Rivers are in spate

The flood warning centre forecasts a heavy flooding as river heights keep increasing. every day, because of downpour for days, also upstream across borders. But reports keep coming and out in newspapers with river names misspelt. Most newspapers write Karatoa, Someshwari, Kushiara, Gomati and Kapotakkho. A 1995 map of the river system spells the names as Karatoya, Someswari, Kusiyara, Gumti and Kobadak. A map of a later period, not attributed to any government agency, spells the names as Karatoya, Someshwari, Kushiyara, Gumti and Kobadak. Someshwari and Kushiyara are a kind of attempted correction, deviating from the customary spelling. They should spell as they spell on government maps. The River Sitalakhya, still used by many, has now been changed to Shitalakshya by many others.

William Wilson Hunter, Director General of Statistics for India, developed a system for the writing fo proper names in 1860s and published it in Hunter's Guide to the Orthography of Indian Proper Names, from Calcutta in 1871. The Indian government accepted the system with some modifications in 1872 and it was used in the official Imperial Gazetteer of India (1881 onwards). 'In July 2004, Bangladesh confirmed to the United Kingdom its continuing use of the Hunterian system for the romanisation of geographical names, though since the 1980s the Survey of Bangladesh has no longer incorporated the macron to indicate vowel length.' This statement of an online report of UN Group of Experts on Geographical Names of October 2006 indicates that Someswari and Kusiyara are the correct spellings.

What is striking is that most river system maps has the northern region river spelt as Tista, but Teesta, for no reason, is in wide use. Tista is written Teesta in newspapers and it has been so spelt in the Banglapedia and the Wikipedia. The Bangla spelling even does not have a long i, which could account for ee in the English spelling. One probable explanation: the communication network map of the same year names the river as Teesta.