E-Nang Ei Khoey Farang

[mike123ca]

A new movie looks at why Isaan women are choosing foreign husbands over local men

The romantic comedy takes a light-hearted look at the reasons why Isaan women have increasingly opted for farang men over the last couple of decades to the detriment of Thai males. The story of women in the Northeast who marry foreign men is finally coming to the big screen in "E-Nang Ei Khoey Farang" ("White Buffalo").

Who do we blame Thai woman for marrying Farang or

Farang marrying Thai woman.

[Xangsamhua]

Judging from the trailer, the film sets out to make fun of the Lao-speaking Issaners. The western guys seem quite innocent and well-mannered. It looks like just another Bangkok put-down. The villagers are portrayed as drunkards, prone to violence and generally stupid.

No wonder there's so much ill-feeling in the Northeast toward Bangkok and the kind of people who find this kind of thing funny.

The trailer's at http://www.movieseer.com/th/movies/21193--E_Nang_(White_Buffalo)

[hansnl]

Judging from the trailer, the film sets out to make fun of the Lao-speaking Issaners. The western guys seem quite innocent and well-mannered. It looks like just another Bangkok put-down. The villagers are portrayed as drunkards, prone to violence and generally stupid.

No wonder there's so much ill-feeling in the Northeast toward Bangkok and the kind of people who find this kind of thing funny.

The trailer's at http://www.movieseer.com/th/movies/21193--E_Nang_(White_Buffalo)

The language of the Isan is called Isan, not Lao.

[EirikJohannesen]

Judging from the trailer, the film sets out to make fun of the Lao-speaking Issaners. The western guys seem quite innocent and well-mannered. It looks like just another Bangkok put-down. The villagers are portrayed as drunkards, prone to violence and generally stupid.

No wonder there's so much ill-feeling in the Northeast toward Bangkok and the kind of people who find this kind of thing funny.

The trailer's at http://www.movieseer..._(White_Buffalo)

The language of the Isan is called Isan, not Lao.

When I speak isaan in Bangkok everybodey will say: Farang speak Lao same here in isaan, Farang speak Lao so there are no rule.

[SanukJoeII]

Judging from the trailer, the film sets out to make fun of the Lao-speaking Issaners. The western guys seem quite innocent and well-mannered. It looks like just another Bangkok put-down. The villagers are portrayed as drunkards, prone to violence and generally stupid.

No wonder there's so much ill-feeling in the Northeast toward Bangkok and the kind of people who find this kind of thing funny.

The trailer's at http://www.movieseer..._(White_Buffalo)

The language of the Isan is called Isan, not Lao.

Sorry to disappoint you, the language is Lao as it is a slightly different form of Lao spoken in the country Lao. Ask Isan people and they will tell you they speak Lao. In my village and villages around people call me Farang Lao, as I'm darker than average farang (due to sun) and speak Lao language (nit noi). To learn the language spoken here I threw away my learning books for Thai language and bought books to learn the Lao language, makes more sense.

Long time ago people in Isan also wrote the Lao script, but a reforming king decided that all Thais should use the same Thai script as to keep Lao influence in Isan limited. Therefor Isan people speak Lao but write Thai

Joe

[troehr]

For a Thai movie, it was not bad. And the main husband in the film is Lao. The story was actually pretty good. I have certainly seen worse movies here.

[Xangsamhua]

For a Thai movie, it was not bad. And the main husband in the film is Lao. The story was actually pretty good. I have certainly seen worse movies here.

Well, that's encouraging. I may have got the wrong impression from the trailer.

[Orac]

For a Thai movie, it was not bad. And the main husband in the film is Lao. The story was actually pretty good. I have certainly seen worse movies here.

Well, that's encouraging. I may have got the wrong impression from the trailer.

I watched it this afternoon and would say that it film aimed at Isaaners rather than one making fun of them. To me the points it was trying to get over seemed very obvious but, to make sure, the main character does a piece almost to camera at the end to reinforce the message. It was something along the lines of 'don't be greedy in your village as this will bring capatalism with it. It is important to have a good headman and informed villagers.'

