I read it and thought shouldn't it be 'graamam' as well!
in case anyone missed the post: what’s a “village”
[i kinda wrote this in my tags but further linguistic explanation is always good]
to the extent the map goes to; there’s three ways of looking at it –
transliteration (and it’s effect on the two below)
colloquial [pechu tamil – what we speak]
written tamil [ezhuthu tamil]
i would say that the map’s probably going with the written word transliterated quite literally.
[the way ‘village’ is written in tamil is “கிராமம்” which transliterated becomes “kiraamam” – which is what’s written on the map.]
but i can’t account for the other languages on the map cause i don’t know their script to vouch for their transliteration, so that might also not be the common case across the map’s words. [though i can say that from my auditory/speech skills, the other languages’ words sound like what the colloquial version would be]
which means then it comes to the colloquial aspect of the tamil word. in tamil nadu [at least], we don’t say it exactly as it’s written, most words are contracted for better flow (i mean what’s the point of colloquial tamil otherwise):
“neengal” often becomes “neenga,” “engaludaiya” becomes “engaloda”
“நீங்கள்” often becomes “நீங்க,” “எங்களுடைய” becomes “எங்களோட”
so in ‘pechu’/colloquial tamil;
“கிராமம்” is pronounced as “க்ராமம்” out loud
“kiraamam” is pronounced as “graamam/kraamam” out loud
which is where transliteration again comes in: the rule of thumb is that whatever looks pretty is what the language wants – which means "graamam” is the english transliteration of the word that people tend to use – most likely because it looks the best. in line with this rule, however; any of the transliterations can be substituted with a ‘g’ or a ‘k’ depending on personal preference (though it might not be widely/commonly used).
BUT that’s not necessarily the case for singala tamil, [or sri lankan tamil] because sri lankan tamil often tends to have the word that’s spoken emulate the written word exactly – sticking to a literal pronunciation. which means what’s on the map is actually what they tend to say. [but then again srilanka isn’t referred to on this map so... probably not what they’re angling at]
which means in this case: depending on how you look at the map;
if it’s a transliteration of the written word exactly, it’s right
if it’s a transliteration of the colloquial term, it’s wrong
and if it’s sri lankan tamil [where written and colloquial are more similar], it’s right.