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Re: My family's lastname
in reply to a message by G.Q.
gumpal 'clod, clot, lumpthis link shows you the meaning of GUMPAL in Austronesian etymology:http://nlp.cs.nyu.edu/GMA_files/resources/ME.tralexMore info about Austronesian languages you can find here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_languages#Homeland
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I agree with Samjr, It sounds Indian. Pal is a common component of Indian names, it means "protection" or maybe "protector". Pala is the Sanskrit original of pal, and there is a surname and forename, Gunapala. I think that Gumpal could be the same as Gunapala. There are many Indian languages and dialects and the same name can take different forms.
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