From “Sunakha” to “Maa”: An Observation on the Context of Language, Society and Religion

Abstract

This academic article entitled “from Sunakha to Maa: an observation on the context of languages, society and religions” consists of the objectives to present an observation on the terms and their meanings of Pali ‘sunakha’ (shunaka, Sanskrit) and explore the use of the term ‘maa’ (dog) in relation to the context of Thai society. As studied, it was found that originally the term ‘sunakha’ has positive meanings and all the meanings can be divided into 5 groups namely; 1) an animal has beautiful nails; it does not hide its nails 2) an animal obeys the owner; it obeys the words and commands after listening to the sounds of owner 3) an animal can hunt others such as rabbits etc., 4) an animal is the fleet one and 5) an animal prefers to walk around. Due to the behavior of dog freely walked around, it may make people unsatisfied with doing some things. Therefore, people mostly gave their negative views toward the dog in the context of Thai society until they used the term ‘maa’ meaning rude and impolite. To support the earlier mentioned matter, it can be observed on the different idioms related to dog such as maa moo (bullying one man in large numbers) etc. Thai people mostly used such the idioms in the negative view.