Construction of a multilingual place name database for Sri Lanka

Abstract

Although the national languages of Sri Lanka are Sinhala and Tamil, due to the fact that most of the computer systems operate in English, almost all the databases in Sri Lanka have been implemented in English. This paper discusses the necessity for such computer systems to have the ability to capture the input in any of the three languages Sinhala, Tamil or English and to output them in the user-preferred language. This paper mainly focuses on the possibility of converting names of areas (which includes cities, towns and villages) between Sinhala and English. It also examines the different conventions adopted by the people, in using names of areas in these two languages. This paper also discusses the suitability of a phonetic representation for names of areas, based on an analysis of the areas in Post Code Directory of Sri Lanka.