As for the earlier comment that the westerner guys seemed quite innocent and well mannered, the trailer obviously did not show the scene were one of the wives from the villages goes to Bangkok to meet a westerner as arranged by a friend who basically ends up raping her as he beleives he deserves it as he has spent a lot of money on her.

[katana]

Reading a synopsis of the film, one of the storylines deals with a failed university student and Isaan youth, just back from uni returning to the village and finding the girl he loves is being wooed by a richer farang. His friends encourage him to fight for her, but I don't know how it turns out.

So it does seem to cover an area that must be cause for resentment among the local Isaan males: their women leaving them for richer foreigners.

[Orac]

Reading a synopsis of the film, one of the storylines deals with a failed university student and Isaan youth, just back from uni returning to the village and finding the girl he loves is being wooed by a richer farang. His friends encourage him to fight for her, but I don't know how it turns out.

So it does seem to cover an area that must be cause for resentment among the local Isaan males: their women leaving them for richer foreigners.

The plot is the failed uni student returning to his village and wooing his childhood sweetheart against the wishes of her mother who had a fling with the boys father years before. Basically the boy realises that him and his mates can no longer drink and laze around and must do something or they will lose the women in the village to the increasing numbers of westerners.

By using the Kings sufficiency programme/book they do improve their lives but are too late as the mother has arranged for a westerner to meet/marry her daughter.

[Xangsamhua]

As for the earlier comment that the westerner guys seemed quite innocent and well mannered, the trailer obviously did not show the scene were one of the wives from the villages goes to Bangkok to meet a westerner as arranged by a friend who basically ends up raping her as he beleives he deserves it as he has spent a lot of money on her.

Yes, certainly don't remember seeing this on the trailer!

[terrier123]

Judging from the trailer, the film sets out to make fun of the Lao-speaking Issaners. The western guys seem quite innocent and well-mannered. It looks like just another Bangkok put-down. The villagers are portrayed as drunkards, prone to violence and generally stupid.

No wonder there's so much ill-feeling in the Northeast toward Bangkok and the kind of people who find this kind of thing funny.

The trailer's at http://www.movieseer..._(White_Buffalo)

The language of the Isan is called Isan, not Lao.

Correct! why do people (who are generally living outside Isaan) make this mistake? I am not fluent in either but i do get by. Isaan dialects vary region to region BUT ISAAN IS NOT LAOS even though the two do share some common terms. The Laos language also has many dialects. Anyhoo, this is only my opinoin after 9 years living on the Laotian Border - no doubt more learned brethren will contradict me.

[EirikJohannesen]

Judging from the trailer, the film sets out to make fun of the Lao-speaking Issaners. The western guys seem quite innocent and well-mannered. It looks like just another Bangkok put-down. The villagers are portrayed as drunkards, prone to violence and generally stupid.

No wonder there's so much ill-feeling in the Northeast toward Bangkok and the kind of people who find this kind of thing funny.

The trailer's at http://www.movieseer..._(White_Buffalo)

The language of the Isan is called Isan, not Lao.

Correct! why do people (who are generally living outside Isaan) make this mistake? I am not fluent in either but i do get by. Isaan dialects vary region to region BUT ISAAN IS NOT LAOS even though the two do share some common terms. The Laos language also has many dialects. Anyhoo, this is only my opinoin after 9 years living on the Laotian Border - no doubt more learned brethren will contradict me.

I speak fluent Lao and isaan and its not that big difference but it seems that Thai`s like to refeer isaan to Lao language, they say "wao Lao" not "wao isaan"

[SanukJoeII]

The language of the Isan is called Isan, not Lao.

Correct! why do people (who are generally living outside Isaan) make this mistake? I am not fluent in either but i do get by. Isaan dialects vary region to region BUT ISAAN IS NOT LAOS even though the two do share some common terms. The Laos language also has many dialects. Anyhoo, this is only my opinoin after 9 years living on the Laotian Border - no doubt more learned brethren will contradict me.

