Etymology of "muang" and "luang" in Thai/South East Asia?

[ycc_swe]

Hello

The names of some (many) villages in Laos start in muang or luang. In Thailand I have seen Mae. In southern China it is meng. I have assumed meng is a change from muang into putonghua.

I had just guessed that muang could mean village in Thai. I have now studied Thai for a few weeks but muang is not the standard word for village.

What are the etymological origins of
muang
meng
mae
luang

Thanks

[linguoboy]

What are the etymological origins of
muang
meng
mae
luang

You do know that these languages have a host of homophones, not to mention several competing romanisation systems? Without examples I can't be certain what words you have in mind.

The first words is probably เมือง/ເມືອງ mư̄ang. It simply means "town" or "city" and, by extension, "country". As far as I know, it goes back to Proto-Tai, but a lot of terms relating to civilisation and politics in Thai were borrowed from Mon, Khmer, or Pali.

Here you can find links to the various Chinese characters romanised as "meng": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/meng#Mandarin. If you can find the one you have in mind, then you can look up the etymology here: http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx.

The usual meaning of แม่/ແມ່ mǣ in Thai and Lao is "mother". As a prefix, it often has the meaning "chief", e.g. แม่น้ำโขง/ແມ່ນ້ຳຂອງ mǣnamkhong "mother water river", the Thai/Lao name for the Mekong River. But, as most of the towns whose names begin with แม่ are near the border with Burma, I might investigate a Burmese etymology if I were you.

The primitive meaning of หลวง/ຫຼວງ lūang is "great" (e.g. Lao ທາງຫຼວງ thānglūang "highway" [lit. "great road"]). From that it became extended to mean "royal" or "pertaining to the state", as in the name of the Lao capital, Luang Prabang or the provincial capital Luang Namtha.

[ycc_swe]

Thank you so much for a really good reply.