Learn Ahom Archive
Ever wondered what Serkapha, Serhetpangpha, etc mean? Today we will learn the meaning of ALL Ahom Kings names along with meaning of other historical names like Lachet, Mula, etc.
The Ser/Hsö Clan
All Ahom Kings belonged to the Ser/Hsö which was the ruling tiger clan of Tais. This clan names being derived from natural entities probably has its roots in Ancient China where people were named after totems (horse, tiger, etc). For example Chinese Businessmen Jack Ma’s Chinese name is Ma Yun (马云) which literally translates to Horse Cloud or Horse running through clouds.
Ahom (Shan) Kings names are equally fascinating. In Serkapha, Ser - ᥔᥫᥴ means tiger kā - ᥐᥣᥲ means place and phâ - ᥚᥣᥳ means sky/heaven or the tiger from heaven. Note that there is no actual preposition from
but based on visualization of tiger and heaven, we imply the meaning as the Tiger at or from Heaven. Pretty much same as ancient Chinese - very vague and open to multiple interpretations.
Mispronounciation of Ser
Perhaps it would be very important to address all the wrong pronounciations such as Sukapha, Seukapha, Siukapha, etc. The word Siu (สิว) literally means pimple, so Siukapha actually means pimple from Heaven ! But why and how did this happen?
Bengali-Assamese there is no schwa /ə/. Hindi has it, but Bengali-Assamese doesn't.. So they changed it to Sukapha (in assamese script) and since ppl literaly forgot to read Ahom script everyone including the Ahom priests started pronouncing it as Sukapha
Now this problem is not just in Assamese but also in Chinese as Serkhanpha (သိူဝ်ၶၢၼ်ႇၾႃႉ) becomes SīKěfǎ (思可法) in Chinese. A lot of foreign-language words are changed when pronounced in Assamese (such as apple to aapel, namak to nimok) so same thing happened here but main problem is that even Ahom people are mispronouncing their own Kings names !!
Saying Sukapha/Siukapha instead of Serkapha is not just wrong, it is horribly wrong. As siu means pimple, so siu-ka-pha means the pimple from heaven.
In Tai, mispelling or mispronounciation of even one word can change its entire meaning. Precisely because it is so information-dense language special attention should be given in pronouncing all words correctly atleast the vowels, if not the tones.
Meaning of Ahom King Names
The following table lists names of all Ahom Kings (leaving out the ones without any Dai name)
| Roman | Ahom | Meaning | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Serkapha | sEw ka@ fa$ | Tiger from Heaven (lit. tiger-place-sky) |
|
Serteupha | sEw tCw# fa$ | Tiger walking in Heaven (lit. tiger-walk-sky) |
|
Serbinpha | sEw Binq fa$ | Tiger flying in Heaven (lit. tiger-fly-sky) |
|
Serkhangpha | sEw x,[q# fa$ | Tiger roaring in Heaven (lit. tiger-roar-sky) |
|
Serterpha | sEw tEw$ fa$ | Tiger touching the Heavens (lit. tiger-touch-sky) |
|
Tao Khamti | tw@ xmq# tI@ | Come from Golden Place (lit. come-gold-place) |
|
Serdangpha | sEw d,[q! fa$ | Spotted Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-spotted-sky) |
|
Seryangpha | sEw y[q@ fa$ | Glittering Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-glitter-sky) |
|
Serphakpha | sEw f,kq@ fa$ | Glittering Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-glitter-sky) |
|
Sersaenpha | sEw sVnq@ fa$ | Beautiful Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-beautiful-sky) |
|
Serhaenpha | sEw hVnq fa$ | Tiger looking at Heaven (lit. tiger-look-sky) |
|
Serpaempha | sEw pVmq fa$ | Little Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-little-sky) |
|
Serhongmerng | sEw hU[q mE[q# | Famed Tiger of Country (lit. tiger-fame-country) |
|
Serkerngmerng | sEw kE[q! mE[q# | Tiger Suitable for the Country (lit. tiger-suitable-country) |
|
Serkhampha | sEw xmq# fa$ | Golden Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-gold-sky) |
|
Sersaengpha | sEw sV[q fa$ | Diamond Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-diamond-sky) |
|
Serhampha* | sEw h,mq# fa$ | Tiger isolated in Heaven (lit. tiger-isolated-sky) |
|
Sertengpha | sEw tC[q$ fa$ | Heaven Striking Tiger (lit. tiger-strike-sky) |
|
Sertamla | sEw tmq# la! | Tiger of Emerald (မြ - emerald) |
|
Serpangmerng | sEw p,[q# mE[q# | Tiger who lifts the Country (lit. tiger-lift-country) |
|
Sernyatpha | sEw Ntq@ fa$ | Glittering Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-glitter-sky) |
|
Serkampha | sEw kmq fa$ | Heaven Grasping Tiger (lit. tiger-grasp-sky) |
|
Serhong | sEw hU[q | Time of wide-known fame (lit. tiger-fame) |
|
Seryenpha | sEw yCnq fa$ | Calm/Gracious Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-gracious-sky) |
|
Serdoipha | sEw doj fa$ | Mountain Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-hill-sky) |
|
Serlekpha | sEw lCkq# fa$ | Iron Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-iron-sky) |
|
Serpatpha | sEw ptq@ fa$ | Gem Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-gem-sky) |
|
Serkhongpha | sEw xU[q# fa$ | Tiger of Heavenly Abode (lit. tiger-gem-sky) |
|
Sertanpha | sEw tnq# fa$ | Tiger of Heaven (tán, kā, tī = place) |
|
Sernaenpha | sEw nVnq! fa$ | Skilled Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-skill-sky) |
|
Serhimpha | sEw himq# fa$ | Tiger on the side of Heaven (rim/him written as 𑜍𑜪𑜧) |
