Talk:Kerala/Archive 3

message: Please remove that picture from the article as it seriosly violates the neutral point of view of the article Bharatveer 08:58, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why does it ? And why is he labelled a politician in the picture ? He could be just anybody. Tintin (talk) 09:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because the same picture in the Commons was labeled as such; but I removed "politician" anyway. Saravask 23:27, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Hmm. Couldn't recognise Baby though I am familiar with the name. Been away from Kerala for too long, I guess :-( Tintin (talk) 10:12, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In case anyone is wondering, I wasn't the one who originally put that image in. I agree (now that I've found out who that man was) we should find an image of a non-political figure. Saravask 22:21, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Baby pic was put in the article by me. When User:Robin klein asked why there is no pic of Kerala dresses, I searched the commons and that was the only pic I could get. --Raghu 14:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem — didn't mean to assign any blame, as I'm sure it was just an accident. :-) Saravask 02:39, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: regarding the picture of a politician in the article

message: Surely that is incorrect..  Can i remove that?? Bharatveer 06:18, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Pachakam is Malayalam for 'cooking' or 'cookery' and  the usage isn't specific to Kerala cuisine. So I guess Bharatveeer is right that it is wrong the way it currently appears in the article. Tintin (talk) 06:42, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Kerala's Cuisine = Pachakam???

message: I think it should be Malayalam calendar instead of Malayali Calendar. 
Bharatveer 10:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I support this. Though logicaly it would seem that Malayali calendar is better, that is not how the common usage is. A simple google search will show this.--Raghu 14:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: After looking around, I have no problem with restoring the original name ("Malayalam calandar"). Saravask 02:44, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Malayalam Calendar

message: True it cannot be said that Kerala is solely Dravidian, however there is not much substance in an Aryan claim. There is a tendency for people to attribute Aryan descent for even slightly pale skin colour, such correlations are illusory.
The diversity in the people of kerala comes becomes of its unique position of being the centre of the pepper trade between the mediterranean world and the east, in ancient times, spanning for over three millennia.
thumbnail|right|ancient black pepper trade-navigation route from the mediterranean world to kerala 
Through this long spice trade, Kerala has had the settlements of  Levantine Jews and Jewish-christians from Israel and around the mediterranean world. It also had extensive settlements of Arabs in the Malabar coast. Kerala indeed has a diversity of people in terms of racial origins but that is because of its overlooked and understated long semitic influence, which many people try hard to deny. 
Besides, it is the syntactic structures of a language that determines its linguistic influence and language family. The syntactic structures 
Of Malayalam language is that of ancient tamil. Languages might
Include loan words from any language and to any extent, still retaining its syntactic structures. 
The earliest reference of brahmins in the malabar coast comes only from the 8th century CE, while mediterranean coins and other objects from the mediterranean world from several centuries earlier have been found in kerala.
(see this article from south Indian newspaper 'The Hindu': 
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/2104/coins.html
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2003/08/17/stories/2003081700370800.htm )
The studies of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza in population genetics stresses the importance of studying genetic admixture and influence in terms of the proportion of world population. It is important to keep in mind that in population genetics, the estimated popualtion of the entire ancient world over two thousand years ago were few millions and not billions as today, while many nations and linguistic groups had populations in few thousands. Keeping that in mind one could realize the significant impact of the continious settlement and comixture  of thousands of mediterranean-semitic people in the malabar coast. Robin klein 08:49, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So what do you want us to do to the article? Saravask 19:19, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Could people (Maabahuka, Robin klein, Bharatveer) provide sources for their claims? I don't have an opinion on this, since I don't know how numerous or influential Indo-Aryans or Jews were in Kerala. Saravask 02:31, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

text: The problem here is you people want to create stereotypical Aryans and Dravidians. They never existed in Indian society. Even if the big chunk of Malabarees are light skinned that hardly means the founding population of light skinned people must be proportionate. Please understand that  skin colour is one of the highly selected traits. Also, sexual selection plays a major role in it. So even with negligible light skinned population the selected traits could spread rapidly. To understand the Semitic or Arab influence in Malabar population we have to consider the major Y-chromosome Haplogroups in those populations and observe their presence in Malabar population. I am not sure any studies have been done in this regard. I suppose two of the major haplogroups of Arabs are  J and  E. However J is a major Haplogroup of South Indians(including Tamils), therefore, we have to observe occurrence of E. However, I'm not sure of any such studies. For the time being we should wait for further studies. But just because Malabarees are relatively lighter skinned should not be the criteria for any conclusions. Also, admixture analysis based on non-neutral markers are still controversial. So we should concentrate on the studies based on Y-chromosome lineages(or descent from the person carrying a particular muation).
Manjunatha (11 Apr 2006)
The problem is the whole 'circular' argument going on about the NON EXISTENT ARYAN AND DRAVIDAN RACES.Even the proponents of the AIT theory now say that the "aryan dravidian " difference is not a Skin colour issue any more; they say it is a case of two different languages/ culture issue.Just wait for some more years for this dumb theory to go as well Bharatveer 17:49, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Overlooked and understated semitic influence

