Talk:Sri Lankan place name etymology

message: I have implemented the new structure in the big lines, as presented here on the talk page. There are stylistic issues and content issues, but the basic skeleton should be there. I copied the content from the last version and some stuff from Bodi dhana's January version.
Notice that I have been indiscriminate in my use of sources. The principle was for now that any source is fine. I may have inserted some stuff which will surely be contested. I did this not because I have a certain POV, but in order for all view points to be there. If some of them are irrelevant, we can still remove them. 
The one source I did not include is the Daily news article, for reasons given above. 
I tagged the relevant sections for . Hopefully, we can chart the differences and come to an agreement. 
I also put some etymologies on the basis of first-come first-serve. If there are disagreements, move them to "disputed etymologies" and we'll see.
There are also some gaps, and I suppose some of the relevant stuff is buried in the version history. Forgive me if I did not dig it all up or screwed up sources or the like. Jasy jatere (talk) 17:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have a concern with Trincomalee. The way it's written right now it seems like that the place was named by Sinhala origin. I totally contest this. In addition it is cited to nothing so please fix this issue Watchdogb (talk) 18:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Now that I see history I see that it came from the geocities website. I am going to remove this claim until citation is given. Watchdogb (talk) 18:04, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  The etymology as such is not completely implausible, so I think a  would be better than outright removal. This will make it easier for other users to add quality sources, and in the long term it will make for a better article. I suppose you have some information about competing etymologies, so why don't you move the passage to "Disputed etymology" and add a competing etymology from another source. Jasy jatere (talk) 22:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

text:  I disagree. The sentence you added back remained without being cited for a long time after the website was shown to be a non-RS. It was tagged with fact tag  on 15:18, 20 February 2008 and removed on 10:49, 3 March 2008 with fact tag remaining over 10 days. There is no point on adding the Trincomale part to disputed etymology as it takes more than a un referenced sentence to make something disputed. I am not nit picking your wonderful work just trying to help. Watchdogb (talk) 22:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK, I was not aware of the etymology being questioned before. Not sure whether you are talking abt Trinco or Batticaloa, by the way Jasy jatere (talk) 23:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

text:  Sorry my mistake - It's Trinco Watchdogb (talk) 00:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  new structure 

message: The Hybrid place name is totally pov and I dispute it 100%. It claims that some academics say that Sinhalese people lived in North and East was before Tamil people (invaders from south India) came into these place. I say this is nonsense and I dispute that these claims are even in the citations given. On the contrary I have reference that says that who came before whom is disputed with most Tamil scholars claiming that the Tamils were in these places as early as Sinhalese and Sinhalese scholars opposing this views. I have no time to wast on crap like this and I have tagged with fact tags. If these claims are not cited in the next 24 hours it will be removed. 
I am also removing some material claiming some sort of buddist shrines being in Northern and Eastern provinces as the website that back this claim is dead and upon reading it (via archives) its clear that the website definitely violates WP:RS. Watchdogb (talk) 20:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Issues with the section "Focus of Research"

message: It is perfectly done as it is written taking into account both accounts. I removed the neutrality -section tag Taprobanus (talk) 21:41, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues with the section "Geolinguistics distribution 

message: In my view it should be a neutral sentence just illustrating that these etymologies are used for political purposes by both sides and end of story. Taprobanus (talk) 21:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues with the section  "Anthropological and political relevance of place names in Sri Lanka" 

message: As soon as Jasy J introduce his new structure, I see that watchdog has gone ahead and introduced an Eelam claim map (i.e, a POLITICAL CLAIM MAP). I strongly object as this is going to get as back to square one of total disagreement.
Also, even before we could study Jasy J's version, it has been successively edited and tags removed, All this is contraray to the SLR agreemnts.Jasy Jay's version should stay in place for discussion, and then changes can be added. I aim to revert to JasyJ's version, and I put back retraint tags, as we need to DISCUSS and come to agreement to ensure that no inappropriate action is done.Bodhi dhana (talk) 01:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not add any "eelam map". All I did was remove sentence that was added back even thought it was removed after remaining without citation for over a week. Jasy did not know about this and I had pointed it out so that Jasy can edit but at the same time follow wikipedia rules. I had also removed citation to the geocities websites as we had achieved consensus on that it was not a reliable source. These two things were problem in the past but it has been fixed by due process and there is no need to break this even if a new version is being written. I had not changed any content that were not discussed before. Watchdogb (talk) 03:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

