Eelam ( ta, ஈழம், ''īḻam'', , also spelled Eezham, Ilam or Izham in English) is the native

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...

name for the

South Asian South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

island now known as

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. The exact etymology and the original meaning of the word are not clearly known, and there are number of conflicting theories. The

Retroflex approximant The voiced retroflex approximant is a type of consonant used in some languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\`. The IPA symbol is a turned lowercase l ...

''ḻ'' in ''īḻam'' is a characteristic

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

for

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant im ...

, now only retained in the closely related languages

and

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...

. Conventionally it has been represented in the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...

with the digraph ''zh''.

History

The earliest use of the word is found in a

Tamil-Brahmi Tamil-Brahmi, also known as Tamizhi or Damili, was a variant of the Brahmi script in southern India. It was used to write inscriptions in the early form of Old Tamil.Richard Salomon (1998) ''Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptio ...

inscription as well as in the

Sangam literature The Sangam literature (Tamil: சங்க இலக்கியம், ''caṅka ilakkiyam'';) historically known as 'the poetry of the noble ones' (Tamil: சான்றோர் செய்யுள், ''Cāṉṟōr ceyyuḷ'') connotes ...

. The

Tirupparankunram Thiruparankundram, also spelled Tirupparankundram or Tiruparangundram, is a town in Madurai district in Tamil Nadu, India. It is about from Madurai city and constitutes the southwest part of the greater Madurai city (Municipal Corporation). Th ...

inscription found near

Madurai Madurai ( , also , ) is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Madurai District. As of the 2011 census, it was the third largest Urban agglomeration i ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

and dated on palaeographical grounds to the 1st century BCE, refers to a person as a householder from Eelam (''Eela-kudumpikan''). The inscription reads, The Sangam literature '' Paṭṭiṉappālai'', mentions ''Eelattu-unavu'' (food from Eelam). One of the prominent Sangam Tamil poets is known as Eelattu Poothanthevanar meaning Poothan-thevan (proper name) hailing from ''Eelam''. ( Akanaṉūṟu: 88, 231, 307; Kuṟuntokai: 189, 360, 343; Naṟṟiṇai: 88, 366). The Tamil inscriptions from the

Pallava The Pallava dynasty existed from 275 CE to 897 CE, ruling a significant portion of the Deccan, also known as Tondaimandalam. The dynasty rose to prominence after the downfall of the Satavahana dynasty, with whom they had formerly served as f ...

Chola The Chola dynasty was a Tamil thalassocratic empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of the world. The earliest datable references to the Chola are from inscriptions dated to the 3rd century BCE d ...

period dating from 9th century CE link the word with toddy, toddy tapper's quarters (''Eelat-cheri''), tax on toddy tapping (''Eelap-poodchi''), a class of toddy tappers (''Eelath-chanran''). Eelavar is a caste of toddy tappers found in the southern parts of

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South Ca ...

. ''Eela-kaasu'' and ''Eela-karung-kaasu'' are refers to coinages found in the

inscriptions of Parantaka I. Since the 1980s the words ''Eelam'' and ''Eelavar'' have been taken up by the Tamil separatist movements. Eelavar now refers to the citizens of the proposed Tamil Eelam, which would have taken up the northern and eastern parts of

Etymology

Sihala>Eelam Late 19th century linguists took the view that the name ''Eelam'' was derived from the

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...

(An

Indo-Aryan language The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...

) form '' Sihala'' for Sri Lanka. Robert Caldwell, following Hermann Gundert, cites the word as an example of the omission of initial sibilants in the adoption of Indo-Aryan words into Dravidian languages. Sri Lankan historian

Karthigesu Indrapala Professor Karthigesu Indrapala (born 22 October 1938) is a Sri Lankan academic, historian, archaeologist, author and former dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Jaffna. Early life and family Indrapala was born on 22 October 1938. He was th ...

in his thesis released in 1965 suggested that the people from whose named Eelam is derived were Sinhalese. The earliest occurrence of the name Eelam is in the Brahmi inscriptions of South India in which it occurs as Ila (Eela), the

Prakrit The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usu ...