It's you who makes the mistake!

From Siamsmile, about Isan:

The Isaan people are of Laotian descent and until the 1960s, they were still called Lao. In fact, the Isaan region and Laos had originally been a part of the Lao Kingdom of Lan Xang (founded in 1354). Following the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767 the Siamese kingdom held sway in Laos and Isaan, and carried out forced population transfers from Laos to Isaan in the 18th and 19th centuries. (This is one reason why today Isaan is so heavily populated compared to Laos: 21 million in Isaan compared to 6.5 million in Laos).

and:

Isaan dialect (also called North-Eastern Thai) is really nothing but Lao. It is virtually 100% Lao in vocabulary and intonation; in fact there are more Lao speakers living in Thailand than in Laos.

Ask Isan people and they tell you they "wao lao", not wao Isan! They are more than 21 million people, you think you know better?

Joe ( who lives in Isan and wao lao nit noi).

[Xangsamhua]

Judging from the trailer, the film sets out to make fun of the Lao-speaking Issaners. The western guys seem quite innocent and well-mannered. It looks like just another Bangkok put-down. The villagers are portrayed as drunkards, prone to violence and generally stupid.

No wonder there's so much ill-feeling in the Northeast toward Bangkok and the kind of people who find this kind of thing funny.

The trailer's at http://www.movieseer..._(White_Buffalo)

The language of the Isan is called Isan, not Lao.

Correct! why do people (who are generally living outside Isaan) make this mistake? I am not fluent in either but i do get by. Isaan dialects vary region to region BUT ISAAN IS NOT LAOS even though the two do share some common terms. The Laos language also has many dialects. Anyhoo, this is only my opinoin after 9 years living on the Laotian Border - no doubt more learned brethren will contradict me.

I think it's not a black and white issue. The question of whether a spoken language is a language or a dialect is a political one as much as a geographic or linguistic one. It's said that "a language is a dialect with an army", i.e the dominant dialect in any state, the main one used in schools, courts, administration, etc. This implies that it has a written form as well.

The Issan dialect does not meet these criteria. As a dialect or group of dialects it is based on the Lao language spoken for hundreds of years in the region, at least those parts closer to the Mekong. Prior to the territorial settlements between Siam and the French the regions adjacent to the Mekong River were Lao-speaking and identified with the kingdoms of Champassak and Vientiane. (Also to Siam in places where the Siamese court or Bangkok-allied grandees held sway. Before the mid to late 19th century, multiple allegiances were considered normal.) Lao speakers were moved as war captives into the Khorat region following the wars between Bangkok and the Vientiane ruler Chao Anuvong in the 1820s.

From the 1890s, and especially following the French blockade in 1893 (the Paknam Incident), until 1904, the borders between French Indochina and Siam were defined, with the latter giving up her claims to Lao regions on the left (Eastern) bank of the Mekong. Lao-speaking people on the right bank were formally incorporated into Siam and a process of Siamization began to take effect, via administration, policing, reform and reorganization of the monkhood (who were mainly responsible for education) to assimilate the Issan people as much as possible into the laws and culture and expectations of the Siamese nation-state. So "Lao" became "Issan" in northeastern Siam/Thailand.

The dialects of Issan are close to the dialects of Lao as spoken in the nearby provinces and towns of the Lao PDR. Issan includes a lot of Thai terms, and will grow closer to Thai as more and more people complete secondary school and further education. In many respects, at least in urban areas of the Northeast, Issan is now an optional language, for use among fellow-Issan speakers and as a bonding medium. The significant formal difference between Issan and Lao is that the former is written in Thai script, not in the Lao script used in the PDR and among speakers in the Lao diaspora around the world (though they may not recognise some of the post-1975 orthographic "reforms").

Perhaps it's right to say that, from the perspective of its speakers, Issan is a language and different in some ways from Lao. However, from a third person perspective, the Issan dialects are dialects of Lao. In only a geopolitical sense could they be said to be dialects of Thai.