text: Feel free to remove the map. It was me who put it in there. I thought it would nicely illustrate the areas where etymology is used for political ends. And while there are of course different opinions about the legitimacy of the LTTE claims, I think that the majority of the public agrees that a) these claims exist and that b) they cover more or less the area indicated on the map. So if you remove the map, just explain inhowfar an illustration of these claims would call into question the quality of the article.Jasy jatere (talk) 07:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

text: I do not have the time nor the will nor the necessary knowledge to write this article on my own, that's why I work on a collaborative encyclopedia ;-). So please do not hesitate to contribute to the article. I think that the tags I put in there could stay in place, they were seen as an indicator of the provisional state of the site. In the following weeks, we should aim at reaching a consensus on a section per section basis and then remove the tags of that section Jasy jatere (talk) 07:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: we need to keep editing restriction tags and politics and build consensus

message: In this article, WP:Reliable sources applies as a policy, like anywhere else. This would mean that we have to go for sources in international peer reviewed journals, like 
* the International Journal for Dravidian linguistics, 
* Journal of the American Oriental Society, 
* Journal of  South Asian Studies,
* Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft etc
or otherwise books of reputed publishing houses, or written by scholars who contribute to international peer reviewed journals on a regular basis. As a precaution, I would not take monographs by local scholars published on the subcontinent as reliable sources per se, because there is a high risk of POV. They can be treated as RS if the work is accepted in the internation community, which means cited in independent RS, as is the case for instance for Karunatillake's Sinhala grammar.
Given the excentric location of Sri Lanka and the war, comparably little international scholarship has been done in that area. As a matter of fact, there are very little sources which respond favourably to the criteria above.  This means that we either have to strip a large part of that article or loosen our criteria for sources somewhat. 
In order to counter systemic bias, I think we should also accept less reliable sources, but indicate this, like we do with WP:SLR#QS. The most obvious and somehow problematic way would be to indicate the nationality of the researcher. This will give readers unfamiliar with the local languages an idea about possible conflicts of interest.
So basically the question is, does wp need a short article with close to no sources, or a more extensive article which gives an overview of research in the area even if it is not published on the international level. I for one think that usefulness of wp increases with the number of sources given.Jasy jatere (talk) 08:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: PS: we should really get rid of newspaper articles as a source for etymologies. Even in other parts of the world, their coverage of linguistic topics is abysmal. Newspaper articles can be useful to illustrate certain (unscientific) POVs, though.Jasy jatere (talk) 08:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Very nice summary of WP:RS and a lot of insight! This is the type of editors we need to tackle all of Sri Lankan related articles. I agree with you that wikipedia articles would be more useful if we had more sources comparing to less. Watchdogb (talk) 12:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

