Some Kelantan place names
This short note by Reginald J. Bee provides etymological interpretations of nine place names in Kelantan, illustrating the poetic and sympathetic manner in which Malay speakers record local impressions in toponymy (p. 138).
Summary
Bee opens by observing that the interpretation of Malay place names is complicated by successive layers of religious thought grafted onto original pagan beliefs, combined with regional corruptions and idioms. He then proceeds to explain individual names: Tabal (from Patani dialect “place of drying sails”), Temangan (from “timbangan,” a weighing scale, referencing two nearby hills), Rantau Panjang (a long line of railway construction houses), Tumpat (named after a local type of cakes rather than the word for a filled-up place), Manek Urai (from a rapid in the Sungai Lebir, associated with a legend of a Pawang’s fairy dance), Kuala Krai (formerly Mengkubang, named after a rock said to be a Pawang’s grave), Temiang (named by the Pangan tribe for dense thickets in the upper reaches), Kemubu (“place of many fish traps”), and Gunong Sitong (a peak with a nose-shaped summit, whose real name is Gunong Restong, distinct from the neighbouring Gunong Ayam) (p. 138).