The Tamil Nadu government has changed the English names of 1,018 places in the state to match their regional pronunciations. One of the most notable changes will be of the city of Coimbatore, which will now be called Koyampuththoor. The move to change the names of the places was first made in 2018 and it finally came into affect in June 2020.
Tamil Nadu Government Changes English Names Of 1,018 Places
The order for the same was initially passed on April 1 2020 (no, it’s not a joke) but the order only came into effect on 10th June 2020. The actual responsibility of implementing the change of names has been given to the departments of revenue, district administration, rural development and panchayat raj, and municipal corporations. some of the most prominent names changes are below:
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Coimbatore will be called Koyampuththoor
Mylapore, will now be written in English as Mayilaappoor
Ambattur will be renamed Ambaththoor
Egmore station will be rechristened as Ezhumboor station
Dindigul will be changed to Thindukkal
Vellore will now be called Veeloor
Sholinganallur to Solinganalloor
Tiruvarur to Thiruvaroor
Tuticorin to Thooththukkudi
You can check the full list of changes in this government issued pdf here.
The new spellings will be in effect in official documents from here on but those in existing ones will not be affected. Tamil development director G Vijayaraghavan said, “A group of language experts, representatives of Tamil organisations and professors, along with government administrators finalised the names at the district level and later at the state level. It took almost two years.”
Well, the new spellings might be a little difficult to remember, but Tamil language experts say that the locals were pronouncing it this way anyway and this the right move in the state.