Acronym mania

Like in other cultures, Thai also like to abbreviate things and use acronyms a lot, especially with the sometime long and complicate names in the administration. But what is special is the custom to abbreviate the English translations as well, or even create only an English term and abbreviate it then.

The whole thing already starts with something simple like postal address. These consist of the name of province, district, subdistrict and village, but instead of the Thai words for these administrative levels one usually sees just the first letter. And even more, the central district named "Mueang" with the province name is shortened to just "Mueang". And even the short word Muban gets shortened to just Mu. One simple example:

จ.สุราษฎร์ธานี	จังหวัดสุราษฎร์ธานี	Surat Thani province
อ.เมือง	อำเภอเมืองสุราษฎร์ธานี	Mueang Surat Thani district
ต.บางใบไม้	ตำบลบางใบไม้	Bang Bai Mai subdistrict
หมู่ที่ 1	หมู่บ้านที่ 1	Village 1

Which is the address of the Tambon (Subdistrict) administrative organization (TAO or SAO) of the subdistrict. In Thai this is abbreviated อบต., short for องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบล. It's not only abbreviated in written texts, also when talking about this office it's simply O Bo To. Sometimes in the URL of websites this is also romanized as ABT.

Very similar is the abbreviation for the higher level of local administration, the Provincial administrative organization. In English it's PAO, in Thai อบจ., short for องค์การบริหารส่วนจังหวัด. Or the term to cover all the local administrative units อปท. (องค์กรปกครองส่วนท้องถิ่น).

But the acronyms even more interesting are those which come into Thai via English. The most famous one is of course OTOP for One Tambon One Product, the project to give locally produced articles a better marketing. Since to listen is the corresponding podcast of the language guy. Here an English acronym for a Thai project kind of became a word on its own in Thai now.

Another example, much less famous, is the Small Medium Large (SML) village fund project. Once one of the populist project of form prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, it was still active last year, though somewhat remodeled in the meantime. The DOPA (Department of Provincial Administration) still has the project website online. In fact, the Thai name for this project โครงการพัฒนาศักยภาพของหมู่บ้านและชุมชน (system of development possibilities of villages and communities) does not have any small, medium or large in it anymore.

For a fun-read on acronyms there's this nice satire by Matt, formerly in Thailand and now on Timor-Leste.