Talk:Wat Phra Singh

Name
Is "Wat Phra Singh Woramahaviharn" an established name of this temple or should it be transcribed according to RTGS, which should be Wat Phra Sing Woramahawihan.

When I google it, there are all kinds of possible roman transliteration of this, so perhaps we should just stick to some kind of standard?

Also, should the name of the entire page be renamed to "Wat Phra Sing" like the French? SeeingMole (talk) 05:09, 12 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Some remarks:
 * สิงห์ is sing (RTGS), with สิ (si), ง (ng) and ห์ (ha, in fact an 'h' with implicit vowel 'a'), where the diacritic above the 'ha' means silent. RTGS is a kind of simplified IPA (phonetic), so what is silent, is not transcribed. At the entrance of the temple compound we see WAT PHRASINGH, which is not according to RTGS.
 * Anglicization is the source of transcribing วิหาร as viharn. It is not clear why วัด is transcribed as wat and วิหาร as viharn, both start with the same ว ! But probably its origine 'vihara' is an explanation. Furthermore in (stiff upper lip?) English an 'r' is not really pronounced, but it makes the vowel in front of it sound longer. This is what must be done with the 'a' in wihan (RTGS transcription of วิหาร ). But of course Americans DO pronounce the 'r' in viharn!
 * In fact Woramahawihan is not a single word, but 3 separate words: Wora Maha Wihan. For me it is strange that วร is transcribed as 'wora'. The rule about implicit vowels says an open syllable gets an implicit 'a', and a closed syllable gets an implicit 'o'. So, if วร is a single syllable word, it would be 'won', but as a double syllable word it would be 'wara', not 'wora'!
 * So, in Thailand you can see many different transcriptions for the same Thai text. On the English Wikipedia pages about Thailand a decision has to be made about the transcription to be used. RTGS is a more or less official system, described in a document. Choosing RTGS would implicate renaming the page to Wat Phra Sing.
 * --FredTC (talk) 09:05, 12 June 2013 (UTC)


 * วร is an exception in that it may be pronounced as either wara or wora. Romanised Thai temple names are a headache to deal with, though, so I don't really have an opinion here. --Paul_012 (talk) 18:15, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd rather call it "Romanization" than "Anglicization" which implies it's some kind of based on English orthography. When scrutinizing RTGS carefully, it's pretty obvious it's not based on English orthography. For example the choice of using th to represent the ท sound.

I also don't like the frequent use of r in order to denote a long vowel, such as karn, korn, even though for English speakers, they may be silent and pronounced with a long vowel as intended, in most other languages, the r will be clearly pronounced with a rolling of the tongue. For non-English speakers, this can actually make them pronounce words incorrectly. SeeingMole (talk) 04:50, 13 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The problem with changing the name of the article from "Wat Phra Singh" to the RTGS "Wat Phra Sing" is WP:COMMONNAME. The former, non-RTGS transcription is more established (338.000 vs 61.400 hits on Google) and as such has preference over the RTGS transcription. - Takeaway (talk) 14:07, 13 June 2013 (UTC)


 * What about Wat Phra Sing, Chiang Rai? Is that also the case? --Paul_012 (talk) 19:41, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

The following website [|Website] offers the traditional name for the temple:
 * วัดพระสิงห์วรมหาวิหาร
 * But also the name of the Buddha image for which it is (mis?)named:
 * พุทธสิหิงค์
 * Which doesn't appear to contain the word for "lion".
 * Kortoso (talk) 03:44, 17 September 2022 (UTC)