to a flurry of reactions from political parties, Tamil scholars, as well as on social media. They lamented that appropriate linguistic experts were not consulted before finalising the transliteration of the names.
Some of the names that faced backlash include Koyampuththoor (Coimbatore), Mayilaappoor (Mylapore), Thooththukkudi (Tuticorin), Mathurai (Madurai) and Thandayiyaarpettai (Tondiarpet), besides naming Vellore as Veelore and Erode as Erodi.