[Xangsamhua]

Ask Isan people and they tell you they "wao lao", not wao Isan! They are more than 21 million people, you think you know better?

Joe ( who lives in Isan and wao lao nit noi).

Joe's observation is interesting. I've not lived in the Northeast for nearly 40 years and have travelled there little since then. I have lived in Vientiane and do speak Lao. However, I'd have to take Joe's word for it as to how Issan people really identify themselves in terms of language and culture.

Some Issan people I've come across in Bangkok are very happy to speak with my wife in Lao (she's from Vientiane, but studied in Bangkok and has lived in Thailand for many years). Others prefer to use Thai.

It would be interesting to know to what extent Issan people still identify with their ancestral roots rather than the Thai geopolitical entity they now live in. That is, do they see themselves at heart as displaced Lao rather than Thai?

[SanukJoeII]

Ask Isan people and they tell you they "wao lao", not wao Isan! They are more than 21 million people, you think you know better?

Joe ( who lives in Isan and wao lao nit noi).

Joe's observation is interesting. I've not lived in the Northeast for nearly 40 years and have travelled there little since then. I have lived in Vientiane and do speak Lao. However, I'd have to take Joe's word for it as to how Issan people really identify themselves in terms of language and culture.

Some Issan people I've come across in Bangkok are very happy to speak with my wife in Lao (she's from Vientiane, but studied in Bangkok and has lived in Thailand for many years). Others prefer to use Thai.

It would be interesting to know to what extent Issan people still identify with their ancestral roots rather than the Thai geopolitical entity they now live in. That is, do they see themselves at heart as displaced Lao rather than Thai?

As history shows most Isan people come from the country Lao and were forced to migrate, hence their appreciation of the Lao language and until not so long ago of the Lao script.

As they were forced to migrate and forced to write Thai script there might be a silent opposition against that, resulting in sticking to their Lao language. They chose for it, as every child learns Thai in school, some get a shock experience when they hear/see Thai for the first time at school.

The contrary might be possible too: Laotians (at the border regions?) might oppose Isan people as different, speaking Isan and not Lao as that is their language.

Also known is that some Lao movement wants Isan back to Lao, although no Isan movement supports such.

Fact is that Isan people have chosen to speak their language Lao, but are able to speak Thai too. Many students in Udon (that I know) university chose Lao as their second language.

I have met numerous Isan people in the beginning of my stay in Isan, who didn't understand my attempts to speak Thai, when translated into Lao by my then wife they suddenly understood, reason for me to abandon my Thai language books, buy and download Lao language and got familiar with Isan people speaking Lao. Now when in Udon meeting people speaking Thai I reject and ask them if they not wao lao? Hilarious and they love it! Nothing better than a farang who speaks Lao as it is showing respect for their roots language!

Joe

[puchooay]

I would like to take this a step further and say that you are all wrong. Issan dialects(note the plural) do NOT all come from Lao.

Calling any dialect "Issan" is confusing and as some posters have noted also incorrect. If this were so and the Issan"Lao" speakers were speaking "Issan" then I have 2 questions for you......:-

What so the Khmer speakers in Issan speak? Issan?

What do the Gui speakers in Issan speak? Issan?

[terrier123]

Ask Isan people and they tell you they "wao lao", not wao Isan! They are more than 21 million people, you think you know better?

Joe ( who lives in Isan and wao lao nit noi).

Joe's observation is interesting. I've not lived in the Northeast for nearly 40 years and have travelled there little since then. I have lived in Vientiane and do speak Lao. However, I'd have to take Joe's word for it as to how Issan people really identify themselves in terms of language and culture.

Some Issan people I've come across in Bangkok are very happy to speak with my wife in Lao (she's from Vientiane, but studied in Bangkok and has lived in Thailand for many years). Others prefer to use Thai.

It would be interesting to know to what extent Issan people still identify with their ancestral roots rather than the Thai geopolitical entity they now live in. That is, do they see themselves at heart as displaced Lao rather than Thai?

