{"id":17698,"date":"2018-10-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-14T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2018\/10\/15\/lion-city-is-only-one-interpretation-of-singapura\/"},"modified":"2021-02-08T16:27:59","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T08:27:59","slug":"lion-city-is-only-one-interpretation-of-singapura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2018\/10\/15\/lion-city-is-only-one-interpretation-of-singapura\/","title":{"rendered":"Lion City is Only One Interpretation of Singapura"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Variables and Constants” by Pritish Bhattacharya from SRN’s SG Photobank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The story of Sang Nila Utama spotting a lion and naming the island Singapura, Lion City might be familiar for many, but NUS historian Peter Borschberg suggests this is only one way of interpreting the term. Speaking at a public lecture on 9 October, Associate Professor Borschberg explained how “Singapura” is possibly translated from Malay into Portuguese as false demora, which means a tricky place to stay. Alternatively, maps in the early 1500s use the name of Baxingpara, which can be broken down into a combination of various language terms: “bar” means a kingdom of a coastal region, “xin” means “China,” and “gopara” means “gateway.”<\/span><\/div>\n
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A\/P Borschberg, who has been studying European records of the region for the past 20 years, states that there are about 1,000 references to the island as Singapura in languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch. These mostly come from maritime records and refer to the waters around Singapore as potential areas for building infrastructure. With records dating much earlier than Raffles’ arrival, A\/P Borschberg suggests that these artefacts raise questions about a narrative that applauds Raffles’ ingenuity in his supposedly unique vision for Singapore. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A\/P Borschberg’s lecture is part of the ongoing Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre’s lecture series called 1819 and Before: Singapore’s Pasts. The dates are being firmed up for the next two lectures, which will cover terrestrial and marine archaeology in Singapore.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Find out more here<\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The story of Sang Nila Utama spotting a lion and naming the island Singapura, Lion City might be familiar for many, but NUS historian Peter Borschberg suggests this is only one way of interpreting the term. Speaking at a public lecture on 9 October, Associate Professor Borschberg explained how “Singapura” is possibly translated from Malay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":247,"featured_media":17699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4529],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/247"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17698"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28309,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17698\/revisions\/28309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}