Central Regional Dialect?

[CSS]

I just returned from a short trip to Ang Thong (อ่างทอง) and it reminded me of something I've thought before, that it seems to me central Thai isn't simply standard Thai but a dialect in and of itself, apart from standard schoolroom Thai.

A little on my Thai background to give reference for where my impression came from: I learned my first Thai during 3 months of intensive Thai study (5 hours/day 5 days/week) while living with a host family in Ang Thong (อ่างทอง). So my base was central/standard Thai. Then I lived in a small village in Nongkhai for two years mixing my thai with Essan but still primarily communicating in central Thai. Then I moved to Chiang Rai and have lived here for two years mixing my central/essan Thai with northern and the Thai-as-a-2nd-language spoken by hilltribe people. So, I've spoken central/standard Thai consistently with people from Essan and the North. Obviously, when they speak Essan or Northern it's a whole new game and I've done my best to pick up each.

However, whenever I return to the Central provinces (Bangkok and Angthong mostly) I notice that they don't speak Central/standard Thai like my friends up north or in the Essan speak Central/standard Thai. I might just think my friends outside the central region simply don't speak it well, or with a regional accent, however, just like I know when my friends from Essan or up North have switched from their regional dialect to Central/standard Thai, I can hear my friends in the Central switch also, as if there is a Central dialect aside from standard Thai that they can choose to speak or choose not to speak. It might be the difference between a formal and a non-formal Central/standard Thai. What is for certain is that I know from the first sentence whether the person I'm talking to is from the Central.

Basically, I feel like along with the commonly held Essan, Northern, and Southern dialects there is a Central dialect and then there is Standard schoolroom or formal Thai, granted that the first three are much more distinct from Standard schoolroom Thai than the first three but that Central Thai still is different than Standard schoolroom Thai.

I've never seen any books talk about this linguistic distinction in the Central provinces and was wondering if anyone else has noticed this. I could certainly be mistaken and there could be many other explanations for what I'm hearing so I was just wondering what some of you guys might think? It might also be nothing more than Central slang and as I have never spent much time in the Central regions (aside from the first three months while my Thai was minimal) that I'm projecting much more into the slang than there is.

[meadish_sweetball]

You are probably right. If you really get into it, you may be able to find more or less pronounced differences even between areas of the Central Plains.

A Standard Language by necessity is well suited for formal, clear communication, but when we let our hair down, we need "our own" terms to signify who "we" are.

It happens on a micro level (group of friends, school year, workplace) as well as on a macro level (village, town, province).

If man really had a common ancestor (and did not develop from a number of different ones), I think this is how different languages came about in the first place.

[realthaideal]

"It happens on a micro level (group of friends, school year, workplace) as well as on a macro level (village, town, province).

If man really had a common ancestor (and did not develop from a number of different ones), I think this is how different languages came about in the first place."

Deep Meadish, deep. I think many of us language enthusiasts often spend a good amount of brain power trying to understand just what language means and how it got the way it got. And where it's going. I love it. I speak 4 langs myself, to differing degrees of fluency.

I even believe we speak our own different versions of each language. This personal level of language is what makes it possible to tell who wrote something just by how they worded things. Same idea as reading an email from a friend and hearing them reading it to you.

I'll go one more on tripping out to language - we are different people when we speak other languages. If I were to speak Thai the way I speak English, like an American from LA, that would just be bad. That guy is no good here. I'm the 'Thai me' when I speak Thai. I think that's where many ppl fall flat trying to get into Thai - they don't step into Thainess, and therefore can't wrap their heads around the language either.

and bakc to the main topic here.....

My TGF is a Lanna girl and speaks Kam Meuang to everybody except when doing business. But the accent and even some of the words she calls upon are very different depending if she's in Chiang Mai proper, or back home in her little village up in Chiang Rai. The accent gets soo deep it's amazing. I notice too that if I imitate her baan nok accent in CHiang Mai people can't place it contextually. But in her village it helps since speaking stiff proper Thai, or toned down 'modern' CM Kam Meuang seems as improper as English would feel with them.

So yeah, Central Thai has alot of regional things going on. I love that about this place. Wherever you go there's always a tweak you can learn to give to your accent, and a few new words that only one place will get. They all know what they hear on the news and tv, but love their regional sounds. For me that's real Thai pride. And nothing like the feeling I get when they hear me slip in something they don't expect me to know. I'm a Falang gone local, yo !

[CSS]

Thank you both for your comments; quite interesting. Language, its origins and its development is very fascinating. I apologize for being so slow in recognizing you.

There are lots of threads to pursue in your responses. I particularly like the point that language is contextual to the culture, thus necessitating that you take on your Thai personality when speaking Thai to really speak it well. I completely agree that this is a stumbling block where many Thai language learners falter. I for one often will try to force an American emotion into what I'm saying and it will bring the whole thing down. One really does need to release themself and immerse themself in "being Thai" to speak Thai well. I guess you have to feel it as much as speak it/know it.

