"เอกลักษณ์" And "อัตลักษณ์"

[DavidHouston]

I came across the following sentence in the Matichon Weekend magazine today.

"การเปลี่ยนนามประเทศ รวมทั้งการ "มี" และการ "เปลี่ยน" เนื้อร้อง "เพลงชาติ" นั้นเป็นการสร้าง "เอกลักษณ์" อันเป็น "อัตลักษณ์" ของคนในชาติขึ้นมาใหม่"

My attempt at translation which would capture the Thai meaning in English would be:

"Changing the name of the country as well as changing the lyrics of the national anthem defines certain characteristics and creates a unique persona for those who are citizens of the nation."

My question is the difference in meaning between the two terms "เอกลักษณ์" and "อัตลักษณ์" and does my attempt at translation capture the difference?

Thanks.

[meadish_sweetball]

Google translate wants to switch the meaning of the words around - i.e. เอกลักษณ์ would be 'unique characteristics' whereas อัตลักษณ์ would be 'identity'.

So I'd venture something like

Changing the name of the country, as well as both having a national anthem, and changing its lyrics, will lead to a reconstruction of the unique characteristics which make up[/form/are the building blocks of] the identity of the people of the nation.

or, perhaps a little smoother:

Changing the name of the country, as well as both having a national anthem, and changing its lyrics, will bring about new unique characteristics in the national identity.

[aanon]

All those quotation marks are doing my head in! Here's my attempt:

"การเปลี่ยนนามประเทศ รวมทั้งการ "มี" และการ "เปลี่ยน" เนื้อร้อง "เพลงชาติ" นั้นเป็นการสร้าง "เอกลักษณ์" อันเป็น "อัตลักษณ์" ของคนในชาติขึ้นมาใหม่"

Changing the country's name, as well as having and changing lyrics to the national anthem, amounts to a reconstruction of the nation's unique character, which forms the identity of its people.

Having written that, I now realise that the translation might take a number of alternative paths: is it the nation's character, or that of the people? is it 'having' a national anthem, or 'having' lyrics to it? Interesting example, David, as usual.

What country does this refer to? Burma/Myanmar?

All the best.

[DavidHouston]

All those quotation marks are doing my head in! Here's my attempt:

"การเปลี่ยนนามประเทศ รวมทั้งการ "มี" และการ "เปลี่ยน" เนื้อร้อง "เพลงชาติ" นั้นเป็นการสร้าง "เอกลักษณ์" อันเป็น "อัตลักษณ์" ของคนในชาติขึ้นมาใหม่"

Changing the country's name, as well as having and changing lyrics to the national anthem, amounts to a reconstruction of the nation's unique character, which forms the identity of its people.

Having written that, I now realise that the translation might take a number of alternative paths: is it the nation's character, or that of the people? is it 'having' a national anthem, or 'having' lyrics to it? Interesting example, David, as usual.

What country does this refer to? Burma/Myanmar?

All the best.

The excerpt comes from the last installment in a series of articles in Matichon Weekend called, " ชาติ-ชาตินิยม-รัฐ-ชื่อประเทศ-ชาติพันธุ์ : เอกลักษณ์ และ/หรือ พหุลักษณ์ ". The change refers to Thailand and the change from "สยาม" to "ไทย".

Let's try the article's name: "The Nation - Nationalism - The State - The Nation's Name - Ethnicity: Unity and/or Diversity"

A more extensive quote from this article is:

คำถามก็คือทำไมเราต้องมี 2 เพลง แต่เขาทำไมมีเพียง 1 เพลง

การเปลี่ยนนามประเทศ รวมทั้งการ "มี" และการ "เปลี่ยน" เนื้อร้อง "เพลงชาติ" นั้นเป็นการสร้าง "เอกลักษณ์" อันเป็น "อัตลักษณ์" ของคนในชาติขึ้นมาใหม่ ที่ถูกกำหนดโดยเบื้องบนหรือส่วนกลาง (กรุงเทพฯ top down) ว่า "เราคือใคร" เราเป็นใคร กดทับ "ความหลากหลาย" หรือ "พหุลักษณ์" ที่มีมาแต่ดั้งเดิมของคนจำนวนมากมายหลายเผ่าชาติพันธุ์

" . . . imposes a notion of "who we are" on what had been "diversity" or "multi-ethnicity" which had existed from time immemorial when there existed many individual and separate tribes."

See if you can integrate the two halves of the paragraph. Thanks.

Edited February 10, 2009 by DavidHouston

[Rikker]

Admittedly a sidetrack, but this raises a question I've been meaning to address for a while. (I'll probably blog about it.) What is the exact range of meaning that quotation marks are used for in Thai, and how do those differ from English? It seems that in David's quote here they're used for emphasis sometimes ("มี", "เปลี่ยน", "เพลงชาติ", which English doesn't do) and sometimes to identify and set apart potentially unfamiliar words ("เอกลักษณ์", "อัตลักษณ์", which English also does). Not to mention the outermost quote marks that David presumably added to indicate that it's a quotation.

For a laugh, though, put them in all the same places in the English translation. It reads like extremely bizarre innuendo. I'm gonna "change" her "national anthem"!

Edited February 10, 2009 by Rikker

[tgeezer]

All those quotation marks are doing my head in! Here's my attempt:

"การเปลี่ยนนามประเทศ รวมทั้งการ "มี" และการ "เปลี่ยน" เนื้อร้อง "เพลงชาติ" นั้นเป็นการสร้าง "เอกลักษณ์" อันเป็น "อัตลักษณ์" ของคนในชาติขึ้นมาใหม่"

What country does this refer to? Burma/Myanmar?