message: "Keralites, compared with most other Indians, are keen participants in the political process."
This sentence have no factual basis and should be removed Bharatveer 18:43, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some examples: ; ; ; . Saravask 19:04, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Politics

message: Chakara is pretty unique to Kerala (S America being the only other place where it is observed). Perhaps we should add some detail about it in the article? --  thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK
:Deepu try to get it into the DYK. Maybe you can mention something from Chemmeen also.--Raghu 05:53, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, Deepu — IMO, I think you can add a few words under "Flora and fauna" and get it to DYK. Saravask 19:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay. Does anybody know what the scientific name of this phenomenon, if it exists, is? Also, any idea what is it called in South America? --  thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK 07:33, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Chakara]] 

message: with regard to constant removal of passages with citations relating to syrian nsaranis by people including Maabahuka: One cannot remove passages with cites and references under the pretext of the page increasing in size or being cluttered. removing passages with references is vandalism. Robin klein 08:16, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism

message: Mr. Robin Klein do not use words like vandalism and so on out of context. I have innumerable citations to quote to prove the contrary of what you are saying but i known showing a citation will not become an endorsement to an issue which has no historical backing. There is not even proof that Jews have settled in Kerala prior to the 400 C.E. at the time of Knai Thomman. So i feel it would be appropriate to paint a neutral picture of the issue about the Syrian christian community of Kerala. On the other hand what you are doing is typical of spin doctoring. Pleaseee end your jewish fixation as is evidenced from your talk in the Kerala Talk page previously and let us put the facts across the page in a neutral and objective way. Here i am asking the view of others in this matter. please respond. (Maabahuka 08:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spin doctoring

message: I have provided references and citations by Jewish scholars for the arrival of Black\brown Jews to kerala long before the first century CE, and the arrival of st thomas to Kerala for proselytizing the Jewish settlements Robin klein 06:51, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jewish and Nasrani settlements

message: :Discussion moved to the Kerala Noticeboard. -- thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK14:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: On the Syrian Christians (Nasrani Mappilas) and their origins --[[User:Veliath|Veliath]]

message: "Khair" in arabic means  fine/ good  and that makes it allah's care and not allah's own country.
Besides it is improper to add the personal opinion of a fundamentalist politician in this article.Bharatveer 04:13, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK — thanks for providing your reasons. Saravask 04:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Khairallah

message: There was a  in the lead for the article which I have stripped out as it meant that a backlink from the citations wasn't working. I generally disagree with the use of inote - it was meant as an alternative to using bulky reference and citation templates, until mediawiki produced an "official" referencing system. We now have cite.php so inote's original purpose is no longer relevant. Of course, the reason that inote was being used in the lead is that, as a general rule, lead sections shouldn't have references. However, this merely stems from a more important rule - the lead should be a summary of the article; any claims raised in the lead should be examined in greater depth later and it is there that appropriate citations should be made. What appears to be being referenced (though I lack access to the source so can't tell what the scope of the citation is meant to be) is the statistical impact of Kerala's social reforms, which is extensively covered in the "Demographics" section (though peculiarly not to the same source as given in the lead!). I will leave this to be dealt with by those who have access to the sources - my suggestion is simply "please don't  references", and if you don't actually want a citation to appear in the lead, just put the citation where the relevant material is covered again? TheGrappler 11:19, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of inote 

message: Infobox states largest city is tiruvanantapuram while largest metro is Kochi. So Kochi is a metro that is smaller than a city? and Tiruvanantapuram is not a metro despite  being a city that is larger than another metro? How is that?--Dwaipayan (talk) 09:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, its like this: The population of TVM city is larger than the population of Kochi city. However, the poulation of the urban agglomeration of Kochi is larger than that of TVM. So Kochi is the larger urban area in Kerala, while TVM becomes the largest city. --  thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK 10:01, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Moved Maabahuka entry of 10:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Largest city etc

message: We need a separate section on Tourism as it is so critical to the state. The kanataka page has a tourism section
Crewcut 14 June 2006 (UTC)
: We already have one page dedicated to it: Tourism in Kerala.-- thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK
::Can there be more links to this page? There are references to tourism throughout the text especially a key reference in the introduction but I could find only one link in the bottom blue bar.Crewcut 20 June 2006 (UTC)
09:50, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a link in the lead.But the toursim page needs a lot of copyediting. -- thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK06:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tourism Section 

message: Keralam being the lands of kera is not the prevailing theory, it is just a vulgar (popular)assumption. Historically it very often attributed to Chera Dynasty that ruled over parts of Kerala.
Cruxit 17:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can point us to an image more representative of Kerala's demographics (e.g., a pic of a rural clinic), we'll be happy to replace it. Saravask 03:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