text: My apologies to Watchdog. Agree with Jassy J that we need to go paragraph by paragraph, and put in the material stone by stone. Regarding sources, newspaper etymology is what I meant by "arm-chair etymology", and they are usually not relaible. Regarding other sources, we don't have the same volume of research for place names in Sri lanka, as for, say England or France.
The criteria given by Jassy J are exactly what I have in mind. Let us apply them to ref.4 (same as ref. 5). here we find that (i)The reference is not cited by ANY academic works - if you know a citation to the Kularatnam paper please present it (only place it is discussed is in [geocities/place.names/] (ii)the author Kularatnam has published no papers either before, or after on the subject of place names, linguistics, ethnography etc- if you can find a reference please let us know. (iii)the speakers at this "conference" are all of one particular ethnicity (iv)the paper is publicizd by the "Tamilnation" website and the "Ilankai Tamil sangam" website. These are, unfortunately, political organizations and so we have the use of "etymology" for politics, and fit in with the section entitled "# 5 Anthropological and political relevance of place names in Sri Lanka". But we need to see if it some how qualifies as an objective study. So this makes us examine the publication more carefully. As Jassy J mentioned, perhaps we need to mention the ethnicity of the author and accept some modified criteria, although I find that a bit odious as the criteria should be (a) content and (b) acceptance by the academic community. Clearly, the lack of any references to Kularatnam's etymological work (ref. 4 or ref 5) anywhere in academic publications shows that it has not gained a place in academia ( I searched the usual data bases including JSTRO, athens, google scholar). let us look at its contents. Kularatnam decides that a place name is of Tamil origin  on the simple principle, viz.,  if "the names or at least principal parts are Tamil", and gives examples. Thus Mulai, mulla (corner), found in  Achamulai, Athiadimulla (Badulla dt.). He fails to realize that "mulla" is a word which is also found even in sinhala-prakrit, pali and Sanskrit (e.g., many meanings, some cogante with the Tamil, given on page 538-540 of the Pali text society Pali-english dictionary, or corresponding Sanskrit dic.). The Tamil word is not exclusively Tamil at all, but most likely from a common Indic lingusitic source!. One can also check this in Burrow and Emmeneau's book on Dravidian Etymology, and it is clear that Kularatnam has NOT done his homework. Reading through Kularatnams's article, it is easy to realize that we have a very superficial etymological paper, with NO REFERNCES WHAT SO EVER to supporting literature, ephigraphic records, or even a reference to an etymological dictionary. We cannot use the Kularatnam paper as an authoritative reference in an encyclopedia. It is worse than some of the newspaper-etymological articles that we have rejected!
So I feel that we must reject the Kularatnam reference(e.g.,Ref.4 and ref.5) as it is NOT acceptable, except for the purpose of illustrating  the mis-use of etymology for political purposes. We must write the article using  references which have gained acceptance among scholars in the field (as seen in the existence of a sizable number of citations). We must follow the principle of neutral point of view without undue importance. the WP:NPOV requires that fringe views, minority views, should NOT be given undue importance.Bodhi dhana (talk) 17:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Bodi, please stop stirring the same old discussion over and over again. I am getting tired of rewriting and reproducing things twice in this discussion. All your claims about Kularatnam's source is not sourced and are purely your thoughts. I am not going to rewrite the same discussion that I had with you earlier (now in the archive). I can easy disprove that half of your claim above about Kularatnam's source not being used by scholars once by giving this. Clearly it is a WP:RS book citing this exact citation without any explicit attribution. It's pretty clear that your opinions are just that. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 19:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: Regarding the sources, I think we can distinguish several tiers:
Western sources:keep
(published in the West)
* Spencer, Jonathan (1990). Sri Lanka: History and the Roots of Conflict. Routledge. . 
* Michael Roberts, J. South Asian Studies, vol XXVII, no. I (2004)
* ^ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (ceylon Branch), vol III, p174-224 (1961)
* ^ K. Indrapala "Dravidian settlements in Ceylon and the beginning of the Kingdom of jaffna", 1966 University of London (Ph. D thesis)
* ^ Paranavitana, S. (1956). Sigiri Graffiti, Vols. I & II. Oxford University Press. 
* ^ http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items05/071205-5.html University of London, Ph.D Thesis 1965; also Evolution of an Ethnic Identity 2005.
* ^ Pfaffenberg, Brian & Chelvadurai, M. The Sri Lankan Tamils, (1994). P.88 The Sri Lankan Tamils. Westview Press. . 
Asian Sources:
(published in Asia)
* Gnanaprakasar, Swamy (2003). A Critical History of Jaffna. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services. . 
* Kularatnam, K (1966-04-23). "Tamil Place Names in Ceylon outside the Northern and Eastern Provinces". Proceedings of the first International Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies, vol. 1: 483–493, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: International Tamil Conference. use only for synchronic claims
* ^ K. Velu Pillai, Yalpana Vaibhava Kaumudi, ISBN : 8120619137, (1918 English Edition)
* ^ Dr. Jane Russell, "Communal Politics in the Donoughmore Era, 1931-1947", Thisara Publishers, Colombo 1982, and Ph. D thesis, University of Sri Lanka
* ^ B. Horsburg, The Ceylon Antiquary, vol ii, part I 1916not RS. Remove
* ^ * Indrapala, K (2007). The evolution of an ethnic identity: The Tamils in Sri Lanka C. 300 BCE to C. 1200 CE. Colombo:Vijitha Yapa. .
Newspapersremove
* Scott, Andrew. "Romance of Colombo's place names", Daily News, 2002-01-05. Retrieved on 2008-03-06. 
* ^ :: Daily Mirror - Appreciations ::
* ^ a b c d Tambimuttu, Ceylon Observer, 14 October 1948;
Websitesremove
* ^ Hussein, Asiff. Dutch heritage of Sri Lanka. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
* ^ http://www.ucchilaw.com/copies/derivation_city%20name.htm
* ^ Sri Lanka Info - Reiseinfos - Verkehr - Motorräder
* ^ Ville Carte Migamuwa
* ^ Perera, D. G. A.. Travesty of our place names. Retrieved on 2008-03-06.
unclear
* ^ Buddhist shrines in Northeast
* ^ K. Supphia, "Yalpana Vaipava Kaumudi"
Keeping in mind what is written above about source quality, I think we should keep everything in the Western category, and get rid of everything in the categories website and newspaper. I suppose that the "unclear" things can go as well.
As for the "Asian" sources, we will have to decide on a case by case basis. But let's see whether we can already reach an agreement for the other categories. 
All this applies only for sourcing facts. I do not want to imply anything about their value to illustrate opinions, popular misconceptions or the like. Jasy jatere (talk) 20:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I am for gettinmg rid of Websites, Newspapers and unclear Taprobanus (talk) 20:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: List of sources

