Skip to content

Should Sri Lanka's parliamentary titles in Sinhala and Tamil script be vocabulary? (ගරු අජිත් ගිහාන් මහතා, පා.ම. gives given පා.ම., family ගරු අජිත් ගිහාන් මහතා) #1244

Open

Description

@derek73

Sri Lanka's Parliament writes each member's name in English, Sinhala and Tamil, in one fixed form per language (parliament.lk's member list, /{en,si,ta}/members-of-parliament/mp-listing):

Script Form Meaning
English Hon. Ajith Gihan, M.P.
Sinhala ගරු අජිත් ගිහාන් මහතා, පා.ම. Hon. · name · Mr. · M.P.
Tamil கௌரவ அஜித் கிஹான், பா.உ. Hon. · name · M.P.

The English form reads right. In the other two, none of the words around the name is in the vocabulary, so the M.P. after the comma becomes the given name and the whole name, titles included, becomes the family (measured on master ccaf6ad):

Input title given family suffix nickname
Hon. Ajith Gihan, M.P. Hon. Ajith Gihan M.P.
ගරු අජිත් ගිහාන් මහතා, පා.ම. පා.ම. ගරු අජිත් ගිහාන් මහතා
கௌரவ அஜித் கிஹான், பா.உ. பா.உ. கௌரவ அஜித் கிஹான்
ගරු (වෛද්‍ය) ජගත් ගුණවර්ධන මහතා, පා.ම. පා.ම. ගරු ජගත් ගුණවර්ධන මහතා වෛද්‍ය
கௌரவ (டாக்டர்) ஜகத் குணவர்தன, பா.உ. பா.உ. கௌரவ ஜகத் குணவர்தன டாக்டர்

All 225 current members read this way in each script (450 of 450).

The words, counted over the 225 members of each list:

Sinhala Tamil Meaning Where Count (si / ta)
පා.ම. பா.உ. M.P. after the comma 225 / 225
ගරු கௌரவ Hon. first 225 / 225
මහතා, මහත්මිය, මෙනවිය — Mr., Mrs., Miss after the name, before the comma 203, 17, 4 / —
(වෛද්‍ය) (டாக்டர்) Dr. (medical) in brackets after Hon. 21 / 21
(ආචාර්ය) (கலாநிதி) Dr. (doctorate) in brackets 8 / 8
(මහාචාර්ය) (பேராசிரியர்) Prof. in brackets 5 / 5
— (திருமதி), (செல்வி) Mrs., Miss in brackets — / 17, 4
නීතිඥ சட்டத்தரணி Attorney before the name 25 in each
ජනාධිපති නීතිඥ சனாதிபதி சட்டத்தரணி President's Counsel before the name 2 / 2

si.toml holds only Latin de and ජූනියර්; ta.toml holds thiru (excluded) and three generation words. None of these words is listed in any file.

What listing them would do: in a lexicon of my own (the M.P. words as credentials written without their periods, පාම and பாஉ, the way en.toml writes mp; the front words and the bracketed ones as titles; මහතා, මහත්මිය, මෙනවිය as courtesy suffixes), all 450 rows read with the title, given name and family that the English list gives.

Questions

Activity

  1. self-assigned this
    on Nov 9, 2026
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

questionvocabularyPer-word vocabulary model and language packs

Projects

No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions