English speakers will not have to start calling the Thai capital by its local name, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, rather than the more familiar “Bangkok”, Thailand’s Royal Society has said.
The organisation, which is responsible for academic and linguistic standards, made the announcement after a seemingly innocuous change in punctuation in official guidance sparked a flurry of speculation that the city’s name was being changed.
It started on Tuesday when the Cabinet approved a Royal Society proposal changing the way the capital is referred to internationally from “Krung Thep Maha Nakhon; Bangkok” to “Krung Thep Maha Nakhon (Bangkok).”
As people sought to divine the meaning behind changing the semicolon to parentheses, many attached great weight on the accompanying explanation that it would “revise” the name of the capital city and keep the “former” name in brackets.
The capital is already officially known in the Thai language as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, which literally means “great city of angels”, and most Thais shorten it to just Krung Thep in conversation.
As speculation grew, the Royal Society clarified in a Facebook post on Wednesday that its new guidance was simply a stylistic change.
“Writing the capital city’s official name with the Roman alphabet can be done both as Krung Thep Maha Nakon and Bangkok,” the government agency said, allaying the fears of any non-Thai speakers about adopting the more complicated name.
Even if the Royal Society had meant to change the name to the one used by Thais, however, there is another option that would have been an even greater challenge for foreign tongues.
The Thai name for Bangkok, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, is actually a short form of the capital’s full name, which is rooted in Pali and Sanskrit and is more of a phrase to describe the city than a name: Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit.
That is the world’s longest place name, according to Guinness World Records.