message: Let's take a look at what Kularatnam says himself:
Not having had any training in linguistics, the present writer has had to be satisfied with merely listing the toponyms on the basis of apparent similarities, and refraining from definite conclusions.
What does this mean? It means that K does not make any claims about etymology of the words, whether they are loan translations or have always been Tamil, he simple records what is being used now. This means that this source cannot be used as historical evidence. This also means that the introductory note by Sachi Sri Kantha misses the point when it says 
he has drawn from multiple examples the strong influence of Tamil language in the place names of Sri Lanka, outside the boundaries of the Northern and Eastern provinces.
Same goes for the rebuttal
Prof. Kularatnam has not backed any of his claims even with the aid of an etymological dictionaty., 
  
Why should he, if his claims were not etymological anyway. He actually hedges the conclusions very much
: I agree. Watchdogb (talk) 13:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you meant you agree, Jasy is saying that the cliam of the personal website is wrong too about Prof K:)))Taprobanus (talk) 14:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

text: Bottom line I agree with Jasy we can use it in this article but not to make any etymological claims. Thanks for the patient clarification once and for all professor Taprobanus (talk) 14:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kularatnam and his value for the article 

message: This book is not WP:RS. First off we do not even know who the author is. A google search of his names (B.Horsburgh) gives other hits but none that connects to this particular person. We do not know his field of expertise so I dispute that he is an expert of etymology. Second, the book that is quoted in this article does not have a ISBN or any other important information. Furthermore, it is not published by a respected publishing company. The only hit for the exact book comes from the unreliable and racist geocities webpage. The title of the book itself is definatly one sided which is "sinhala place name in north". This book makes enormous claims contrary to the controversial stand about the first people to Sri Lanka. It cites very little (3 sources 2 of which is not even a cite). I dispute that this article is WP:RS and totally object the use of this book on this article. Watchdogb (talk) 15:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The rules we need to keep in mind are WP:VERIFY and WP:CITE, I think you make a case for that the book fails both 15:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree. For the record, it is fine for RS to produce opinions, nothing wrong with that, but they should be marked as such. It is also fine for RS to have original opinions, not taken over (cited) from someone else, this makes for the novelty of the work. It is furthermore also no problem to use hedges as "maybe", but the conclusions will be weaker then, and should not be overstated.Jasy jatere (talk) 16:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It might still be interesting to have it in the article as an illustration of the kinds of books the topic has spawned, maybe with some quotes. Just a suggestion. Jasy jatere (talk) 16:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

