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Sri Lanka is an island country that has been known by many names. The existence of the island has been known to the Indic, Chinese, Persian, Arabic, and Western civilisations for many millennia and the various names ascribed to the island over time reflect this. ==''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. The word ''Lanka'' simply means any island. It is still widely used by the aborigines of Central and Eastern India to mean an island and especially an islet in a river. The word is considered as belonging to Austro-Asiatic languages. The Veddas, the aborigines of Sri Lanka who are Austro-Asiatic in origin, might have rendered the name ''Lanka'' to the island. As it is the biggest island in the South Asian context, ''Lanka'' probably became an exclusive term for it. Strains of this word can also be found in the Maldivian language Dhivehi and in the island names of Maldives. In Maldivian language, ''Ahi-lanka'' means Maldives (probably from ''Aha-lanka'', meaning our islands) and Mahi-lanka means other countries (probably from ''Mahaa-lanka'' meaning big islands). ''Hilang'' is a related word in Dhivehi, which means evidence of existence for any land (also consider the Tamil word ''Nilan'' for land). ''Le, Laa, Li, Lu, Lai, Lang'' and ''Lankan'' are other words found to indicate islands in Maldives. Clear references come from ''Silappatikaram'' and ''Manimekalai'' of the late Sangam period. ''Lak-vaesiyaa'' in Sinhala means an inhabitant of the island of Lanka. ''Lak-diva'' in E'lu (old Sinhala) means the island of Lanka. The name ''Lakkadeevs'' (Laccadives) for the archipelago in the Arabian Sea (now a union territory of India), lying north of Maldives, which has been sanskritised into Lakshadweeb, also need to be considered in this context. 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 Tamil language commonly adds /i/ before initial /l/, especially in borrowed words. 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Names of Sri Lanka」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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