Aug. 29th, 2002 03:31 pm
Minor mystery solved
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Nha trang is a resort town, Vietnam's Phuket. From an unvetted source on the 'Net:
I can only verify the first part of the etymology: /ia/, in the Chamic dialects spoken near Nha trang, means "fresh water". (I know /ia/ and nha look nothing like each other, but--trust me--in Da World, this is very close match.) So the explanation is not implausible.
On the other end, the restaurant had a certain cheap-ass cabana-style decor that would suggest the seaside. (I mean, sooner than the alpaca throw rugs hanging on the walls of the Peruvian restaurant would.) I suppose the only way to find out for sure is to eat there, though I'm always a bit leary of places with signs advertising "chop suey" in the window. It just screams "DUMBED DOWN ASIAN FOOD FOR CLUELESS ROUND EYES". It likely is, but that doesn't necessarily means it's bad
The name Nha trang is a Vietnamese pronunciation of a Cham word Eatran or Yjatan. Ea or Yja means river, and tran means reed.
I can only verify the first part of the etymology: /ia/, in the Chamic dialects spoken near Nha trang, means "fresh water". (I know /ia/ and nha look nothing like each other, but--trust me--in Da World, this is very close match.) So the explanation is not implausible.
On the other end, the restaurant had a certain cheap-ass cabana-style decor that would suggest the seaside. (I mean, sooner than the alpaca throw rugs hanging on the walls of the Peruvian restaurant would.) I suppose the only way to find out for sure is to eat there, though I'm always a bit leary of places with signs advertising "chop suey" in the window. It just screams "DUMBED DOWN ASIAN FOOD FOR CLUELESS ROUND EYES". It likely is, but that doesn't necessarily means it's bad