text:  I have no problem the suggestion Jasy makes. I agree to it. Watchdogb (talk) 16:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Ceylon Antiquary and the value to this article 

message: Clearly a non academic persons historical musings, cannotbe used to make facts. Has to be attributed. Taprobanus (talk) 22:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Gnanaprakasar 's value

message: Agian a non academic perons ancient musings, unverfibale. If ISBN number and page numbers are used then it has to be attributed. Taprobanus (talk) 22:26, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: K. Velu Pillai, Yalpana Vaibhava Kaumudi

message: An academic whose publication by an academic source is acceptable as long as page numbers are providedTaprobanus (talk) 22:26, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Dr. Jane Russellś value for this article

message: I see topics opened up individually for Gnanaprakasar, Vellupillai, Horsburg, Indrapala(1965) etc., in the discussion. These are what one could call classic sources and pioneering studies (CSPS). 
To list some of these:  Rasaynayaga (Ancient Jaffna 1926), Gnanaprakasar (1928) , vellupillai (, Christopher Britto 1888, Yalpana vaipavamali, this differs from Velupillai's  related work), Konecar Kalvettu (Ed. Canmukarattina Aiyyar, Jaffna, 1909) and Vaiyaapatal(16th century Tamil work, Arulprakasam 1953), C. S. Lewis (Manual of the Vanni District, 1895), Denham (British civil servants who wrote adminstrative reports which contain discussions of place names, customs of people etc., for the benefit of the Britsh Governor), "A record of Buddhist Kingdoms" by J. Legge (Oxford, 1886). The medieval "Kadaimpoth", i.e., the "Compendium of Property Boundaries" has been a topic of recent research and published by the Government Printer for all to study (Govt. Printer, 1975), and it has become a topic of several Ph. D thesis.  Similarly, there is the 8th century "Nampoth"- list of ancient Buddhist place-names. This is already referred to and studied in the CSPS.  The classic colonial works by Turnour, Emmerson Tennant(1859) are in the CSPS class. Other even earlier colonial sources which are important for place-names work is Baldeus (Dutch), de Queyroz ( 1620 ), Robert Knox, Iban Batuta (14th century, trans. H. R. Gibbs, London 1925), Chinese records from Pha-Hsien etc. Then there is the information on Place names available from Stone inscriptions (Ephigraphica Zeylanica,  Ephigrapica Tamilica etc), The Pali literature of Sri Lanka since circa 3rd century BCE. Then there are records/discussion involving  place names in the British and Ceylon Parliament debates (Hansaard) etc.
Are we going to study all of the above CSPS and evaluate them individually? NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT. We are editors writing an article, not trying to do research, and our job is to merely report the current positions refelected in the published works from renouned scholars (i.e, who have got many citations). We can readily refer to the CSPS as they have been evaluated and quoted by scholars. Horsburgh, Gnanaprakasar, Rasaynayagam, Velupillai etc  have already been assesed and referred to in many many scholarly articles. We as editors have no status for going beyond that. 
The evaluation is the job of scholars. WE DONT HAVE TO do this. Thus Dr. Indrapala's thesis (1965) does that. Dr. Jane Russell does that. Dr. Arasaratnam, Dr. P. A. T. Gunasinghe, and Prof. Michael Roberts etc., do that. The University of Ceylon History of Ceylon (edited by H. C. Ray, S. Nadesan, C. Nicholas and S. Paranavitana ), p 50 et sec. (1959) also did that for that time and covered all these CSPS. There are references and discussions of the work of Gnaprakasar, Horsbugh etc in those works.  CSPS material is available from quotations in these susequent scholarly works. In this article we are ONLY interested in the toponymic aspects, and NOT in every topic discussed by, say Rasanayagam. The toponymic discussions found in Gnanaprakasar,  Velupillai's Yalpana Kaumudi, Horsburg, Paul E. Pieries are already assessed, evaluated in these scholarly works. There is in fact NO REBUTTALs or etymological objections. We can provide a very large number of references to CSPS establishing that they form the corpus of disucssion in Sri Lankana toponymics. We as editors cannot ignore that.
The situation with respect to Kularatnam's article is the very opposite. It is NOT part of the corpus because we could not provide ANY citations evaluating or discussing it (except for its use in political activism - Spencer, and the rebuttal in geocities). 