text: In what way a pic of a rural clinic would be more representative of Kerala's demographics!!? Range & types of picturs included should help to illustrate the diversity of the state than try to fit it into some sort of historic stereotype or perception. I think the combination of pictures included (depicting the urbun/rural, modern/traditional, new/historic,.... scenario of the place under the title ) demonstrate what is in reality.   Pratheepps 06:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Less than 26% of resident Keralites live in urban areas. Saravask 04:06, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably.But then waht's the point.  Some times stats & bookknowledge about a place can fool. First of all see the geography of Kerala. It's a north-south strip with an average 50 km width(some places a bit more, some places less).Also understand this is a more or less homogeniously developed place.(at least in a scale compared to other states). Now mark the cities and towns from north tiop to south tip. Circle each with say 20-30km radius circles (the access span of the town centre in abot 30 minutes travel). What remains out. It would be a over packed array of circles from north to south, often with multiple overlaps. My point is the so called rural places in kerala is in one way or the other integrated to a town/city. Thre is no such thing as a rural area which is isolated (at least not as a norm). People in the 'villages' access the town on a daily basis as a matter of fact. There a huge diffience between waht looks like a village and what lives like a village. Probably the whole of kerala looks like a countinous gigandic village from noth to south, the towns every 50km as a hotspot. This may be the reason people localy call their state as  'Metro Village!'. Statistics say 26% of kerala live in urban,It reminds me one of my teachers who used to say 'Statistics is like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive but what they conceal is vital'. btw, i lived in the this state for more than 20 years.....  :) Pratheepps 09:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  On the origin of the name 

message: "Feudal Nair-Namboothiri Brahminical city-states," What nonsense is that? Namboothiris are brahmins, no need to tell them apart. 
Savemalayalam 20:29, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed.  Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the  link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to…) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills.  New contributors are always welcome. Saravask 20:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Namboothiris and brahmins

message: []
See the article on Kallayi.
Should a person totally unfamiliar with the subject matter write an article on that?
To write that Kallayi is on river Chaliyar is one of the baddest thing a user can do on Wiki because it is a blunder. Kallayi is on Kallayi river, a very small river that runs only about 22 kilometres. To confuse it with Chaliyar, which is a major river in Kerala, is unpardonable. Those who have not even a smattering of the suject matter should desist from creating articles.
Savemalayalam 17:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Here's a typical article by a Kerala user 

message: The article chenda []has too many blunders I suppose. I believe that it does not accompany kootiyattam (no d for t for me). It is not "suspended from drummer's neck" except in reare occasions, I think. It does not "hang vertically" most often. It has no parchment. The users need to be aware of the threat to quality from inept editing and creation.
Savemalayalam 04:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Rather than criticising articles, may I kindly request you to make the necessary changes to the article itself? You also have the authority to tag incorrect pages as  and to discuss the inaccuracies on the article's talk pages. Only such a positive attitude can foster a positive growth for wikipedia. Thank you.-- thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK05:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chenda- nonsense 

message: Please note that one article titled Running Amok had an extremely misguiding argument related to a particular episode in Kerala history. It seems that the erroneous part was kept for quite some time and diffused into a few other articles until this user removed it through mere deletion. The misguiding argument is actually a blunder and you can see it below in a part excerpted from zamorin and deleted from there by this user since.
"The Samoothiris had an interesting tradition which dictated that every Samoothiri who ruled over twelve years would have to publicly cut his throat. In the 17th century, this tradition was modified and led to an annual event where the Samoothiri declared that after an annual 12-day festival (Mamankam festival), it was lawful for anyone wishing, to try to assassinate him. The Samoothiri would be seated in a national assembly, surrounded by guards. This revised tradition led to the development of suicide squads, called chaver, by neighbouring states (particularly Valluvakkonathiri ) with the objective of killing the Samoothiri."
Anyone with a smattering of Kerala history will at once know that this is not history. No zamorin is ever recorded to have killed himself thus. There is no such custom in the collective conscousness of the local people, not even in the form of a far-fetched myth. This user doesn't know if Alexander Hamilton, cited to prop this falsity in the original article mentioned earlier, recorded such a custom at all. Even if he has, I can positively state (after consulting two historians) that the argument is false.
I would also like to point out that non-native accounts of Kerala history should be considered with a fair amount of skepticism. In Encylopedia Britannica zamorin has been referred to as a Muslim prince under the article Cabral. (Mark the irony;Zamorins are known to have betrayed Muslim chieftains to foreigners.) The blunder has been sustained over decades.
Savemalayalam 05:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A warning on a point of  Kerala history 

message: I found the page Kerala Tourism at WP:DEAD and while looking for a place to merge first thought Kerala#Economy would be the logical target before I found Tourism in Kerala, basically by accident.  If tourism is of economic or cultural importance in the state giving it a section or mention in a section heading might be a good idea.  Eluchil404 20:40, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kerala Tourism