# Tamil: பட்டமங்களம், சேந்தங்குடி



## EddieCai

Hi, could someone please let me know the English names of these places?
பட்டமங்களம்
சேந்தங்குடி

Thanks
நன்றி


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## Au101

Hi,

What is it that you would like to know, just the translation, or the etymology behind the name?

I'm fairly sure that பட்டமங்களம் is 'Pattamangalam' in English - an exact transliteration.

Whilst சேந்தங்குடி is, I believe, Senthangudi - again an exact transliteration - albeit using a very simple and naïve transliteration scheme which doesn't communicate much about the pronunciation. It is, of course, however, unusual to include diacritics in place names, but I would transliterate these thus:

பட்டமங்களம் - paṭṭamaṅkaḷam
சேந்தங்குடி - cēntaṅkuṭi


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## EddieCai

Thank you, Au101.

It's just the translation that I would like to know. So 'Pattamangalam' and 'Senthangudi' are good enough for me. Anyway, thank you for the transliteration with diacritics.

மிகவும் நன்றி.


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## Kannan91

Au101 said:


> Hi,
> 
> What is it that you would like to know, just the translation, or the etymology behind the name?
> 
> I'm fairly sure that பட்டமங்களம் is 'Pattamangalam' in English - an exact transliteration.
> 
> Whilst சேந்தங்குடி is, I believe, Senthangudi - again an exact transliteration - albeit using a very simple and naïve transliteration scheme which doesn't communicate much about the pronunciation. It is, of course, however, unusual to include diacritics in place names, but I would transliterate these thus:
> 
> பட்டமங்களம் - paṭṭamaṅkaḷam
> சேந்தங்குடி - cēntaṅkuṭi



Just out of curiosity, do you pronounce that "c" as [s] or [tʃ]? I've read that it's supposed to be [tʃ]. However, originally there wasn't an [s] sound in Tamil (or Malayalam, which is where names like "Cīta" come from - mispronunciations of "Sīta" etc), so the "s" in Sanskrit loanwords was written as "c".  However, when people started trying to pronounce the loanwords properly, they hypercorrected it and pronounced all instances of "c" as [s], even the native Tamil words. 

In Malayalam, we've avoided this problem by introducing a separate letter "s".


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## Au101

Hi Kannan - well I think you've hit upon one of the greatest problems I have in hoping to get close to the correct pronunciation of Tamil words, which is allophones - or using one letter to represent multiple phonemes, or ''sounds''. We have allophones in English as well - such as the letter 'c' (ச), which can be pronounced /s/ as in 'ice' or /k/ as in 'cake'. In Tamil, however, they are seen all of the time. As somebody who would love to learn Tamil, but has really very little knowledge of it, I can attest to this being a source of considerable difficulty and confusion, but I'm unsure as to whether your understanding of its history is correct or not. It certainly sounds entirely plausible, but I know there are many many Tamil words where the letter 'c' is pronounced /s/ and many more where it is pronounced /t͡ʃ/. I know that in the case of the letter 'k' (க) it can very dependent on dialogue and different words may be pronounced differently in different places. I believe that in India, where there is perhaps a stronger influence exerted on the language, this correction, or, indeed, hypercorrection, is more common than in other Tamil-speaking areas. Of interest, there is a letter in Tamil - derived from the Grantha script, which was, of course, developed for the writing of Sanskrit - ஸ. It is similar, although not identical to its Grantha counterpart and is occasionally used, especially in transcription of foreign names, but would be rarely seen in Tamil words - whether the ச is pronounced /s/ or /ʧ͡/. It is also possible for this letter - or so I am told, to be pronounced /ʤ͡/ (like a 'j') when used in conjunction with the letter ஞ, such as in the word கஞ்சி (kanji/kañci/kagnci) which means 'gruel'.

I must stress, however, that I merely intend to provide a small insight into this from the perspective of somebody who desires to learn the language - and, indeed, has found the beautiful, but difficult script to be problematic) and what I have said is by no means authoritative, indeed, I hoped to provide Eddie with my best attempt, having transliterated the names and checked that these places did indeed exist, but I hope I made clear that I am only fairly sure about these and have never been to the places themselves.

I hope that i have not distracted this thread too far from the topic and that the moderators will look kindly upon this post, as it is relevant to the original poster's orthographical query. If not, I offer my apologies for this and suggest, Kannan, that you begin a new thread .


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## Kannan91

I'm familiar with that Grantha letter - the Malayalam "s" is derived from it. I doubt it would be used for "j" though - are you sure you don't mean something like ജ (that's the Malayalam, but the original Grantha is very similar)? Malayalam has actually acquired a full set of characters, borrowing from Grantha when required, to represent both the Tamil and Sanskrit inventories.

EDIT: I removed something irrelevant from this post. I didn't realise you were talking about the English "c" at first.


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## Au101

Hi Kannan, I'm not sure what you're referring to there, the 's' (ஸ) never doubles for a j, but the 'c' (ச) can do, I believe. There is a Tamil letter j, which is identical to the Malayalam letter j, if memory serves - I don't have a Malayalam font installed on this computer - and that is ஜ. These would be used in transcriptions, and in many Tamil names, such as Jayalalithaa (ஜெயலலிதா), the Tamil politician and former chief minister of Tamil Nadu. However, I believe that in Tamil words these characters are used far more rarely if there is a substitute in the standard orthography. I may not be correct on this - my experience is not quite as in-depth as I might like and much of my knowledge is not of Indian Tamil - where I believe the loan characters are far more common. If we look at wikipedia, however:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_script#Basic_consonants

We see five phonemes which can be represented by the letter ச and, incidentally, five for க also. I am not sure how common some of those are, however.


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## Kannan91

Ah, sorry, I was confused - I thought you were saying that "ஸ" could be pronounced /j/. You're entirely right. The whole problem comes down to the fact that those characters are used so rarely and inconsistently - I think they're mostly restricted to (some) personal names, recent loanwords, and Brahmins trying to be careful with their Sanskrit.


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