Indrapala's work is the very opposite to Kularatnam's. It is claimed by Taprobanus to be not available. In fact it is not available at the London University libraray but it is available from the tUniversity Department to suitable scholars (the library copies seem to have been stolen). Mimeograped copies are available at Asian-Studies depts in western universities like Cornell. The attempt to suppress this and other CSPS material has been notes by Dr. Michael Roberts and others. Thus Dr. P. A. T. Gunasinghle (footnote 49 in his thesis, p 24) notes that the corresponding copies in the Colombo Museum libraray of Horsburg's work (Ceylon Antiquary, vol ii etc), in the Colombo Public libraray, and also at the Libraray of the Archeological Department in Colombo  have been stolen. Fortunately, this work is also available at the Cambridge University, Chennai University, and other universities. Anyway, there are interested parties trying to suppress the views expressed by Horsburg, Indrapala, and other  CSPS.  However, Indrapala's thesis work was the subject of a series of Journal articles,  and it is additionaly available from articles of  scholars who have already published evaluations of it. No rebuttals or critiques of Indrapala's evaluation of Toponymics has been published. Instead, we have re-affirmation of that work by other historians who have even recently expressed the   "historigrahic integrity" of that work (See Michael Roberts, J. South Asian Studies, vol XXii, p. 102-104, 2004) and Roberts alludes to the very specific claims on toponymics given by Indrarartna. The people in the Geocites website tell me that Michael Roberts, on being querried, has deposited a note there affirming the "historiographic integrity" of Indrapala's work.
The removal of libraray material judged by interested parties to be contrary to their politics can in fact be used in section #5 of the article as evidence of political activism. Note that here we are NOT trying to establish who were the first inhabitants, who have the right to land, and other political questions. We are merely considering  place names and see how they evolved through the ages. The CSPS provide enough material do do this  sticking to the data faithfully.
Incidently, regarding Kularatnam's article, Jassy J says: I am impressed by the way that the readers of K interpreted his paper. The Tamil rejoices, while the Sinhalese is furious, but if they had taken care to read the paper, they could as well have kept silent, because there is nothing in that paper which would warrant either reaction. I would like to see some info, i.e., references, regarding these reactions. I couldn't find any (aside of the Tamil studies meeting, and the posting of it on the Tamil Nation, Tamil Sangam websites). The sinhalese reaction seems to be limited to the etymological discussion at http://geocities/place.names website where it is pointed out that Kularatnam needs to have checked Sanskrit and Pali sources; that is all. 
Dr. Jane Russell's book is important because it does exactly what Spencer does, for the 1927-1948 period and on a much broader scale. Also, she provides some references useful for place.name studies. The book ( a Ph. D thesis by an Oxford Scholar) has been deemed the "definitive study of the period" by Prof. K. M. de Silva, and Prof. Michael Roberts (I can get references if needed), and others. The Indrapala (2006) book, though published in Chennai, is the work of a recognized scholar; we can use him cautiously, while noting that it may not have the same high status of peer review as the 1965 Thesis work.
Although there is no need to "validate" Horsburgh as that has been done by Scholars, it is necessary to comment on Watchdog's statement "The title of the book itself is definatly one sided which is "sinhala place name in north". Firstly, this is not a "book", but an article in a Journal volume, and the "Ceylon Antiquarian Society" of that era was the analogue of a corresponding British Association.  Why is it one sided to say "sinhala place names in the North"? We talk of "Basque Place names in the South of France", or "Celtic place names in South-Eastern England".  The topic the author has selected to study is "Sinhala Place Names in the North". Note that Kularatnam had chosen to study "Tamil place names in the south". There is nothing one sided in that either. What was wrong with Kularatnam's work was the poor etymology. The study by Horsburgh and his etymology has been reaffirmed by related studies/comments of Paranavithana, Arasaratnam, Indrapsla, Roberts and others. It is also not surprising that Horsburgh does not appear in the   simple electronic-serach media like Google Scholar as the 1916 material on Sri Lankan toponymics is certainly NOT in cyperspace. Even the Royal Asiatic Society (London) proceedings for even recent times are not yet available electronically.
I see that there are various tick marks saying "resolved" put in there without full agreement by everybody, so I think that is provisional.
In conclusion, I see no problem what so ever with any of the  CSPS, or specifically with Indrapala (1965)Bodhi dhana (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 20:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Your claims about the removal of the books by 'interested parties' and the motivations behind that  are very interesting and would surely fit  in the political section. Do you have sources for that? I mean quotable sources of course?Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