As history shows most Isan people come from the country Lao and were forced to migrate, hence their appreciation of the Lao language and until not so long ago of the Lao script.

As they were forced to migrate and forced to write Thai script there might be a silent opposition against that, resulting in sticking to their Lao language. They chose for it, as every child learns Thai in school, some get a shock experience when they hear/see Thai for the first time at school.

The contrary might be possible too: Laotians (at the border regions?) might oppose Isan people as different, speaking Isan and not Lao as that is their language.

Also known is that some Lao movement wants Isan back to Lao, although no Isan movement supports such.

Fact is that Isan people have chosen to speak their language Lao, but are able to speak Thai too. Many students in Udon (that I know) university chose Lao as their second language.

I have met numerous Isan people in the beginning of my stay in Isan, who didn't understand my attempts to speak Thai, when translated into Lao by my then wife they suddenly understood, reason for me to abandon my Thai language books, buy and download Lao language and got familiar with Isan people speaking Lao. Now when in Udon meeting people speaking Thai I reject and ask them if they not wao lao? Hilarious and they love it! Nothing better than a farang who speaks Lao as it is showing respect for their roots language!

Joe

Maybe Ajarn Joell could then explain why Isaan is so different in so many Provinces. I generally find that the many Isaan dialects spoken by natives along the river are not understood by those living say 250 kms away.

[SanukJoeII]

Ask Isan people and they tell you they "wao lao", not wao Isan! They are more than 21 million people, you think you know better?

Joe ( who lives in Isan and wao lao nit noi).

Joe's observation is interesting. I've not lived in the Northeast for nearly 40 years and have travelled there little since then. I have lived in Vientiane and do speak Lao. However, I'd have to take Joe's word for it as to how Issan people really identify themselves in terms of language and culture.

Some Issan people I've come across in Bangkok are very happy to speak with my wife in Lao (she's from Vientiane, but studied in Bangkok and has lived in Thailand for many years). Others prefer to use Thai.

It would be interesting to know to what extent Issan people still identify with their ancestral roots rather than the Thai geopolitical entity they now live in. That is, do they see themselves at heart as displaced Lao rather than Thai?

As history shows most Isan people come from the country Lao and were forced to migrate, hence their appreciation of the Lao language and until not so long ago of the Lao script.

As they were forced to migrate and forced to write Thai script there might be a silent opposition against that, resulting in sticking to their Lao language. They chose for it, as every child learns Thai in school, some get a shock experience when they hear/see Thai for the first time at school.

The contrary might be possible too: Laotians (at the border regions?) might oppose Isan people as different, speaking Isan and not Lao as that is their language.

Also known is that some Lao movement wants Isan back to Lao, although no Isan movement supports such.

Fact is that Isan people have chosen to speak their language Lao, but are able to speak Thai too. Many students in Udon (that I know) university chose Lao as their second language.

I have met numerous Isan people in the beginning of my stay in Isan, who didn't understand my attempts to speak Thai, when translated into Lao by my then wife they suddenly understood, reason for me to abandon my Thai language books, buy and download Lao language and got familiar with Isan people speaking Lao. Now when in Udon meeting people speaking Thai I reject and ask them if they not wao lao? Hilarious and they love it! Nothing better than a farang who speaks Lao as it is showing respect for their roots language!

Joe

Maybe Ajarn Joell could then explain why Isaan is so different in so many Provinces. I generally find that the many Isaan dialects spoken by natives along the river are not understood by those living say 250 kms away.

Of course there are dialects in every language, so also in Lao as spoken in Isan. Influences of other languages or dialects are inevitable: Khmer, Hmong, Suay, name it. I know in Korat they speak a dialect that is hard to understand for Isan people....

Lao is part of the TAI language group, so is Thai, hence the ability of Thais to understand most of Lao and the other way around. But they ARE two different languages!

