Thailand quells talk of name change

BANGKOK – No, English audio system and others utilizing the Roman alphabet aren’t going to have to begin calling the Thai capital by its native identify, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, and drop the extra acquainted “Bangkok.”

That is the message from Thailand’s Royal Society, which is chargeable for tutorial and linguistic requirements, after a seemingly innocuous change in punctuation in official steering sparked a flurry of hypothesis that town’s identify was being modified.

It began when the Cupboard on Tuesday permitted a Royal Society proposal altering the best way the capital can be referred to internationally from “Krung Thep Maha Nakhon; Bangkok” to “Krung Thep Maha Nakhon (Bangkok).”

As folks sought to divine the that means behind altering the semicolon to parentheses, many put nice weight to the accompanying clarification that it will “revise” the identify of the capital metropolis and preserve the “former” identify in brackets.

The capital is already formally recognized within the Thai language as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, which accurately means “nice metropolis of angels,” and most Thais shorten it to only Krung Thep in dialog.

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As hypothesis grew, the Royal Society on Wednesday clarified in a Fb publish that their new steering was merely a stylistic change.

“Writing the capital metropolis’s official identify with the Roman alphabet may be performed each as Krung Thep Maha Nakon and Bangkok,” the federal government company stated, allaying the fears of any non-Thai audio system about adopting the extra sophisticated identify.

Even when the Royal Society had meant to alter the identify to the one utilized by Thais, nonetheless, there’s an alternative choice that may have been an excellent better problem for international tongues.

The Thai identify for Bangkok, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, is definitely a brief type of the capital’s full identify, which is rooted in Pali and Sanskrit and is extra of a phrase to explain town than a reputation: Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit.

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That’s the world’s longest place identify, based on the Guinness World Data.