Talk:Chao Phraya River

The chao phraya bit as in nobility rank seems a little inaccurate, phraya is a rank in nobilities all right, and chao refers to nobilities in general but there is no "Chao Phraya" rank that I know of, would anyone care to correct me? also the "River of Kings" is a gimmick name for tourist

As this is a wiki you are free to correct whatever you think is wrong. However the fact that Chao Phraya was a rank I have from the book "The Provincial Administration of Siam 1892-1915" by Tej Bunnag, which says in chapter 1:

The ranks of the nobility from the bottom upwards were the Khun, Luang, Phra, Phraya, Chao Phraya, and Somdet Chao Phraya. With the rank went a title, which in turn was linked to an office.

Sadly that's all I know about those titles, otherwise I would have written an article Nobility in Thailand already :-) andy 17:34, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

My Thai tutor tells me that this title was used in the Ayutthaya period and is now archaic. Perhaps you could mention this in the article to silence your critics (unless you know otherwise). ;-) -- Heron 17:46, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well, the title of book suggests that they were still in use during King Chulalongkorns reign, so probably they were no longer used as part of his many reforms. So we can add a "former", that should fit both. andy 15:22, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'll leave the article as it is then, the title starts to rings a bells a bit, my mistakes. what about the "River of Kings" though? I feels that should go. --Bobbagum 11:37, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Could we have the pronunciation and (possibly) the meaning of the Thai name? I don't read Thai!

Bathrobe 10:21, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The meaning of the name is described in the last paragraph. In IPA it's pronunciation is something like mɛ̂ɛ náam câaw phrá? ja (that's what http://www.arts.chula.ac.th/%7Eling/tts/ creates, not sure if it's correct). On Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Thailand-related articles) there's some discussion about how to display the pronunciation best, so far no full guideline has been established. andy 11:32, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Etymology

“ Research has not found that the term Chao Phraya appeared in any historical sources until later in the Rattanakosin era. (1782 – 1932) ”

• Geographical Notes on Siam, with a New Map of the Lower Part of the Menam River H Parkes - Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, 1856
• General report on irrigation and drainage in the lower Menam valley H Van der Heide - Ministry of Agriculture, Bangkok, 1903
• Obituary: Mr. Holt Hallett MH Hallett - Geographical Journal, 1911 - JSTOR... Among the geographical results was the determination of the courses of various upper branches of the Menam. Returning, Mr. Hallett descended the Meping and Menam to Bangkok. ...
• Outline of the geology of Siam with reference to petroleum W Lee - AAPG Bulletin, 1927 - search.datapages.com ... Abstract: Weathering and alteration of the rocks are deep. There are three topographic provinces: the drainage basin of MeNam River, the Korat Plateau, and Siamese Malaya. The Paleozoic rocks of the MeNam basin and Siamese Malaya are metamorphic. ...
• Some phases of land utilization in Siam CC Zimmerman - Geographical Review, 1937 - JSTOR ...THE INDO-CHINESE PENINSULA The peninsula of southeastern Asia falls roughly into four regions: the Malay subpeninsula and the regions drained primarily by three river valleys, the Irrawaddy, the Menam Chao Bhraya (hereafter called the Menam), and the Mekong. ...

--Pawyilee (talk) 18:29, 2 August 2010 (UTC)