Talk:Chennai/Archive 1

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comma separators... xx,xx,xxx or x,xxx,xxx

the population figure was originally given on here in the format xx,xx,xxx - as often used in India (see Crore). That was quite confusing, as I read it as 60 million not 6 million, so I removed the commas. Now it's been changed to the x,xxx,xxx format. What's best? Matthewmayer 18:28, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As this is the English wikipedia I think we should use what is most common among English speakers worldwide, which is he latter format. Arvindn 04:07, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

When I first added the info box, I used the Crore format 'coz I'd thought that it must be in localized format. Also, for the time zone, I used GMT even though the GMT is somewhat obsolete as per international standards; but GMT alone is used througout the India. --Rrjanbiah 05:25, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Chennai as Madras in Tamil

User:Hippietrail, Chennai has been referred to as Madras in Tamil just as other English words are used in urban Indian Tamil. If you speak urban Tamil, you'll notice that upto 20-30% of words could be English. For instance, the song "Madrasa Suttipaakka Poren" from the Tamil film "May Madham" uses Madras to refer to Chennai just as it uses a bunch of other English words. In other words, Madras is used in conversational Tamil just as Taxi, platform, time etc. are. I'm a native Tamil speaker and have been in Tamil Nadu for 20+ years, and have always understood the name of city to be Chennai in Tamil (and Madras in English until lately). Ambarish | Talk 21:14, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hi and sorry for not replying sooner. I saw your response and probably misinterpreted it a little because I thought wouldn't have to respond. I know little of Tamil or Chennai but past experience has shown that in other cases there are conflicting rumours and stories and politics which come into play in the case of placenames. I had just read somewhere on the Internet that there were disputed etymologies for the word "Madras" with some believing it really did originate as a Tamil word, and that the person after whom "Chennai" has been known was not even a Tamil. I no longer recall where I read this but when I was searching for it came across a related thread on a blog called languagehat. I asked on that list whether the idea that "Chennai has never been known as Madras in Tamil" was political or not. I was told it was political. So I do not know which side is true and perhaps one would need to go back further than 20 years to find Tamils thinking of "Madras" in their own language. But I decided that the fact there exist two sides to the story at least warranted inclusion of the word "Chennai" in Tamil script. Perhaps some discussion will now ensue here. I hope I haven't opened a can of worms but it seems NPOV to include the Tamil script for both names. Respectfully — Hippietrail 06:53, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. Hmm, I guess my statement above might have given you a wrong idea of where I'm coming from. Just to clarify, I'm no Tamil fanatic reactionary, and I personally use Madras even in spoken Tamil (as I said, that is because I use quite a few English words), and almost never Chennai. I'm indeed aware that the city-renaming exercise is a political farce. Anyway, here are some thoughts:

* The fact is that the etymological origins of both "Madras" and "Chennai" are disputed. Most scholars believe that "Chennai" is derived from Telugu, either through a name (Chennappa) or through other means. Re. "Madras", on the other hand, there's no consensus whatsoever. All this you're aware of, I guess.

* The language used in the article ("Chennai, also known as Madras is a sprawling ...") implies that you (or whoever wrote that) think(s) Madras and Chennai reflect current usage. In that case, how is historical usage of Madras in Tamil of any relevance? The only thing relevant is whether Madras is used in Tamil currently, perhaps over the last 20-30 years. To which the answer is, of course, "No". If you want to rewrite the article as "Chennai, historically known also as Madras", that's fine then. Whether Madras was ever used in Tamil would still be contentious, but atleast the issue becomes then relevant.

* As for "Chennai has never been as known as Madras in Tamil", I think that's a quote taken out of context. First, that's just in the edit summary, where I couldn't explain all I had in mind. What I meant was that Chennai hasn't been known as Madras in Tamil for the last 70-80 years atleast, and that is what I've reiterated above in my original edit. Lastly, I have no idea who runs language hat, but I think "subordinating knowledge to politics" is far from what I intended to do and what I've done.

* This is just an aside. Madras written in Tamil is not மதிராஸ். It is, instead, மெட்ராஸ். If the discussion results in a consensus to retain the Tamil form of Madras, this could be used instead.

Hope we can arrive at a consensus. I don't think we're far from it anyhow. Ambarish | Talk 02:19, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I haven't see any response from User:Hippietrail for a week now, so I'm reverting Hippietrail's reverts back to my version. Ambarish | Talk 19:55, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sorry I hadn't replied earlier. I took a few days holiday. Thanks very much for correcting my Tamil spelling. Sorry to see it go from the article but if that's what's felt I don't know enough to say otherwise. I did think it interesting that there are a number of Google hits in Tamil with the corrected spelling. Would you care to look at the pages and tell me what context the word is used in? — Hippietrail 00:24, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'll be happy to undo my revert - I thought you were no longer interested as a week had passed by. I'm afraid I couldn't locate any such pages as you mention, probably because I don't know how to search for Tamil keywords. Could you provide links? Thanks. Ambarish | Talk 23:31, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Searching for Tamil words is easy. Just use Google. If you can't type Tamil directly into Google, you can cut and paste it from this page. Last week when I tried I was sure that I got a page of results however today I get only two. The word "மெட்ராஸ" is used several times on each though and in some inflected forms it seems. I would be delighted to learn the contexts however this discussion turns out. Here are the pages: vinobha.blogspot.com: 2 uses, maraththadi.com: 3 uses.

