anyone knows , when and why thailand change its name form siam to be thailand?

the reason in in your topic posted below.

http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17085

???

i think you game me incorrect link. there were nothing relating to siam change name to thailand there

ER33 meant that you basically explained the reason why Siam had changed its name to Thailand.

The change reflects nationalistic movements. Suddenly Siam became the "land of the Thai" but not other people. This is perhaps because the Chinese in Bangkok were gaining more influence in economy. General Pibul who was the prime minister of that time himself is known for nationalism. To claim that this is the country of the Thai is to exclude Chinese, Malay, and other ethnicities from the politics and at the same time, extend its claim over other Tai-speaking areas in other countries too.

Of course, there were people who disagreed with the name change. One person said that "everyone can be proud to be a citizen of Siam" but to make Siam "land of the Thai", it will alienate non-Thai people. He specifically gave example of the Malay in the South who didn't see themselves as Thai but might see themselves as Siamese.

Anyway, the name change had a great effect - it made everyone wanted to be called Thai. The Chinese were so pressured that most of them changed their last names to Thai. Today Chinese in Thailand identify themselves as "Thai" first even if they had 100% Chinese blood. For the Isan people and the yuon (today's Northen Thai), the effect is even greater. Everyone sees himself as Thailand's Thai. They will get angry if you think they are not real Thai.

The last people who are slowest to change are parhaps the Southern Malay. Ironically, this is the group whose opposition was already predicted during General Pibul's time.

I am always curious how it would be if Thailand is still Siam. I guess we would be less nationalistic... But nobody could really know...

PS. I notice my writing is so academic. Hahahaha. I guess you guys don't mind. But the fact is I can't help. I use English mainly in school so it became my style.

Yeah, my style is pretty academic too...when I'm calm and in an actual good debate.

Personally, I don't care what the name of the Thai region--Thailand, Siam, it doesn't matter. I don't think people take their country's name into so much significance. Siam or Thailand, it's still the same country.

If names were really so influential in bringing people together, the United States of America might as well be the "Land of All People on Earth"

But Siam is a nice name>

True. Couldn't agree more.

Like Siamese twins, Siamese Cats, Siamese fighting fishes....... etc.......

I heard from some Cambodian that they changed it because of the name of a Cambodian province called Siamreap.

I think Thailand tried to take that province and they were defeated so the Cambodians called the province Siamreap something that supposed to mean Siam was raped or something.

Siam was embarassed by that name and thus changed it to Thailand. I'm not sure if what the Cambodian said was true though.

Thats so funny

i think the philippines should do the same as thailand! the word Filipino is reminscent of social class system of the spaniards during colonial days and also it doesnt reflect the heritage of the unconquerable indigenous and muslim minorities of the islands!

:genius:

Same as Viet Nam I think we should drop the Nam (South) and add "Great" in front of it... as Nam no longer makes sense without a Bac (North)..... :genius:

lets petition for a renovation of our countries names!

Hahha yea, its quite possible .. it could happen.. if people had any real brains that is

Now where could we start?

Philippines? Lapunians? In honour for the first Filipino hero?

Kalayaan!

in the other way...Thai means "freedom" so Thailand means Land of Freedom

Like when Rama 5 stopped the slavery (at that time we were still called Siam), he said that you are all "Thai" as in Thai we wrote "ไท" but for Thailand we wrote "ไทย"

eew... lol... hi, my parents are from a country called lapu-lapu! haha j/k...

to this day i do not understnad y our country doesn't have a local name...

i thought some pre-colonial names of the philippines was Ma-i or Maharlika.

what about MALAYA (free) and then the people can be called MALAYAN again malaysia wouldnt be too happy about that.

sometimes i wonder why the central islands of the philippiens are collectively called Visayas, was it the natives who sailed to neighbooring islands and converted them to be a "visayas"? what if they had kept traveling into luzon and mindanao and the whole archipelago was called Visayas. Oo.... just wondering

Then what do you think can you call the inhabitants of Kalayaan?

If ever the government decided to change the name of the Philippines?

"Kalayaanos"?

^i never heard of that. but if you say that a "cambodian" told you so then i guess i cant really say anything much. hey bryon...you've never met a real cambodian before have you?puahahahaha. from what i've recalled, you've never met one.

i like the name siam better. but i like the meaning of thailand. does siam have a meaning too?

Thailand is now the present name of Siam............

Malay-nesia

people:

Malay-nesian

Personally I would prefer Thailand to be called Siam. The name sounds so cool.

No a Khmer from some forum, said that.

oh i see. well, i dont think thats the reason why thailand changed its name.

My mum told me that Siam was the Khmer word for Thais.. and so they changed it to something else because it wasn't their word in the first place or something..

I don't know the meaning of Siam though

^really? if so, then what does Siam mean in cambodian?

from what i've read on other forums including a thai forum i visited, Siam or Siem(what khmers call) is a khmer word. we gave the tai people that name when they arrived in the khmer territory. the word siem is derogatory meaning barbaric dark skinned people. the original tai or early tai people were dark skinned. don't know if this is true or not. maybe vince can clarify this.

