Sri Lanka and Related Names
The island was renamed Sri Lanka, meaning "resplendent island" in Sanskrit, in 1972, before which it was known by a variety of names and the island was often simply called Lanka. Other names using a form of Sri include Shri Lanka, preferred by the former Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa but never gaining wider appeal.
In the Ramayana, it was also known as Lankadweepa, with dweepa meaning "island". From the Ramayana comes the Javanese name Alengko for Ravana's kingdom. Another traditional Sinhala name for Sri Lanka was Lakdiva, with diva also meaning "island". A further traditional name is Lakbima. Lak in both cases is derived again from Lanka.
Of the same etymology, Sri Lanka is known locally in Tamil as İlankai. The appellation Lanka, however, was unknown to the Greeks, from whom most Western names would be derived, and is not seen in any Western names until 1972.
Read more about this topic: Names Of Sri Lanka
Famous quotes containing the words related and/or names:
“The question of place and climate is most closely related to the question of nutrition. Nobody is free to live everywhere; and whoever has to solve great problems that challenge all his strength actually has a very restricted choice in this matter. The influence of climate on our metabolism, its retardation, its acceleration, goes so far that a mistaken choice of place and climate can not only estrange a man from his task but can actually keep it from him: he never gets to see it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
““Well then, it’s Granny speaking: ‘I dunnow!
Mebbe I’m wrong to take it as I do.
There ain’t no names quite like the old ones, though,
Nor never will be to my way of thinking.
One mustn’t bear too hard on the newcomers,
But there’s a dite too many of them for comfort....’””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)