Hey sorry I'm late in responding. The reason you got only two results is probably because you searched for "மெட்ராஸ" (Madrasa) instead of "மெட்ராஸ்" (Madras). The hits that you get for the corrected form (30 odd) can be classified as:

Literal transliteration of an English proper noun - e.g. http://www.tamillinux.org/~balaji/archives/000334.html has the word in it's 3rd paragraph as a transliteration of "Madras Garden", apparently a restaurant.
Literal transliteration of an English/semi-English conversation - e.g. http://sooriyan.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=734&Itemid=1 Literally, <some Tamil dialogue>, "Which part of India?", "Madras", <more Tamil dialogue>
What I mentioned above about people (especially in cities) using English words routinely in Tamil prose and conversation. e.g. http://tamildubukku.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_tamildubukku_archive.html has a paragraph where the author uses, among other English words, "Madras, "air hostess" (sic) and flight.

Just in case you're curious, the two results that you did get for your typo involve a colloquialism of the noun "Madras" in the accusative (objective) case. Many Tamil nouns ending in a consonant are conjugated in the accusative case by adding the vowel "ai". Colloquially (in speech), the "ai" becomes "a", and modern writers tend to report direct speech as is. The result is "Madrasa", which is literally "Madrasai", which is "Madras" as an object.

Ambarish | Talk 18:24, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Was it Madraspattinam or Chengapattinam? Paddu

It was called Chennappattinam, AFIK. -- Sundar 10:51, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

சென்னை Vs. ெசன்ைன

சென்னை (சென்னை)
ெசன்ைன (ெசன்ைன)
User:Vrajmohan is keep on changing சென்னை to ெசன்ைன and in the edit summary he wrote "I have tested this on Firefox - this is the correct sequence of characters", which I can't agree. For me it doesn't even work in IE itself. According to my knowledge the thunai ezhuthu has to be added after the mei ezhuthu for Unicode. Tried [1], DW, and [2], they all work as per my knowledge. Is there anyone who can solve this issue?? --Rrjanbiah 07:12, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Tamil, like the other Indic language scripts has glyphs which do not appear in the same order as the sounds they represent. Rendering systems and fonts have had to come to terms with this. Prior to Windows XP, Windows was unable to correctly render them. The rendering system of Windows is Called UniScribe. Newer versions of Uniscribe mean better rendering of Tamil and other exotic scripts. The rendering system on Linux is Pango but Mozilla used to do its own rendering - I haven't kept up with changes in this field. The correct order of unicode codepoints for Tamil is the order of the sounds, not the order the glyphs appear in written or printed text. Unfortunately I don't have a written version of the word here but this information should be enough for a Tamil speaker to analyze the Unicode and choose the right one. Chances are Explorer on Windows XP renders correctly using Arial Unicode MS. Firefox on whichever OS may not but it depends on several variabls. — Hippietrail 13:11, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Fortunately, I found Chennai in Tamil Wikipedia itself; the author of the page has used like mine [3]. I could see some dotted circles in the second word above in the heading ("ெசன்ைன") both in IE and FF, which is wrong. Just curious, couldn't you see such dotted characters? Mine is FF/XP. --Rrjanbiah 13:56, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My apologies - I am using Firefox on Windows XP - I could not see any dotted circles - the letters were flipped and I went ahead and changed it. I was ignorant of the fact that the "thunai ezhuthu" should follow the "mei ezhuthu". I have now reverted it --Vrajmohan

Ok, no problem. I was also saying that the thunai ezhuthu was not merged; that is what I mentioned as dotted circled character. I'm also using FF on XP. Just curious, have you seen any browser in which both "சென்னை" and "ெசன்ைன" are rendered same? --Rrjanbiah 05:15, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi, just want to know what font i need to view the tamil text. i see it as hollow boxes. could you also provide a link please? thanks --Susheel c 08:41, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It is Windows XP with complex script support (Control panel->Language support->Install complex scripts; You need to have XP CD; I have some screenshots and will publish soon). Mozilla Firefox [4] (my pet browser) seems to work without such support, but it is *heavily* broken. The font is Latha. --Rrjanbiah 08:23, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Many thanks Rrjanbiah, unfortunately for me i'm on win 2000. I'll try to find a workaround.thanks--Susheel Chandradhas 16:58, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps you may want to look at http://lrrc3.sas.upenn.edu/tamilonline/unicodehelp.html --Rrjanbiah 06:13, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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comma separators... xx,xx,xxx or x,xxx,xxx

Chennai as Madras in Tamil

சென்னை Vs. ெசன்ைன