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Bangkok name change


coxyhog

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A bit more than 20 years ago I was trying to learn Thai and I could even read it a bit. On the way back to the airport I was confused for a bit when I saw the directions for Krung Thep in Thai right above those for Bangkok. And yes, I already knew it, but reading two different names for the same thing at the same time takes some getting used to. 

Funnily enough more or less the same happened a bit later when I was visiting friends in Thessaloniki (Greece).

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The full original name for Bangkok as given by Rama I when he founded the city is:

Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit

This is the longest city name on the world.

Krung Thep was the conventional abbreviation, but as pointed out above the "new" name was kept on the numberplates and several other official place. 

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5 minutes ago, Golfingboy said:

“Your sperm? Think you’re English might be a little off there……”

I'm sorry if this was pointed out in the film but sperm is Isaan Kmer for handsome.

Many years ago there was a BM on Talk that had EASY 17 bar in Siren complex. I taught him the same thing and he started pogoing around his bar shouting "I'm sperm, I'm sperm"..He was a big lad from up North... I'm guessing around '97ish..

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The way I see it, nothing will change from this announcement. Thais already call it this amongst each other, and foreigners will not magically start changing from Bangkok. It will always be Bangkok for me.

Then again, like many others I readily say Mumbai & Beijing, even after growing up with them being called other names. I still call HCMC Saigon though,and I think that’s a fair comparison to Bangkok’s name in the future. 
 

Funny thing, though,  living in Montreal with the French media, and how they speak about cities. Sometimes they just keep the spelling but pronounce differently, eg Detroit sounds like “ Dey-Trraw”. Often they do change the spelling, London is “Londres”. But Beijing is still referred to as “Pekin”, and when I see something about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, they spell Vlad’s name “Poutine”, which I find very foolish. You can’t change the spelling of a family name, especially when it is the same as our local dish of chips, gravy, and cheese curds……meh

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11 minutes ago, Derek Dangleberries said:

I'm sorry if this was pointed out in the film but sperm is Isaan Kmer for handsome.

Many years ago there was a BM on Talk that had EASY 17 bar in Siren complex. I taught him the same thing and he started pogoing around his bar shouting "I'm sperm, I'm sperm"..He was a big lad from up North... I'm guessing around '97ish..

That’s interesting, thanks. But the scene with Kimmy in the dressing room, was all in English, Stew just didn’t want to accept he shagged a LB

Back in 2010, I didn’t make the last bus back to Chiang Mai from a visa run to Myanmar, so I stopped in CR for the night. Ended up getting a room at a hotel on the main road, when I left the next morning I noticed the nightclub on the ground floor was called Sperm……make sense now

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Krung Thep in Thai, Bangkok in either Thai or English the government have (sort of) clarified now.

Makes sense as English speakers don't say Moskva instead of Moscow, or Napoli instead of Naples etc so why would we use the lesser known Thai language name?

In the examples above Detroit in French is Détroit (means the straight or something) and Peking (Beijing) is Pékin, while London is Londres in French.

Edited by KWA
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7 hours ago, Chang_Paarp said:

The full original name for Bangkok as given by Rama I when he founded the city is:

Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit

This is the longest city name on the world.

Krung Thep was the conventional abbreviation, but as pointed out above the "new" name was kept on the numberplates and several other official place. 

actually that long name was only given after it became the captial.  until that name it was known by thai words which were bastardised, as is cologne, moscow and paris, into bangkok. 🙂

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11 hours ago, fygjam said:

The uproar years ago when we had to call it Beijing instead of Peking.

Who ever heard of Mumbai bloomers?

And what about Myanmar?

I suppose some people still call it Siam.

 

It is still quite often referred to as Burma in the media and will always be so to many my age.

I am still trying to work out what happened to Yugoslavia and which ones were the good guys?

If any?

Edited by Jambo
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16 hours ago, Derek Dangleberries said:

Are they going to change the airport identification code from BKK?

If 4 letters were allowed the code could be KUNT !

There is an official four letter code system for airports to avoid some duplications in the three letter codes. For the capital of the kingdom formerly known as Siam, those codes are VTBS and VTBD (V for South East Asia, T for Thailand, B for Bangkok and the final letters should be obvious).

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