Why so many Asian cities adopt an alias
Not because their people are demanding it
KRUNG THEP MAHA NAKHON may be a mouthful, but it is less likely to provoke sniggering among those with a teenage mindset than its better-known alternative, “Bangkok”. That is one interpretation for guidance published on February 16th by the Office of the Royal Society, Thailand’s answer to the Académie Française. A dense press release noted that this pithy four-word version of the much longer formal Thai name for the country’s capital should be the standard for official purposes and should be used when writing in Roman script, too.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “What’s in a name?”
Asia February 26th 2022
From the February 26th 2022 edition
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