text: "The toponymic discussions found in Gnanaprakasar, Velupillai's Yalpana Kaumudi, Horsburg, Paul E. Pieries are already assessed, evaluated in these scholarly works." & "Horsburgh, Gnanaprakasar, Rasaynayagam, Velupillai etc have already been assesed and referred to in many many scholarly articles." That's great. Why don't you give a list of these references and we will incorporate the relevant parts in the article.Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

text: Could you share the references of the journal articles which quoted Indrapala's work? These should be late 20th century, and I should be able to get a copy here. Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

text: It is nice that the people of the geocities website converse with you about the subject of their research, but how are we going to put this into the article?Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

text: correct. And that is confused. There is no need to check Pali sources when you are making synchronic claims. And K does only make synchronic claims, unless I missed something in the article, which I would like to hear about.Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

text: You are invited to comment in the relevant sections above.Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

text: As I see it, the main problem with I is not the content, but the difficulty to verify the content. We would all like to include a PhD thesis on the topic (correct?), but we cannot take the claims from a secondary source like a website for the real thing.Jasy jatere (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree it is a RS source but can you verify it ? or do we have depend on secondary partisan, pov websites for it. All what Bofhi has to do is write to University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies and get a copy if it is available. Taprobanus (talk) 22:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Bodi still has not given any rebuttal to the main argument against Horsburg article being use as WP:RS. Lumping all of the discussed articles into one notion of CSPS does not take into account all the argument against each article. Bottom line is there is consensus against the use of both Horseburgh and Indrapal (for two distinct reasons). Watchdogb (talk) 23:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussions regarding the corpus of sources and pioneering studies 

message: One or more portions of this article duplicated other source(s). , with additional material infringing from this: http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/dutch/dutch5.htm  Infringing material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a license compatible with GFDL. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. 
As an additional note, while I have revised the material, my concern is merely addressing the copyright violation. Whether the usual editors of this article subsequently choose to alter or remove that material is, of course, up to them and consensus as it develops here. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:20, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright problem removed 

message: This section doesn't make sense:
Wolvendahl (Vale of Wolves). The latter was known as 'Guadelupe' by the Portuguese, which the Dutch took to mean 'Agua de lupe' which they translated accordingly.
"Lupe" isn't a word in Portuguese; "wolf" would be "lobo". If the Dutch had in fact translated 'Agua de lobo', they'd have ended up with something like "Wolvenwater". What they did is translate "Guadelupe" etymologically---it comes from Arabic "wadi" (valley) and Latin "lupe" (vocative case of wolf).
Mbethke (talk) 06:07, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dutch/Portuguese etymology