Are Thais...

[Gaccha]

That is interesting. According to wikipedia, which cites the CIA factbook, thais are just about now a minority:

"Tai (including Lao, who make up about ⅓ of the Thai population) 75%, Chinese 14%, other 11%"

...if we accept anyone who doesn't think they are something else are Thai.

[tw25rw]

Read the original post. It says: Thais 60%.

This implies Thai ethnicity, which I believe doesn't exist. The Tai ethnicity does (at least in ancient times). Tai and Thai are completely different things

Thailand has only been called that since 1939 (except during the Japanese presence). The word Thai refers to the nationality.

I think you're determined to eat your own hand off with this point you are making. I directly quoted the sources that I referenced. They used the word "Thai" and they must as a moral certainty have meant ethnicity. So I think we can draw a close to this digression.

Not at all. As I understand it, the word Thai means free and has refered to citizens of Thailand as a whole since 1939, not any specific ethnicity.

However Tai is an ethnic group.

It's a bit like doing a census in the UK and having options for black, white, Asian or British and only letting you choose one option.

[jdinasia]

That is interesting. According to wikipedia, which cites the CIA factbook, thais are just about now a minority:

"Tai (including Lao, who make up about ⅓ of the Thai population) 75%, Chinese 14%, other 11%"

...if we accept anyone who doesn't think they are something else are Thai.

LOL .. citing Wiki ... sad!

Note the numbers from the CIA world factbook ... and note that there is not an ethnic difference between Thai and Lao ---

Now ... are you talking about ethnicity or nationality? If you don't set the first question correctly then you can wiggle on your hook all you want (and note ... you never answered about your very very very odd statements about Udon Thani

[5tash]

Not at all. As I understand it, the word Thai means free and has refered to citizens of Thailand as a whole since 1939, not any specific ethnicity.

However Tai is an ethnic group.

It's a bit like doing a census in the UK and having options for black, white, Asian or British and only letting you choose one option.

The use of the word Thai for a nation dates back to 1939, as you say. But the meaning of the word can be used to refer to Thai nations prior to 1939. For example Sukhothai was the first Thai nation, the city of Ayutthaya was the centre of a growing Thai empire.

[Svenn]

Wasn't half of thailand, Laos awhile back anyway?

Yes, as far south as Ubon was once a part of the Kingdom of Vientiane.

Here is a question concerning racial groups, ethnicity, etc.:

We recognise that Isaan Laos and Thai are part of the same racial group (don't we?).

Yet Isaan people have their own language (never mind the precise term at the moment, language or dialect), food, and we can often identify Isaan people (as distinct from Central Thai) visually: broader face, high cheek bones, low nose bridge, etc. Do these differences constitute a racial subgroup, or simply regional variation? We could ask the same about French/English - both Caucasian, but French can often be distinguished by nose shape, for example.

The OP's post makes sense to me on a gut basis; Isaan are not the same as Central Thai, who are not the same as Jawi speaking Muslims in the south, etc. But whether these are ethnic, racial or inguistic groups, or whatever, is not clear to me, a non-anthropologist.

Cheers,

Mike

I think it's a strained argument Mike to say that there are really distinct, linguistically-based ethnic phenotypes in the Tai world. It seems more likely that people just link certain facial appearances to different social groups via popular culture axioms rather than being based on actual differences. For example, rural farmers are stereotyped as 'ugly', so any other facial characteristics associated with ugliness in the Tai mentality (such as low bridge nose, high wide cheekbones, etc.) will be associated with farmers... Isaan is a farming world, and voila you get the "Isaan phenotype." In reality, you can find poor farmer girls in Isaan that are bright white with almost caucasoid features. Granted, my gf (from Isaan), always taunts her niece as having a "Lao nose" (no bridge), but at other times "sao Lao" is sometimes deifiedly used to describe the 'chinese-ideal' (white skin, narrow nose, big eyes) that's always been popular in Thailand -this is probably due to the fact that some Luang Prabang Laotians were once one with Chiang Mai in Lanna days, and are relatively recent arrivals from the cold rainy mountains of southern china.

Thus, I think you could say there might be an aboriginal/sino-Tai polarity in the phenotypes- the aboriginal being the black-skin Khmer or proto-Negrito hunter gatherers that have lurked in the remote parts of Southeast Asia for millenia... to the most recent Tai arrivals from cold, sunless valleys in southern china that produced finer-featured individuals. That being said, any appearence even slightly between these polar opposites could be attributed to any ethnolinguistic group in the region ... only the opposite extremes themselves are safely exclusive to certain groups. Thus, don't listen to any dip$hit trying to say that the fine-featured chinese-like appearance is the 'true siamese' phenotype- its just the appearance thats made the thai ruling classes horny.

Edited November 21, 2008 by Svenn

[Gaccha]

Thus, don't listen to any dip$hit trying to say that the fine-featured chinese-like appearance is the 'true siamese' phenotype- its just the appearance thats made the thai ruling classes horny.

I really enjoyed this post, except I literally don't understand the last sentence. The appearance has made them horny? They have sexual desires because of their appearance? Did I skip a line or something?

[Svenn]

Thus, don't listen to any dip$hit trying to say that the fine-featured chinese-like appearance is the 'true siamese' phenotype- its just the appearance thats made the thai ruling classes horny.

I really enjoyed this post, except I literally don't understand the last sentence. The appearance has made them horny? They have sexual desires because of their appearance? Did I skip a line or something?

lol, what I meant was, the only reason the chinese-like appearance is idealized in thailand is because the ruling classes are horny for that appearance, not because that appearance is somehow a 'purer' version of elite thai people. It's a hard line to walk choosing what models should be idealized in popular culture- in the case of Southeast Asians, the ideal of the common people has essentially become a Han chinese person with wide southeast asian eyes, something which almost never occurs in the population. As we know, the royalty of Thailand is actually significantly of ethnically Chinese blood, so it is true that at least the popular image of average beautiful thais is becoming a minorty.

Edited November 24, 2008 by Svenn