Thailand is a great place to be for languages as it still does have so many distinctions within a relatively small area. My friends in Nongkhai, when visitors came in to our village of Songkhom, could tell me from what city in Nongkhai they came from based on their accent. That's just variation from city to city. I just heard a speaker the other day relating his educational experience receiving a grant to study in BKK but how everyone made fun of his hillbilly suphanburi accent. I was also talking to our accounting/administrative assistant (she's akha) and she was telling me how many hilltribe kids actually go to AngThong to study because there are so many Wats that will accept them, feed them and teach them for free. She spoke of how many of her friends went but when they came back they spoke funny and used different words to refer to themself in first person and to refer to close friends when speaking with close friends than people in the north use. (That could be an interesting thread, all the different ways to refer to oneself based on context, intimacy, gender age, location)

I do also agree with you that the distinction isn't on the level to change the books and start talking about a Central dialect alongside a Essan dialect and so forth. It is probably more on the level of expressing language personally among your group and the accents that develop.

I think the problem I've fallen into is that my "standard" thai has become all mixed up (and probably incorrect most of the time) for mixing together how a Essan person speaks standard thai, and how a northern person speaks standard thai, and how a hilltribe person speaks standard thai.

Meadish, your comment made me think about when I return to the states and particularly when I'm around teenagers back in the states, they definitely have developed an English language that I don't speak. Which also makes me think what I was hearing as much as anything was the slang of youth to older working classes as much as anything else also.

I'll finish with one little question. One thing in particular I always hear in the central among people less than 30 years old is a shortened version of เปล่า or รึเปล่า they always say things like เอาเปล่า but super shortened to just come out like a short puff of air. If you've heard this how would you write it? บ๋ะ maybe?

[sabaijai]

There are different accents throughout central Thailand. Suphanburi natives have a very distinctive accent, as do Thais from Ang Thong, Kanchanaburi and Ayuthaya. It is Bangkok Thai that is identified as 'central Thai', the educational standard. Natives of provinces directly adjacent to BKK tend to speak BKK Thai, ie., Pathum Thani, Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan. I lived in Chainat for awhile and it seeemed to me that Chainat natives had a localised pronunciation as well, shared with neighbouring Singburi. The differences range from subtle to quite noticeable, depending on parentage, the level of education and work experience, it seems to me.

[CSS]

There are different accents throughout central Thailand. Suphanburi natives have a very distinctive accent, as do Thais from Ang Thong, Kanchanaburi and Ayuthaya. It is Bangkok Thai that is identified as 'central Thai', the educational standard. Natives of provinces directly adjacent to BKK tend to speak BKK Thai, ie., Pathum Thani, Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan. I lived in Chainat for awhile and it seeemed to me that Chainat natives had a localised pronunciation as well, shared with neighbouring Singburi. The differences range from subtle to quite noticeable, depending on parentage, the level of education and work experience, it seems to me.

Thanks sabaijai. Now that you've pointed it out it seems obvious that I was being sloppy in lumping the central provinces in with Bangkok Standard Thai. It's interesting that areas so close geographically would still have separation linguistically. I doubt people living 50 km away from my hometown in Colorado would have any noticeable difference in speech. Though Thailand certainly isn't unique in that. I used to enjoy the differences of city spanish and rural spanish while living in Honduras. For one, they would always drop final 's' sounds.

Just as a point of interest, would you happen to know some of the more distinctive or interesting peculiarities of some of those central provinces? With something as starkly different as Essan one example would be that there are no cluster consonants, or that ช (chaw-chang) becomes ซ (Saw-So), and with northern that ค (Kaw-kwai)becomes ก (gaw-gai) or something as obvious as in the north they say เจ๊า. Does anyone know some equivalents of Ang Thong thai, or suphanburi thai, or anywhere basically.

I think it would be fun to make comparisons of different speech patterns from the different areas we all may be living in. Maybe we have stories of learning some phrase, term or tone while in one region then using it in another and being chided for it.

[Tarragona]

It is Bangkok Thai that is identified as 'central Thai', the educational standard.

And even here we're talking about an 'educated' Bangkok Thai, not the Bangkokney of the market place.

[aanon]

Just as a point of interest, would you happen to know some of the more distinctive or interesting peculiarities of some of those central provinces? With something as starkly different as Essan one example would be that there are no cluster consonants, or that ช (chaw-chang) becomes ซ (Saw-So), and with northern that ค (Kaw-kwai)becomes ก (gaw-gai) or something as obvious as in the north they say เจ๊า. Does anyone know some equivalents of Ang Thong thai, or suphanburi thai, or anywhere basically.

hi there,

i recently spent a couple of weeks in suphanburi. the 'accent' is mostly a tonal one, most obviously for words which are "low rising" tone in standard thai (eg. หนู, ขาย, สวย). when spoken in suphan thai, these words have a tone which starts much higher than normal, falls and then rises back up. you could say it's like a combination of a "falling" tone (นู่, ข้าย, ส้วย) followed by the "low rising" tone.

i also heard "low" tones pronounced as rising (สี่ (four) became สี) and "neutral" tones pronounced as "high rising" (ยาง, ยา became ย้าง, ย้า).

consonant wise, ความ became ฟาม and คลี่ became คี่. this wasn't universal though.

all the best.

ps. i don't know the official names of the various tones so hopefully my examples explain what i mean sufficiently well.

[Richard W]

consonant wise, ความ became ฟาม

Also a feature in some Bangkok accents. I've heard it transferred to English, whereby 'question' becomes 'festion'!

[semuren]

For more information on the relationships between various languages in Thailand including that of Thaiklang (the Central Thai regional language that is the base for standard Thai) and standard Thai an excellent book is:

Smally, William A. 1994. Linguistic Diversity and National Unity: Language Ecology in Thailand. University of Chicago Press.

http://www.amazon.com/Linguistic-Diversity...e/dp/0226762890