Know the Etymology: 10
Place Name of the Day: Tuesday, 02 October 2007

Vilpattu/ Vilpaththu/ Wilpattu

vilpaṟṟu / vilpattu

Vil+pattu
Vil+paththu
Wil+pattu (The phoneme V is often written as W in Sinhala.)

The region of ponds and marshes.

Vil/villu	(Eezham Tamil) Pond or small lake, shallow area where water accumulates. (Such water resources are usually natural in their origin).
Pattu/patthu	A region, an administrative division in the past, a region that comes under the administrative hold of a particular place.
Vila/Wila	(Sinhala) Hole, pond, marsh, lake overgrown with lotuses (Clough's Dictionary).

Vilpattu today is the largest national park and wildlife sanctuary in Sri Lanka, situated in the North Western Province. It was declared a reserved forest in 1905 and made a sanctuary in 1938.

Earlier, the shortest trunk road between Jaffna and Colombo, which should have become the National Highway A3, was passing through this region and there was a contiguity of Tamil settlements reaching upto Colombo. The traces of them can be seen in the place names of the western part of Vilpattu.

The word pattu has several shades of meaning such as grasp, acceptance, attachment, affection, connection, affinity, bond etc. In place names, it occurs to indicate a region which is attached to a central place. Example: Koddiyaarappattu (Trincomalee region around the Bay of Koddiyaaram). In the case of Vilpattu, it means, a landscape connected to (characterized by) ponds and marshes.

Pattu in Tamil, is often pronounced as paththu.

A note on the etymology of vil:

The common meaning for vil or villu in Tamil is 'bow'. The word is used in this sense since the times of the Changkam literature.

But, it also stands for the following shades of meanings:

Vil/villu: anything that is curved.
Villai: anything that is circular, a patch (Winslow's Tamil Dictonary).
Vilaa: The ribs, curving side of the body.

The word vil or villu denotes a naural pond because the stagnant water in a shallow area makes a patch, usually circular or curved.

The bow-shaped bunds that are usually erected to preserve flood waters in such ponds, also could have rendered the nomenclature.

The single consonants at the end of Tamil words such as l, take the vowel a and become la in Sinhala. In an alternative Tamil form, such single consonants take the vowel u and become lu.

The concept behind terming a pond or marsh as vil is essentially Sri Lankan, probably originated in the hydraulic cultures of dry and arid zones of the island. The coining of the word was shared by Sinhala and Sri Lankan Tamil.

The terms vil, villu or vila are usually suffixes in place names. In some instances like Vilpattu, Villu'ndi, Villukku'lam etc., they come as prefixes. In some instances, especially in the case of insignificant ponds, the terms may occur without any prefix or suffix.

Generally, the prefixes and suffixes are related to fauna, flora, landscape or description. The names thus derived stand for the names of the villages where those water resources are located.

Note the following examples of place names in Tamil and Sinhala. The provinces where they are located is given within brackets.

• Kokkuvil (NP): The pond of cranes.
• Thearaavil (NP): The pond of toads.
• Nu'naavil (NP): The pond of Nu'naa trees. (Morinda umbellata)
• Villukku'lam (EP): The pond of the marsh.
• Oluvil (EP): The pond of water lilies (Limnanthemum indicum)
• Thalaivillu (NWP): The pond of the sand bar.
• Lu'nuvila (NWP): The salty marsh.
• Yakwila (NWP): The pond of a spirit (demi god or demon)
• Hungawila (NCP): The pond of a kind of fresh water fish.
• Panwila (CP): The pond of Pan grass.
• Magurumaswila (WP): The pond of a kind of fresh water fish.
• Syambalagaswila (SP): The pond of Tamarind trees (Tamarindus indica).

First published: Friday, 22 June 2007, 01:00