|
Seryeupha | sEw yCw fa$ | Tiger thinking in Heaven (tiger-think-sky) |
|
Serhetpangpha | sEw hCtq# p,[q# fa$ | Tiger who lifts the Heavens (tiger-think-sky) |
|
Serkerngpha | sEw kE[q! fa$ | Tiger Suitable for Heaven (lit. tiger-suitable-sky) |
|
Serdaengpha | sEw dE[q fa$ | Red Tiger of Heaven (lit. tiger-suitable-sky) |
Other Historical Names
These are other Ancient Dai names as recorded in written Ahom History
| Roman | Ahom | Meaning | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Nang Mula | n,[q# mU!la$ | from Pali မူလ (mula) meaning root or origin |
|
Nang Rak | n,[q# rkq$ | Lady of Love |
|
Nang Saeng | n,[q# sV[q | Lady of Diamond |
|
Phraseng | Sfa# sV[q | Excellent Diamond (phra here means vara/ဝရ or excellent) |
|
Phrasengmerng | Sfa# sV[q mE[q# | Excellent Diamond of the country |
|
Phrakham | Sfa# xmq# | Excellent Gold |
|
Konkham | konq xmq# | Lump of Gold (ᦂᦸᧃᧉ - lump) |
|
Konseng | konq sV[q | Lump of Diamond |
|
Petkham | pCtq# xmq# | Golden Duck |
|
Khampeng | xmq# pV[q# | Treasured Gold |
|
Lachet -NOT Lachit | lacCtq# | Number Seven (la - name affix) |
|
Lasheng | lasV[q | Jewel/Diamond |
|
Lapet | lapVtq! | Number Eight |
|
Lasham | las,mq | Number Three |
|
La Ngi | la[I# | Deer |
|
Laluk | lalukq@ | Son |
|
Lahon | lahonq | Crest of Bird |
Do Tones matter in names?
Of course they do. I have not added diacritics for the sake of layman reading but the Shan tonal markers are a very important information.
Ser means tiger and Sēr means shirt. So Serkāfâ means tiger from Heaven and Sērkāfâ means the shirt from heaven !! There is a reason why Chinese people get so mad at English speakers unable to pronounce their name because they also don’t get the tones right. So I have added audio for the benefit of non-Tai speakers on how to pronounce these words correctly.
One can be lazy in romanization and not use diacritics but during actual speech it is very important to say all tones correctly. It is worthwhile noting that I have only picked the most sensible interpretation though there can be some more interpretations for example yèn (tame) instead of yen (tranquil) though former is Burmese in origin. And similarly têng (strike) instead of tēng (zenith) to mean striking heaven instead of zenith of heaven though one can argue both make sense..
The debate on ru vs ho
So many people say Rupak, rureng, rusao which is completely wrong along with pharu. Wherever this ru-word comes it is completely wrong, and this happens cause of inability or incompetence to read Tai manuscripts. Some Comparative Tai, (Thai/Lue/Shan) หู / ᦠᦴ / ႁူ / hu - ear หัว / ᦷᦠ / ႁူဝ် / ho - head Updating the same with Old-Ahom Initials, 𑜍𑜥𑜈𑜫 (ro) head 𑜍𑜥 (ru) ear But then why did I said Ho instead of Ro, and Heng instead of Reng for thousand to make it Huheng.. Answer is that both words are found in Ahom manuscripts. And for modernization we have to completely evolve the [r] consonant to [h] atleast in spoken. Just think how 'pharo' will sound instead of 'phaho.' And hopak is already a surname used by the Khamti people (eg Zustin Hopak)
Sing vs Saeng, Mung vs Merng etc
Only person who cannot read Tai manuscripts or has no knowledge of Tai will raise such questions but in Phake and Khamti manuscripts, sing, seng, saeng all are written as ꩬိင်. The different graphemes for medial /e/ and /ɛ/ were created in 1958 after Shan script reform movement to give us သဵင် and သႅင်. Before that even Shans had this same problem and no one could really read Tai manuscripts except those who had written the manuscript and knew what they had written. So this phonetic feature of Tai scripts is after recent reform (Lao didn't reform their script until 1975 and Khamtis not until 2003). I have written all these in reform Ahom script so you will not make weird mistakes like Chaosing, Chaosinglung or Lantaimung etc
Surname always comes first
You can see how the name is written as Thaomerng Chaokham and NOT as Chaokham Thaomerng. That would have been completely wrong in Tai language. For eg, in kún dee, the word kún (person) comes first and dee (good) comes afterward. The listener first learns of the person and then any additional details about him
The name Tunkhang Ngikham, is literally read as the Tunkhang-born whose name is Ngikham. In Kim-Jeung-Eun (김정은) his first name Kim is his family name going back to the Kim dynasty and Jeung meaning righteous and Eun meaning kind or literally meaning “the Kim who is both righteous and kind”
This can be seen in Ahom King names too, the clan they belonged to (Ser) always came first as in Serkapha ( the tiger from heaven), Serhongmerng (the famed tiger of the country), etc
By having surname first you are not just following the original Tai tradition but also giving more meaning to your name and a greater sense of purpose to all future generations to live upto their family name that comes before their own name. Keeping your own name first and family name afterwards is egoistic and non-Tai
Also Ref
Modern Dai Ahom names
Meaning of Ahom surnames/peerage titles
The Paik system remains a key lens through which the political and social organization of the Ahom kingdom can be understood.