Distinction of "city" words in Thai

[Melom]

I wandered what is difference between words meaning city/town in Thai? Therefore I got my personal observation and would like to know your opinion.

 

• ธานี [thani] -- town
• บุรี [buri] -- borough, burg (Singburi and Singapore are namesakes)
• นคร [nakorn] -- peculiar town, "City upon a Hill"
• เมือง [mueang] -- city, distinctive part within a larger urban formation, i.e. City of London
• กรุง [krung] -- capital town
• เวียง  [wiang] -- fort, capital of Laos "Vientiane-เวียงจันทน์" acually mean "Fort Moon" and Thai namesake Chantaburi - "Moonburg"
• เชียง [chiang] -- not properly defined, old Nothern dialect reffered to "Kengtung-เชียงตุง" in Burma and "Shanghai-เซี่ยงไฮ้" in China
• ภารา [para] -- city, almost in no use, in Sanskrit it means "citizen"
• พัฒนา [pattana] -- develop, in Sanskrit it means "city, development project"

[mauGR1]

Thanks for doing that research, i was too lazy to do it myself.

There is a village in my home country, ( Northern Italy ) which is named " Buri " in local dialect.

Ancient Greek and Latin, then English, had borrowed quite a few words from Sanskrit.

[tgeezer]

When looking at ธานี in the dictionary the first word you get is เมือง which has a bewildering number of meanings from nation state to town and the meanings are not separated by “;” .
อำเภอเมือง I feel means county town, or capital of the province. เมืองนอก doesn’t have to mean another country it could just mean not this place depending on where the speakers sets his “horizon” so perhaps one might ‘pin it down’ in one example but lose it in another.


พัฒนา is a verb but I can see how it might identify a place and become a noun. I play at the. ศูนย์พัฒนากีฬากองทัพบก we call it ทบ. but could say จะไปพัฒนากีฬา I am going to improve my game, but be heard as ไปทบ. and over time พัฒนา might catch on and become the place name.

Does นายก come from fields and lift do you think?




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[digbeth]

On Thai planes going overseas, they seem to use distinction between นคร and กรุง for capitals when announcing city names

for example:

กรุงลอนดอน

นครซิดนีย์

 

[Melom]

22 hours ago, tgeezer said:

เมือง which has a bewildering number of meanings from nation state to town...
Does นายก come from fields and lift do you think?

Mueang is indeed the most loose term, rather epithet without any formal meanings.

 

Nayok seems to me as boss/mound sense.

[Melom]

9 hours ago, digbeth said:

On Thai planes going overseas, they seem to use distinction between นคร and กรุง for capitals when announcing city names for example: กรุงลอนดอน นครซิดนีย์

I assume that Krung has higher status than Nakorn. Probably due to historical value. We know that Ayuddhaya has Krung status, as well both Saint Petersburg and Moscow. 

 

Somehow  I'm not surprised that London and Sidney announced differently. Wonder about Ottawa and Washington. Though we can guess where is the principle.

[Chou Anou]

จันทน์ means "sandalwood" (including its use in the name of Vientiane), not "moon."

 

[digbeth]

Another word

 

นิคม Often used in industrial estate นิคมอุตสาหกรรม  but can be used as suffix for town as well

[tgeezer]

Mueang is indeed the most loose term, rather epithet without any formal meanings.
 
Nayok seems to me as boss/mound sense.

That’s interesting, it never occurred to me because I was thinking of a topographic feature. ยก as an adjective I don’t like but coincidentally I said to the caddy “กรีนอยู่เนิน and he replied กรีนมันยก . There will be as many opinions on the origin of names as people opining but trying things out helps memory.


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[Melom]

3 hours ago, Chou Anou said:

จันทน์ means "sandalwood" (including its use in the name of Vientiane), not "moon."

You are right, it was my oversight.

[Melom]

1 hour ago, digbeth said:

Another word

นิคม Often used in industrial estate นิคมอุตสาหกรรม  but can be used as suffix for town as well

Agree it worth to mention. It seems also not formal model similar to Mueang.

[Melom]

As soon as I mentioned Ayutthaya there are some interesting fact which may amuse you. Full name is Krung Sri Ayuddhaya. "Sri" means sacral-holy-spirituous. Former Thai capital name was borrowed from the heavenly Indra's city. Another Indian city "Ayodhya" calmed to be the place of birth of Rama. In the complete name Krungthepmahanakorn... also mentioned word "ayutthaya" but it is not reference to the previous capital rather allusion to the heavenly one.

See attached image. It is plan of Ayutthaya Kingdom made in Amsterdam at 1665. I don't thinк that the painter mistyped the name. Being an intellectal member of Indo-Europen culture of that time he defenitely was aware that multiple cities in real life were named to single archetype. And in European tradition it used to be spelled "Iudea". By the way in Indo-Buddhst scriptures take place few figures with names like Itthiya or Uttiya, most likely they bring to mind European Iuda-Judas.

