Why Suvarnabhumi?

[womble]

Why is the new airport spelt differnetly in English to how it sounds in Thai?

Suvarnabhumi sounds nothing like the correct Thai word, the Thai word sounds more like Suvarnabhum, so my question is this.

Is one persons choice of spelling in English going to be responsible for thousands of Foreigners not being able to say the name of the airport properly?

Why couldn't they have used a spelling that reads and sounds more like the Thai word when spoken?

From now on I will be spelling it Suvarnabhum as I believe Suvarnabhumi to be incorrect.

[Rinrada]

From Thursday when all the big International Flights start arriving I suppose it will then become straight forward Bangkok Airport and we /most people will not need to worry about its official name.

If like me your are an international (trendy) jetsetter with the fake Lolex and Gukki luggage then you are probably familar with all of the worlds other most famous aerodromes.....Sheramativo-Murthalla Mohamid-Lungi-Chep Lap Kok-Dawsons Field-Robin Hood and of course John Lennon...not forgetting my old fav ..Abbots-inch....but do u know where they are?

Whats in a name....

[taxexile]

From now on I will be spelling it Suvarnabhum as I believe Suvarnabhumi to be incorrect.

from now on i shall be spelling it suwwannapoom , as i believe both of the above to be incorrect.

[jdinasia]

unless I am mistaken .... the King chose the name .... the spelling is not simple but is correct. (same mistakes from people that don't speak Thai as when they try and pronounce HM's name .... or even Thaksin's name (or the road in front of Seacon (or the Dam) etc etc

[trajan]

Why is the new airport spelt differnetly in English to how it sounds in Thai?

Suvarnabhumi sounds nothing like the correct Thai word, the Thai word sounds more like Suvarnabhum, so my question is this.

Is one persons choice of spelling in English going to be responsible for thousands of Foreigners not being able to say the name of the airport properly?

Why couldn't they have used a spelling that reads and sounds more like the Thai word when spoken?

From now on I will be spelling it Suvarnabhum as I believe Suvarnabhumi to be incorrect.

relax, they just strictly translate (or transliterate) the Thai spelling of the word (letter-by-letter) into English letters (letter-by-letter), but the Thai pronounciation rules dont come across in this strict letter-by-letter transliteration....

under Thai pronounciation rules, there are many instances where Thai letters (although written in Thai and then transliterated letter-by-letter into English) are silent or have a different sound if (for example) they occur at the end of the word.....

for example, you might notice that ex-PM Taksin's family name is translated into English (letter-by-letter) as "Shinawatra" but it is pronounced in speech as "Shinawat"

"Surawongse" Road is pronounced "Surawong" Road.... "Central" Department Store ....is pronounced "Centan" .....

I've always preferred that the sound (instead of strictly the letters) be transcribed into English, so that foreigners can more easily pronounce the word (because they would naturally have no idea about Thai pronounciation rules).....but my preferences dont mean diddly squat ....so no use complaining about it....just adapt

[The Dan Sai Kid]

Why is the new airport spelt differnetly in English to how it sounds in Thai?

Suvarnabhumi sounds nothing like the correct Thai word, the Thai word sounds more like Suvarnabhum, so my question is this.

Is one persons choice of spelling in English going to be responsible for thousands of Foreigners not being able to say the name of the airport properly?

Why couldn't they have used a spelling that reads and sounds more like the Thai word when spoken?

From now on I will be spelling it Suvarnabhum as I believe Suvarnabhumi to be incorrect.

relax, they just strictly translate (or transliterate) the Thai spelling of the word (letter-by-letter) into English letters (letter-by-letter), but the Thai pronounciation rules dont come across in this strict letter-by-letter transliteration....

under Thai pronounciation rules, there are many instances where Thai letters (although written in Thai and then transliterated letter-by-letter into English) are silent or have a different sound if (for example) they occur at the end of the word.....

for example, you might notice that ex-PM Taksin's family name is translated into English (letter-by-letter) as "Shinawatra" but it is pronounced in speech as "Shinawat"

"Surawongse" Road is pronounced "Surawong" Road.... "Central" Department Store ....is pronounced "Centan" .....

I've always preferred that the sound (instead of strictly the letters) be transcribed into English, so that foreigners can more easily pronounce the word (because they would naturally have no idea about Thai pronounciation rules).....but my preferences dont mean diddly squat ....so no use complaining about it....just adapt

You left out the most important one - the a sound at the end of Singha beer!

[Maestro]

from now on i shall be spelling it suwwannapoom , as i believe both of the above to be incorrect.

Why *ww*? Wouldn’t one be enough?

---------------

Maestro

[trajan]

You left out the most important one - the a sound at the end of Singha beer!

hehe...yeah gimme one of them there Sing-HA beers....I'm in Thigh-Land now and wanna try a local brewski...

[womble]

The thing is there is a thai word bhumi, but with suwanaphum it is dropped. The ee sound is not present. That's why i'm confused with the spelling.