Lao spoken in Isan has many dialects, I live in Udon province but close to Sakon Nakhon province. Sometimes there is a misunderstanding when I say something that people use in my area but in SN province they say it a different way, only 40 km from me. So that is a natural thing and has nothing to do with another language. Important for the development of a dialect is first: where do the people come from? Then: with what people did they mix? And last: what people immigrated that area?

Example: A Khmer village is filled up with Lao/Isan people. On top there is migration from Hmong people. If already the first two mix they will create a dialect but with the influence of the third group there could be a dialect that is hard to follow by people from outside.

Back to the basics: Isan people speak Lao language (with dialects as also Lao people speak with dialects) and up until 50 years ago they were even called Lao!

Cheers

Joe

[Xangsamhua]

I would like to take this a step further and say that you are all wrong. Issan dialects(note the plural) do NOT all come from Lao.

Calling any dialect "Issan" is confusing and as some posters have noted also incorrect. If this were so and the Issan"Lao" speakers were speaking "Issan" then I have 2 questions for you......:-

What so the Khmer speakers in Issan speak? Issan?

What do the Gui speakers in Issan speak? Issan?

Interesting questions, Puchooay. I would have thought a Khmer speaker in, say, a border district of Sisaket, speaks Khmer at home, perhaps an Issan variant of Lao in the marketplace and, perhaps, Thai when dealing with a schoolteacher or provincial official. The same for a speaker of Suay or other ethnic language in the region.

But I may have misunderstood the point of your questions.

I personally wouldn't think of Issan people as speaking "pasaa Issan", but as speaking "pasaa Lao" except where Issan speakers mix Thai and Lao vocabulary or use courtesies like "kha", "khrub", "khrubphom".

To my knowledge, Issan-Lao speakers do not use particles like "doi (khanoi)" and "jao" as courtesies.

[EirikJohannesen]

Whats important is what Isan people think them self, so I asked my FIL and hes frinds during lunch. They said Lao and Isan "same, same" My FIL sayd that if it was Lao or Isan dident give him more food on the table

[Xangsamhua]

Whats important is what Isan people think them self, so I asked my FIL and hes frinds during lunch. They said Lao and Isan "same, same" My FIL sayd that if it was Lao or Isan dident give him more food on the table

True, though "same-same" often means "similar" rather than identical.

And young children often don't know what language they speak. They just speak whatever language they need without identifying it. In bilingual or multilingual settings they get to know fairly soon, but I know that in language surveys in multilingual communities in Australia, teachers couldn't just ask 5 year-olds to name their native language. The kids didn't know. So for adults: if there's no need to classify and label it, why would you?

Not quite on the topic, but the discussion reminds me - I asked a friend's 10 year-old niece in Mukdahan a few years ago what was the main language they used for learning at her school. She responded "Thai, but if we don't understand, the teacher explains in Lao".

[SanukJoeII]

Not quite on the topic, but the discussion reminds me - I asked a friend's 10 year-old niece in Mukdahan a few years ago what was the main language they used for learning at her school. She responded "Thai, but if we don't understand, the teacher explains in Lao".

Xangsamhua, you hit the nail on the head as far as the practice in Isan is!

School kids learn Thai in school, but not only, teachers find it easier to explain things in Lao, hence they learn Thai AND Lao. At home they only learn Lao so when they go school at a young age they are shocked by learning a language that is their native language but they never used it before.

Also officials in the region use Lao language, Isan people like to laugh and the Lao language is a bit more "light" than Thai language, so easier to joke in Lao.

Distinctive from Thai are:

CH pronounced S, like cha cha becomes sa sa, my amphur is called Chaiwan, pronounced Saiwan;

R is either pronounced as L (mostly)or as H (sometimes), or totally ignored, like rot = lot, amphur = amphuh, prunnii = punnii;

KH is pronounced as one letter g, but the way Dutch, Jewish, Arabs sau it, gggg like cleaning your throat, e.g. Sakon Nakhon = Sakon Nagggon, tam mak hun = tam magggun.

Typical Isan/Lao words will get a long list, but one is mentioned already: tam mak hun, papaya salad, or som tam in Thai. I will stop here

Ok, one more: mai bpen rai (Thai) becomes boh bpen yang (Lao). Now I sao wao (stop talk or also shut up).

