A Spatio-Temporal Study on the Community Level Place Names of around the Dangrek Mountains Area

Abstract

Almost of all rural villages in the northeast of Thailand have their brief historical records of establishment, and original places of their early migrants are often mentioned. But identifying actual places of these names tends to be difficult, because place names are not always stable for long. It is essential to arrange spatio-temporal integration of place names which can offer useful information to a study to discover long term dynamism of development in rural areas.The author has been collecting old place names of village level from various maps covering the northeast of Thailand which were published from early to middle 20th century. Not a few place names in the northeast of Thailand are found that words of other than Thai language are used. For not to leave these village names as just phonetic symbols, but for to understand the background of communities, place names from areas beyond the national boundary around the Dangrek Mountains have been collected. Many native non-Thai words in place names described in Thai can be identified as phonetic transcription from Khmer words. Thus, the background of such villages can become understandable.