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Re: CHAT: silly names

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Friday, March 16, 2001, 17:30
D. Tse wrote:
-->Then again, there's the official name for Bangkok, capital of Thailand
which
>is a bit dubious: > >krungthephphranamhanakhon bowonratanakosin mahintharayuthaya >mahadilokphiphobnovpharad radchataniburirom udomsantisug>
Why dubious? Probably on a par with the official name of Los Angeles: La Ciudad de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles, or some such. IIRC "krung theph" appears on some maps as the native name of Bangkok (where did that come from??); a lot of this is probably Thai-ized Sanskrit-- mah(a)- 'great', lok 'world' (bowon may be a synonym, on the basis of Javanese/Skt. buwono-- the Sultan of Yogyakarta is known as Pakubuwono "Nail of the world"); radcha 'king' (raja), buri 'city, fortress'; ayuthaya was an early king of Siam, sometimes spelled Ayodhya. (wish I knew more Thai)