More than likely the King chose the Thai name, and someone else decided how to spell it in English. I just think whoever chose that spelling made a poor choice which will cause confusion.

There are many different ways to spell Thai words in English, but if the end result is nothing like the Thai sound, then surely it isn't of much use. If there are ways to spell it that have an end result closer in sound to the correct Thai spelling surely that would be better.

[taxexile]

Why *ww*? Wouldn’t one be enough?

i suppose it would !

and i agree , the vowel over the final syllable has no sign to silence it , so why isnt it pronounced.

i dont think there is a sign to silence a vowel that lies over a pronounced consonant.

it is certainly confusing and a standardised alliteration system would be very welcome.

Edited September 25, 2006 by taxexile

[Maestro]

...a standardised alliteration system would be very welcome.

There is one – see here and here – but “the system is not widely observed by ordinary people, especially in spelling personal names. And nobody seems to have made any effort to popularise it”

---------------

Maestro

[taxexile]

considering the complexities of the pronunciation of thai , they dont do such a bad job as it is.

[AmeriThai]

considering the complexities of the pronunciation of thai , they dont do such a bad job as it is.

I can understand some of the reasons for the odd English spelling of Thai words, but still, there are instances when there seems to be quite a lack of standardization in variations of spelling for the same word.

Chatuchak/Jatujak is a classic example.

I agree that spelling Thai words with English letters would be better on how the word sounds.

[think_too_mut]

I thought the topic was about why did they make the new airport at all.

Which has barely 10% more capacity than the old one.

[simon43]

I think the problem is that HM the King has chosen the name for the airport, and it has been translated in to English using the transliteration of King Rama II. Unfortunately, those transliteration rules are not 100% accurate - but you cannot criticise a past or present king....

It is indeed a problem. The most confusing transliteration rule that i know is that every word that should be pronounced with a hard 'p' is instead transliterated with a soft 'ph', as in 'phone'. Thoughourly confusing, but you cannot criticise the King, so that is how the correct transliteration remains.....

Simon

[jdinasia]

I think the problem is that HM the King has chosen the name for the airport, and it has been translated in to English using the transliteration of King Rama II. Unfortunately, those transliteration rules are not 100% accurate - but you cannot criticise a past or present king....

It is indeed a problem. The most confusing transliteration rule that i know is that every word that should be pronounced with a hard 'p' is instead transliterated with a soft 'ph', as in 'phone'. Thoughourly confusing, but you cannot criticise the King, so that is how the correct transliteration remains.....

Simon

no "ph=f" in Thailand ......

one is aspirated and the other is not ...

I believe that you will find that in fact many of the names that people have issues with come from the Royal vernacular.

[Meeone]

I think the problem is that HM the King has chosen the name for the airport, and it has been translated in to English using the transliteration of King Rama II. Unfortunately, those transliteration rules are not 100% accurate - but you cannot criticise a past or present king....

It is indeed a problem. The most confusing transliteration rule that i know is that every word that should be pronounced with a hard 'p' is instead transliterated with a soft 'ph', as in 'phone'. Thoughourly confusing, but you cannot criticise the King, so that is how the correct transliteration remains.....

Simon

Suvarnabhumi is a Sanskrit word. It can also be spelled as Swarnabhumi. Suvarna or Swarna means gold and Bhumi is land = meaning the Golden Land. The Thai language has its roots in Sanskrit which the Buddhist monks brought with them from India. Thai phonetics drop the 'i' , 'l' and 'r' in their spoken version along with a host other vowels that I am not aware of.

Meeone

[kayo]

From now on I will be spelling it Suvarnabhum as I believe Suvarnabhumi to be incorrect.

You see this kind of thing that REALLY annoys me and is the ROOT CAUSE of the huge array of different spellings for so many things in los.

If the king and country have decided to call it this way in romanic spelling, then who are you or any of us, /incl. mr Joe Planet/ to change the name?

Why can`t YOU just stick with the spelling that our host naiton has given it, and not try to make up the rules as you go along?

[Richard W]

I think the problem is that HM the King has chosen the name for the airport, and it has been translated in to English using the transliteration of King Rama II. Unfortunately, those transliteration rules...

Can you cite me a reference to them? I haven't seen enough examples to know how to apply them to native words. P.S. I think you mean 'Rama VI'.

The most confusing transliteration rule that i know is that every word that should be pronounced with a hard 'p' is instead transliterated with a soft 'ph', as in 'phone'.

The Romans used that rule to transliterate Classical Greek, back when Greek phi did not have an 'f' sound.

Richard.

[Richard W]

...a standardised alliteration system would be very welcome.

There is one – see here ...

There is at least one other - ISO 11940:1998 - see the Estonian interpretation! IBM's International Components for Unicode (ICU) has a friendlier interpretation. I don't feel like forking out for a standard almost no-one uses, so I don't know who's right.

[Richard W]

and i agree , the vowel over the final syllable has no sign to silence it , so why isnt it pronounced.