There are few archetype names. For example in certain European cultures any natural baptistery such as river, lake, ice-hole on water surface is called "iordan". Jerusalem according to latest researches tend to be an archetype name. "Heavenly Jerusalem" takes place in scriptures. There is place near by Constantinople called "Yoros Castle" takes much more sense with biblical description than nowadays known Jerusalem. We know that New Jerusalem has been re-built during crusade, but how much "re-" part is legit?

Edited November 30, 2017 by Melom
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[tgeezer]

Etymology and the study of ancient languages and how they are pronounced is interesting but I fear that I don't have the time left to take any more than a passing interest in individual examples. I tried saying Judas replacing J with the vowel iu and it sounds exotic, that อยุธยา was said that way is credible.
To bring us back to earth we need to distinguish between proper names and common names and this we do as we read.
ศรีอยุธยา was a ราชธานี a พระนคร, (probably still is) นครโบราญ and a กรุง. The town and the province are often only อยุธยา and I don't think it matters if we consider ศรี as just another word.

The whole point of names is to distinguish one thing from another and they may have deeper meaning but it is only of passing interest.
eg. I live on ถ. พหลโยธิน ซ. เสนานิคม แขวงจันทรเกษม เขตจตุจัก
Surrounded by Army. โยธิน เสนา จักกาย are all army related nouns.
นิคม a place where people carry on the same business?
I think that เสนานีเวศ exists and I used to walk to a ฐานะนิเวศ (probably spelt wrongly) to play tennis, so I see a housing estate when I hear นิเวศ
จันทรเกษม happy moon?






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[Melom]

4 hours ago, tgeezer said:

I tried saying Judas replacing J with the vowel iu and it sounds exotic and it was

Letter "j" was introduced to Latin later to distinguish Greek short  sound. Sounding it as [ʒ] is pretty unique feature of the anglo-world. In Dutch, German, French, Polish Judas pronounced like [i'uda]. In some other orthodox languages didn't even bother to change letter write and pronounce it "iuda" like it used to be.

 

Word อยุธยา has alternative spelling ยุธยา. In full name Krungtep... there is มหินทรายุธยา which is "Mahindra Yuddhaya"

[DavidHouston]

From the Royal Institute Dictionary:

"

นายก

 [นา-ยก] น. ผู้นำ, ผู้เป็นหัวหน้า, เช่น นายกราชบัณฑิตยสถาน นายกสมาคม นายกสโมสร. (ป., ส.). "

Note that the origin is "Pali, Sanskrit." It appears that the Sanskrit term romanized is "nayaka" which means "captain, leader, or guide."  

To see the Sanskrit, type "nayaka" into http://spokensanskrit.org/  

[cooked]

On 11/28/2017 at 2:06 PM, mauGR1 said:

Thanks for doing that research, i was too lazy to do it myself.

There is a village in my home country, ( Northern Italy ) which is named " Buri " in local dialect.

Ancient Greek and Latin, then English, had borrowed quite a few words from Sanskrit.

I very much doubt it. 

[mauGR1]

3 hours ago, cooked said:

I very much doubt it. 

https://www.google.co.th/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=12&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjc-Y3_vurXAhWB6Y8KHWU5BJcQFghXMAs&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FList_of_English_words_of_Sanskrit_origin&usg=AOvVaw3Xf-A0AGhgPPEA0UfZizbo

[cooked]

8 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

https://www.google.co.th/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=12&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjc-Y3_vurXAhWB6Y8KHWU5BJcQFghXMAs&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FList_of_English_words_of_Sanskrit_origin&usg=AOvVaw3Xf-A0AGhgPPEA0UfZizbo

Thank you SO much. I don't see the word 'Buri' in there, nor the word 'fire' come to that. 

 

[digbeth]

On 1/12/2560 at 8:49 AM, tgeezer said:

I think that เสนานีเวศ exists and I used to walk to a ฐานะนิเวศ (probably spelt wrongly) to play tennis, so I see a housing estate when I hear นิเวศ
จันทรเกษม happy moon?
 

Probably  ถาวรนิเวศน์ ถาวร=permanence 

 

นิเวศน์ is another good suffix for township  literally when used along it denotes more of 'ecology' 

 

Project names for หมู่บ้าน during certain periods (from the 70s-90s) are constructed in similar fashion 

 

Some that comes to mind:

เมืองทอง

เมืองเอก 

นิชาดาธานี

เสนานิเวศน์

เสนานิคม

ประชานิเวศน์

 

in some use of combination the first syllable is dropped and you get many more  -เวศน์

[tgeezer]

เมืองเอก rings a bell, I am sure that I should know where that is. Do you live around this area too digbeth? Got it now, เมืองเอก is that the huge sprawling estate on the west side of Wipawadi Rangsit I often play golf there, so familiar I couldn’t place it!


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[tgeezer]

เสนานิคม of course is not the name of a suburban housing development but ซอยพหลโธิน 32 , now upgraded to ถนนเสนานิคม


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