Does anyone know what the origin of ประเสริฐ [L]pra [LL]soet 'excellent' is? The consonants make it look Indic, but the vowel makes it look Khmer. I have no confidence in the final consonant - Northern Thai spellings lack the ร and also end in ฏ, ท, ต or ษ. The first syllable can be the equivalent of ปรา in Northern Thai, while I expect the variants in ผ- and ภ- are just a feature of the Northern Thai dialect.

Does anyone know what the origin of ประเสริฐ [L]pra [LL]soet 'excellent' is? The consonants make it look Indic, but the vowel makes it look Khmer. I have no confidence in the final consonant - Northern Thai spellings lack the ร and also end in ฏ, ท, ต or ษ. The first syllable can be the equivalent of ปรา in Northern Thai, while I expect the variants in ผ- and ภ- are just a feature of the Northern Thai dialect.

hey richard,

have looked at a dictionary for you (it's the bilingual thai dictionary by เธียรชัย เอี่อมวรเมธ published by รวมสาส์น)

it gives this etymological info: ส.ปฺรศสฺต, ป.ปสตฺถ

i hope you can see the dots below ป, ส and ต (what is the dot called, by the way?)

all the best.

It gives this etymological info: ส.ปฺรศสฺต, ป.ปสตฺถ

Thanks. It seems a long leap from Sanskrit praçasta or Pali prasattha to ประเสริฐ. I looked though a Khmer-English dictionary this evening, but the closest I could find was what I would transliterate to Thai as ประเสิร, with the same meaning. I suppose the Thai word could be a blend of the two. Clutching at straws, its even conceivable that ล้ำ้เลิศ belongs in the mix - the เลิศ part is also Khmer (as เลิส).

i hope you can see the dots below ป, ส and ต (what is the dot called, by the way?)

As usual, the phinthu is visible if you are expecting it. The word is slightly ambiguous - in Thai it can refer to sara i, and the Devanagari bindu (ultimately the same word) corresponds to Thai nikkhahit.

Richard,

The manuscript Thai-English dictionary (ca. 1830s or 1840s) that I'm currently preparing for online publication has this entry:

ประเสรีฐ Excellent; best, most excellent.

This shows that the same spelling has been used (except for the slight difference in the vowel) in Bangkok Thai for at least 150 years.

It also has this entry:

เสิด Abb. of ประเสิษฐ Excellent

And, for good measure, these ones:

ล้ำเลีศ Excellent.

เลีศ, เลีศแดน, เลีศล้ำ Excellent, splendid, glorious

เลีศไคร, เลีศล้น Excellent, splendid, glorious

Anything interesting strike you?

ประเสรีฐ Excellent; best, most excellent.

เสิด Abb. of ประเสิษฐ Excellent

It's interesting to see RUKI in the second full form even for a compound vowel, but we're no further forward. I couldn't find any trace of เสิด in Khmer, so I'm still stuck.