Names
The usual Malayalam name for the group is Tekkumbhagar. This is generally translated into English as "Southist", or sometimes "Southerner" or "Suddhist". The term Knanaya derives from the name of Thomas of Cana. However, the ultimate derivation of Thomas' epithet Cana is not clear. It may refer to the town of Cana, mentioned in the Bible, or to the land of Canaan. Alternately, it may be a corruption of a Syriac term for merchant (KnÄyil in Malayam). However, scholar Richard M. Swiderski states that none of these etymologies are convincing.
Read more about this topic: Knanaya Christians
Famous quotes containing the word names:
“Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“A knowledge that people live close by is,
I think, enough. And even if only first names are ever exchanged
The people who own them seem rock-true and marvelously self-sufficient.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Without infringing on the liberty we so much boast, might we not ask our professional Mayor to call upon the smokers, have them register their names in each ward, and then appoint certain thoroughfares in the city for their use, that those who feel no need of this envelopment of curling vapor, to insure protection may be relieved from a nuisance as disgusting to the olfactories as it is prejudicial to the lungs.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)