424. A shortest village-name in India

In the early posts in this blog we discussed some of the strange sounding words-especially village names- still surviving in Tulu language. Upon perspective analyses eventually we were able to decipher that most of such odd sounding place names are derivatives of non-Dravidian languages and can be traced back to Austro-Asiatic  Munda and Prakrit languages.

The existence of ancient words of non- Dravida origin in Tulu language implies the nature of complex heritage inherited during the ancient periods in the West coastal regions, later on during the history described as Tulunadu. In other words, the heritage of Tulunadu has enriched by contributions from Prakrit   and  Munda cultures during the early history.

A shortest place name

The study of village names has many quite interesting facets as we have explored in some of our previous blog posts. Interesting to note is the fact that some of these place names are very short words.

Which is the shortest place name in India, any idea?

A perusal into the list of villages compiled for the Census of India 2011 reveals that the shortest village name in India is: Au.

There are at least two villages in India that still carry the name of Au as a place name. (I have used the word “still” in the previous sentence under the conviction that most of the original place names have undergone changes with time due to different reasons.)

(1)  Au, Attara   Taluk ,  Banda  district, Uttar Pradesh.

(2) Au, Deeg Taluk , Bharatpur   district, Rajasthan.

Meaning of the place name: Au

One of the interesting point is that Au is a compounded vowel made up of combination of two simple vowels: ‘ah ‘and ‘uh’. That is: ah+uh=au.

It is possible that the shortest   word for place Au is from the ancient Prakrit language or any of its precursor languages of India.  In the absence of adequate linguistic data for those obscure and forgotten days of antiquity, we are unable to trace the origin and whereabouts of the antique word: Au. However, the word   ‘Au’ does exists currently in Sanskrit, where it has several meanings, among which the one applicable to place names is: the land or the earth (feminine gender). Other meanings attributed to the word Au in Sanskrit are: Vishnu, Adishesha or sound (masculine gender), may be regarded as later homonyms that appear unsuitable as a place name at this juncture.

Significance of the shortest place name

It is possible that place names evolved from simplest to more complex ones with the passage of time along the historical timeline. Early human beings apparently used very simple sounds to represent objects, places, and other items that required naming. It is possible that simple place names like Au were abundant during early part of the history and later on more complex words were formed and used.

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Do you have additional information on any of the short village names? You are welcome to share your knowledge with us in this blog.

R