Ummm...I woner between Thai and Khmer who is more dark than who?
My bet Khmer

Thanks for summonning me !!! But SORRY I don't know the real origin of the word and I doubt no one could actually prove which people/language invented the word. But "Siam" was originally a word non-Tai people called the Tai-speaking kingdoms/principalities in Southeast Asia.

Old Khmer - "Syam"
Old Chinese - "Sien lo" (Pinyin writing = "Xian luo")
Old Mon - "Sian"

The "Siamese" have always called themselves "Tai" but at some time (probably in early Ayutthaya period = 600-500 years ago) they also started to call themselves "Sayaam" too. As soon as they accepted to be Siamese, their identity became seperate from other Tai-speaking people (Lao, Northern Thai, Shan, Assam, etc.) Finally, the word spreaded to other languages.

Burmese - "Shan"
Vietnamese - "Xiam la"
Modern Khmer - "Siem"
Potuguese - "Siao"
English - "Siam"

All I know Chinese and Indian called Thai people as "sean" or "ar seam" for a long times since 1400 years ago.

so the modern thais and laotians are really the same people? also, isn't assam located in northeastern india?

Oops. Forgot to answer another question.

The Tai people back then were probably lighter-skinned than today's Thai or Khmer. They became darker when they moved in Southeast Asia and intermarried with local Mon, Khmer, Malay and other Southeast Asians. Northern Thai had less intermarriage with Khmer or Malay, so they are more light-skinned than Central Thai or Southern Thai.

Bangkokian Thai, however, have become the most light-skinned because of the recent Chinese intermarriage/assimilation.

Long time ago, yes. But today different Tai-speaking people would deny they are the same people.

Assam is in Northeastern India. Some centuries ago the ruling classes of that area were the animist Tai-speaking people called Tai Ahom or Tai Assam. But during the last few centuries the Tai Ahom expanded their territorries South over a much larger Hindu population and they themselves became Hindu and spoke Indo-European languages. Eventually, they became totally absorbed into the Hindu society. Records in the Tai Ahom language still remained and there were palace ruins of the Ahom dynasty. Some linguists think Assam is a variation of the word Siam/Syam/Siem/Shan.

this is interesting cuz assam is a region inhabited by a lot of mon-khmer speakign people call the khasi and some other tribal people who also speak mon-khmer. their old religion was shakta believe to be a branch of hinduism.

^ are you bishojou_hunter???!

or that dood who came into af talkin about he's a khasi

don't know what you're talking about. if you're wondering, no i'm not bishouj or the other guy.

haha im just playing :P

About the Khasi, just found this for you:
http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/EthnoAtlas/Hmar/Cult_dir/Culture.7852

The Khasi speak a Mon-Khmer language of the Austro-Asiatic family. In 1842, writing was introduced by the Methodist missionaries, who applied the Roman alphabet to the Cherrapunji dialect of Khasi. According to the 1951 census of India, the total Khasi population in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills District was 363,599 (Nkane 1967: 95).

Of all the deities in the Khasi pantheon, the unnamed God and Goddess are the most important. The God is characterized as powerful and merciful, yet also passive; the Goddess is closer to the individual. Divination by reading eggshells and entrails is practiced. Sacrifice is performed to explain and remedy misfortune.

And this is about the Tai Ahom:
- In 1228, Sukaphaa, a Shan prince established the Ahom kingdom in the Brahmaputra valley in Assam
- The Ahom is a Tai language. Its script was probably derived from the Brahmi script.
- Over time, they adopted the Assamese language and were converted to Hinduism. Ahom today is an extinct language.
- In the first part of the 19th century, the Burmese army invaded the Ahom kingdom and set up a puppet Ahom king.
- The Yandaboo treaty in 1826 replaced the Burmese with the British and converted the Ahom kingdom into a principality and which marked the end of the Ahom rule.
- Today 8,000,000 Assamese speakers claim to be of Ahom descent (A. Diller 1990).

my bad vince. the khasis live in the meghalaya hills not assam. assam is near it though.

Siam or Ar Seam is mean people who live in the basin of a river.
in ancient Yunnan language the word ai or ar is mean man or people and seam or siam mean the basin of a river...

i don't know if this is true but i found this.

http://www2.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/thailand.htm

From the style and academic quality, I thought it was an essay by an undergraduate student. Then I saw it was a work of this economic professor I wouldn't want to take a class with this guy And I don't think this essay is a credible source.

There is no vocal difference between the word "Thai" and "Tai." In the Thai/Tai languages, "th" and "t" have the same pronunciation. In the Thai language, "th" and "t" are both represented with the "ท" consonant (as in ไทย and ไท)

So his aspirated/unaspirated claim is just craps in his own fantasy. Not academically acceptable. Actually, there are more craps I saw in his essay but they're not related to this topic. So I'm gonna stop here.

vince!!!!!! dont be mad be happy

Wow, Tais migrating to SEA around 100ad? 1000Ad is more elike it. Mon and Khmer Kingdons around that time...? Give me a break, Funan didn't crumble yet around that time and the word "Khmer" wasn't even coined yet.