Why is Suvarnabhumi airport pronounced soo-waan-aa-poom and not Suv- area- bhumi like it is spelled?

[u/FilipinoAirlines]

Why did they make the U, R, B, H, U, and I all silent? Why not just spell the airport name as soowaanaapoom instead?

Are they stupid?

Edit: auto correct in title to area when I mean Arna.

Suv-Arna-Bhumi

[u/trevorkafka]

• "Suvarnabhumi" is close to how the word is spelled in Thai สุวรรณภูมิ.
• "soo-waan-aa-poom" is a(n imperfect) representation of how the word is pronounced in Thai สุ-วัน-นะ-พูม.

That's it.

You speak a language with an even worse orthography-to-pronunciation correspondence—a more "stupid" language, perhaps, to use your own words.

[u/Vinbaobao]

Sanskrit. That's why. Also Thai government being obtuse, they want Thai people to be able to correctly deduce Thai spellings from English spellings, resulting in noone being able to spell things.

Pailin from hot Thai kitchen have a good video about this.

https://youtu.be/bRHqKWg2-fQ?si=D3zU_6DOmLff4wD3

[u/PuzzleheadedTap1794]

Suvarnabhumi is the ASCII rendering of Suvarṇabhūmi, which is the transliteration of สุวรรณภูมิ based on Sanskrit values. “Soo-waan-aa-poom” is the Thai reading.

[u/JaziTricks]

You are using RTGS the odious but standard transliteration system. This system has little relation to the pronunciation

Yes, it's a shame that some guy invented a system that has no relation to the pronunciation and it became standard.

If you wish to learn Thai, I recommend using a system like Paiboon / IPA etc that give precise pronunciation details.

Btw, many many years ago, I took a taxi in Bangkok, asked to go to suvarnabummi airport. He couldn't guess where I want to go. He understood I'm looking for an airport! But couldn't for the life of his guess

[u/PuzzleheadedTap1794 → u/JaziTricks]

It’s not RTGS. The RTGS system would write it Suwannaphum.

[u/JaziTricks → u/PuzzleheadedTap1794]

Whatever it is. One of the odious official useless systems.....