In words of more than one syllable, final short /a/, /i/ and /u/ are usally dropped. The Royal Institute is struggling to get people to write word-final pronounced short /a/ as an explicit vowel. I don't know, though, how good Thais are at distinguishing prefixes, or rather, initial elements - such as the 'suvarna' part - from words.

[phibunmike]

it is certainly confusing and a standardised alliteration system would be very welcome.

Think Transliteration Twas 'Tended

[womble]

From now on I will be spelling it Suvarnabhum as I believe Suvarnabhumi to be incorrect.

You see this kind of thing that REALLY annoys me and is the ROOT CAUSE of the huge array of different spellings for so many things in los.

If the king and country have decided to call it this way in romanic spelling, then who are you or any of us, /incl. mr Joe Planet/ to change the name?

Why can`t YOU just stick with the spelling that our host naiton has given it, and not try to make up the rules as you go along?

I guess you are right, you know I never really thought of it, but yeah, I suppose me changing the spelling will also confuse people.

Other words are a bit different as if you take a random word out of a Thai/English dictionary, there will be no set way to spell it, not like Suvarnabhumi, which I guess has a set spelling as the transliteration of Rama II must be used.

I suppose by changing the spelling it could be lesse majesty?

I will not change the spelling, I guess I was being a little pig headed, however I do believe it would be better to spell words that read how they sound. I was saying the word wrongly for ages, until I heard how the Thais were saying it.

[farangene]

I thought the topic was about why did they make the new airport at all.

Which has barely 10% more capacity than the old one.

I had the same question since the new airport is touted to be 10x larger than the current Don Muang. Phase 1 is only the beginning as the following stats shows. In 20 years, BKK should be able to handle 120M passengers.

Wonder if we will still be using airplanes for travel in 2026?? There are more interesting stats at the URL at the bottom.

The airport, which is being touted as the largest single terminal airport in the world, is expected to cost roughly 155 Billion Baht during its ongoing Phase 1. The airport has been designed to carry 45 million passengers in Phase 1, 54 million passengers in Phase 2 and a mammoth 120 million passengers by Phase 3. It is very vague as to when Phase 3 would be complete, but some estimates suggest 15 - 20 years. In 2004 the old Don Muang Airport processed around 38 million passengers.

http://www.asiatraveltips.com/Suvarnabhumi...rtBangkok.shtml

[kayo]

I guess you are right, you know I never really thought of it, but yeah, I suppose me changing the spelling will also confuse people.

Other words are a bit different as if you take a random word out of a Thai/English dictionary, there will be no set way to spell it, not like Suvarnabhumi, which I guess has a set spelling as the transliteration of Rama II must be used.

I suppose by changing the spelling it could be lesse majesty?

I will not change the spelling, I guess I was being a little pig headed, however I do believe it would be better to spell words that read how they sound. I was saying the word wrongly for ages, until I heard how the Thais were saying it.

@ womble

Long Live H.M.

[corkscrew]

I think the problem is that HM the King has chosen the name for the airport, and it has been translated in to English using the transliteration of King Rama II. Unfortunately, those transliteration rules are not 100% accurate - but you cannot criticise a past or present king....

It is indeed a problem. The most confusing transliteration rule that i know is that every word that should be pronounced with a hard 'p' is instead transliterated with a soft 'ph', as in 'phone'. Thoughourly confusing, but you cannot criticise the King, so that is how the correct transliteration remains.....

Simon

no "ph=f" in Thailand ......

one is aspirated and the other is not ...

I believe that you will find that in fact many of the names that people have issues with come from the Royal vernacular.

Phloenchit Road!

[jdinasia]

yes ... ploenchit ... not with an F sound ..... Phuket ... not with an 'f' sound

[grtaylor]

I've always preferred that the sound (instead of strictly the letters) be transcribed into English, so that foreigners can more easily pronounce the word (because they would naturally have no idea about Thai pronounciation rules).....but my preferences dont mean diddly squat ....so no use complaining about it....just adapt

Doesn't work either. Ask an American and a Brit to write down a Thai word as they hear it, and, as likely as not, with many words, you'll get two different English spellings. Listen to an American and Brit pronounce Sathorn and you'll understand what I mean.

[Plus]

Chatuchak/Jatujak are minor differences, you won't even notice.

Starting from today, 45 million people a year will be putting "EE" at the end of "Suwanapoom", everyone will notice that.

[Tony Clifton]

Why *ww*? Wouldn’t one be enough?

i suppose it would !

and i agree , the vowel over the final syllable has no sign to silence it , so why isnt it pronounced.

i dont think there is a sign to silence a vowel that lies over a pronounced consonant.

it is certainly confusing and a standardised alliteration system would be very welcome.

Have to agree with that. Look at the road signage and you'll find two versions of the same name within short distances, Ban Bung/Bueng, Pattaya/Patthaya/Phattaya, Bang Pli/Phli/Pri. One sign in town here points the way to the Univercity...

I doubt strongly that HMk had anything to do with the English spelling of Suvarnabhumi