form of the Eelam. He derived Eelam from Sinhala as follows; Eelam>Sihala Thomas Burrow, in contrast, argued that the word was likely to have been Dravidian in origin, on the basis that Tamil and Malayalam "hardly ever substitute (Retroflex approximant) 'ɻ' peculiarly Dravidian sound, for Sanskrit -'l'-." He suggests that the name "Eelam" came from the Dravidian word "Eelam" (or Cilam) meaning "toddy", referring to the palm trees in Sri Lanka, and later absorbed into Indo-Aryan languages. This, he says, is also likely to have been the source for the Pali '"Sihala". The Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, which was jointly edited by Thomas Burrow and

Murray Emeneau Murray Barnson Emeneau (February 28, 1904 – August 29, 2005) was the founder of the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Early life and education Emeneau was born in Lunenburg, a fishing town on the east coast ...

, marks the Indo-Aryan etymology with a question mark. Karthigesu Indrapala updated his theory in 2005 and claims that ''Eela'', the stem of ''Eelam'', is attested in Sri Lanka for centuries before the

common era Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...

as a name of an ethnic group, and eventually it came to be applied to the island as ''Eelam''. He also believes that the name of the island was applied to the popular

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family (Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the f ...

tree or vice versa in Tamil. He believes the early native names for the present Sinhalese ethnic group, such as ''Hela'', are derivations of ''Eela'', which was

ized as ''Sihala'' and eventually

Sanskritized Sanskritisation (or Sanskritization) is a term in sociology which refers to the process by which castes or tribes placed lower in the caste hierarchy seek 'upward' mobility by emulating the rituals and practices of the dominant castes or uppe ...

as ''Simhala'' in the 5th century CE. Other theories

Peter Schalk Peter Schalk (born 7 June 1961) is a Dutch non-executive director and also a politician of the Reformed Political Party (SGP). Since 9 June 2015, he has been a member of the Senate, and also Senate group leader. Schalk studied at the Reforme ...

, a professor of theology from University of Uppsala, concludes that it is a word used exclusively for toddy beginning from the

up until the medieval period.. Another theory based on archeological evidence suggests the word is a Tamil word which originated from South India. Also the Tamil meaning of "Eelam" is postulated to be homeland. The Tamil lexicons (Nika'ndu), Thivaakaram, Pingkalam and Choodaama'ni, dating from c. 8th century AD, equate the word Eezham with Chingka'lam (the Sinhala country). Eelam is also the Tamil name for the

spurge ''Euphorbia'' is a very large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the family Euphorbiaceae. "Euphorbia" is sometimes used in ordinary English to collectively refer to all members of Euphorbiaceae (in deference to t ...

(a plant), toddy (an intoxicant) and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

. (Online edition at the University of Chicago)

Cognate terms

Ancient ethnic group

''Eela'' and ''Eelavar'' are etymologically related to ''Eelam''. The stem ''Eela'' is found in Prakrit inscriptions dated to 2nd century BCE in Sri Lanka in terms such as ''Eela-Barata'' and ''Eela-Naga'', proper names. The meaning of ''Eela'' in these inscriptions is unknown although one could deduce that they are either from ''Eela'', a geographic location, or were an ethnic group known as ''Eela''.

South Indian caste

Eelavar in South Indian medieval inscriptions refer to the

caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultur ...

or function of toddy-drawers, drawn from the Dravidian word for palm tree toddy, ''Eelam''. From the 19th century onwards, sources appeared in

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union terr ...

regarding a legendary origin for caste of toddy drawers known as ''Eelavar'' in the state of

. These legends stated that ''Eelavar'' were originally from Eelam. The consciousness of the South Indian Eelavar caste being of Sri Lankan origin is not older than 150–200 years.

Names of Sri Lanka

The following words are cognates: ''Eelam, Eela, I'la, E'lu, He'la, Seeha'la, Simha'la,'' ''Sinhala,'' Greek ''Salai'' and ''Seiladiba'', the

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

'' Serendib'', Portuguese ''Ceilão'' and the colonial

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

References

External links

Detailed etymology of Eelam
{{Portal bar, Tamils, Sri Lanka Sri Lankan Tamil history Tamil Eelam Names of Sri Lanka