All the best.

Incidentally what are all the quotation marks supposed to mean?

Changeing the name of the country together with the lyrics of the National Anthem is building a uniform identity that is something with which each person in a newly emergeing country can identify with.

[DavidHouston]

Right you are, Khun Rikker: the leading and trailing quotation marks are mine. I feel an obligation to do so when quoting a third party source. (As a note to my British cousins, our American outside quotes are always doubled; inside quotes are singled, contrary to the British tradition. As a staunch Anglophile, I believe the British method is superior but I am bound by my national rules. Good thing there is not a song to go with the practice.)

It is interesting how English language punctuation seems to have crept into Thai, both in journalism and in literature. I notice that even ม.ร.ว. คึกฤทธิ์ ปราโมช in his novels and stories makes liberal use of the quotation mark, the exclamation mark, the elipse, and the question mark."

Khun Rikker, do you know when and how these conventions were adopted and how standard their use is? Thanks

[Rikker]

Back on topic, nice discussion. Confusingly, เอกลักษณ์ and อัตลักษณ์ are usually both translated as "identity". Both are ศัพท์บัญญํติ of the Royal Institute, too.

อัตลักษณ์ (literally "self image") is the more recent (I think) coinage for "identity". The อัต- prefix is typically equivalent to English auto- (อัตชีวประวัติ "autobiography", อัตตาธิปไตย "autocracy"), but breaks the pattern here.

เอกลักษณ์ (from เอก- "one, uni") has probably been around longer. From RID99:

น. ลักษณะที่เหมือนกันหรือมีร่วมกัน (อ. identity)

n. characteristic(s) which are the same or are shared (equiv. Eng. identity)

I'd define it more like "characteristics which a person or group is known by/for" -- an เอกลักษณ์ of Kasikorn Bank employees is their bright green blazers, for example. The เอกลักษณ์ of your store might be your super-low prices. Not necessarily unique, but identifying, nonetheless.

Whereas as I understand it the อัตลักษณ์ is more the whole package, your "youness", not just one or more features. Am I splitting hairs here?

Edited February 10, 2009 by Rikker

[Rikker]

It is interesting how English language punctuation seems to have crept into Thai, both in journalism and in literature. I notice that even ม.ร.ว. คึกฤทธิ์ ปราโมช in his novels and stories makes liberal use of the quotation mark, the exclamation mark, the elipse, and the question mark."

Khun Rikker, do you know when and how these conventions were adopted and how standard their use is? Thanks

I think the beginning of the adoption process beginning with the advent of printing in the mid-19th century, but that actual use ebbs and flows. The 20th century probably saw a resurgence as more and more Thais were educated abroad. It would make an interesting study indeed to see which marks were common in which eras. In the late 19th/early 20th century, spacing between words was the norm, no doubt due to Western influence (Dan Beach Bradley, who owned Siam's first Thai printing press, began this trend).

I'll have to do more research as to standardization, because I don't really know. But the Royal Institute has devoted one of its several handbooks to the topic เครื่องหมายวรรคตอน (simply, "Punctuation"). All the western punctuation marks have Thai names which defy you to remember them---จุลภาค, อัฒภาค, ปรัศนี, อัศเจรีย์, etc.)

Edited February 10, 2009 by Rikker

[tgeezer]

Back on topic, nice discussion. Confusingly, เอกลักษณ์ and อัตลักษณ์ are usually both translated as "identity". Both are ศัพท์บัญญํติ of the Royal Institute, too.

อัตลักษณ์ (literally "self image") is the more recent (I think) coinage for "identity". The อัต- prefix is typically equivalent to English auto- (อัตชีวประวัติ "autobiography", อัตตาธิปไตย "autocracy"), but breaks the pattern here.

เอกลักษณ์ (from เอก- "one, uni") has probably been around longer. From RID99:

น. ลักษณะที่เหมือนกันหรือมีร่วมกัน (อ. identity)

n. characteristic(s) which are the same or are shared (equiv. Eng. identity)

I'd define it more like "characteristics which a person or group is known by/for" -- an เอกลักษณ์ of Kasikorn Bank employees is their bright green blazers, for example. The เอกลักษณ์ of your store might be your super-low prices. Not necessarily unique, but identifying, nonetheless.

Whereas as I understand it the อัตลักษณ์ is more the whole package, your "youness", not just one or more features. Am I splitting hairs here?

If it means anything the Thai numbering system is described as ตัวเลขไทยเป็นเอกลักษณ์ทางภาษาอย่างหนึ่ง different context but context is everything.

Edited February 10, 2009 by tgeezer

[tgeezer]

" " เรียกว่า อัญประกาศ ใช้เพื่อบอกให้รู้ว่าข้อความในเครื่องหมายนี้เป็นคำพูด หรือต้องการเน้นข้อความเพื่อให้ผู้อ่านสังเกตเป็นพิเศษ It's only primary school book but the example for สังเกตเป็นพิเศษ is a proper noun.

Edited February 10, 2009 by tgeezer

[DavidHouston]

I want to thank all of you for helping me understand the subject sentence and for helping distinguish between the two technical terms. I appreciate tgeezer for the background on the quotation marks and to Rikker for the etymology. Meadish and Aanon both provided excellent translations which do what good translations should: 1. each is an accurate reflection of the meaning of the original sentence, and 2. each is stated as a simple, accurate, and correct sentence in the target language and as if it were written ab initio in the target language.

Let me try one more alternative:

"The existence and modification of a country's name and the lyrics to its national anthem contribute to a process of creating a commonality which then leads to a new and uniquely perceived individuality for its people."

I really do appreciate everyone's contributions to our collective learning experience.