Cheers

Joe

[bina]

the subject of linguistics and lao/issan/thai/korat sui etc has been discussed ad nauseum in the language forum and here in the issan forum;

they are mutually intelligable languages and the 'issan' lao has something like 12 dialects and numerous regional sub dialects/slangs/pronounciation...

the language /dialect also identifies the speaker and his geopolitical identification: korations speak korat thai and refuse to ackonwlege that they are essentially issan, as far as geography is concerned, although they consider themselves pure korat blue bloods with a direct line to the princess cant remember her name that saved the day by seducing a lao prince....

i have a very old dictionary issan/thai/english; with graphics of how vowels etc are vocalized and explanations for all the dialects that the linguist who wrote the dictionary thought there were.

with the advent of tv, 'issan' seems to blend in to more and more of the same language... and there are less and less issan only speakers (hubby can understand most korat issan and speaks central thai and korat thai, but his spoken 'issan' is pretty bad. when he uses issan thai and not korat or central, he uses it as i would use my southern accent in english, or as i would stress a certain pronunciation in hebrew to stress something: when trying to press a point, or be a bit sarcastic or sardonic.

the movie itself sounds a bit late in the making since several old issaan songs (i heard them in the early 1980's)and their video clips use that subject of poor boy goes to city makes money comes back finds girlfriend married to rich farang. and several studies are being done on same subject (seen that somewhere here on the forum also); now the thai sociologists are suddenly interested in this phenomenon? wonder who made the movie? (pim sudham syndrome)

bina

israel

[SlyAnimal]

So, just to briefly get back on topic, is there an English subtitle version of the movie? or do you need to understand Thai and Isaan / Lao?

[SanukJoeII]

the subject of linguistics and lao/issan/thai/korat sui etc has been discussed ad nauseum in the language forum and here in the issan forum;

they are mutually intelligable languages and the 'issan' lao has something like 12 dialects and numerous regional sub dialects/slangs/pronounciation...

the language /dialect also identifies the speaker and his geopolitical identification: korations speak korat thai and refuse to ackonwlege that they are essentially issan, as far as geography is concerned, although they consider themselves pure korat blue bloods with a direct line to the princess cant remember her name that saved the day by seducing a lao prince....

i have a very old dictionary issan/thai/english; with graphics of how vowels etc are vocalized and explanations for all the dialects that the linguist who wrote the dictionary thought there were.

with the advent of tv, 'issan' seems to blend in to more and more of the same language... and there are less and less issan only speakers (hubby can understand most korat issan and speaks central thai and korat thai, but his spoken 'issan' is pretty bad. when he uses issan thai and not korat or central, he uses it as i would use my southern accent in english, or as i would stress a certain pronunciation in hebrew to stress something: when trying to press a point, or be a bit sarcastic or sardonic.

the movie itself sounds a bit late in the making since several old issaan songs (i heard them in the early 1980's)and their video clips use that subject of poor boy goes to city makes money comes back finds girlfriend married to rich farang. and several studies are being done on same subject (seen that somewhere here on the forum also); now the thai sociologists are suddenly interested in this phenomenon? wonder who made the movie? (pim sudham syndrome)

bina

israel

One should not forget that the term ISAN in relation to the North East of Thailand is only in use since the beginning of the 20th century, a whopping 100 years!

That means when talking about a language or dialect the term Isan should not be used as it is of no significance. For at least 5 or 6 centuries and probably longer the people of North East Thailand and in Lao country before the forced migration, spoke Lao, were called Lao and even if NE Thailand people speak a dialect it is still a dialect of Lao!

Joe

[afarang]

Not quite correct, S. J. People in 3 Southern provinces of Isarn are not Lao . They are Khmer. Buriram , Surin and Si Sa Ket are predominantly of Khmer origin. And were from at least the time of Siam Reap , to Phanom Rung. When this part of Isarn was ruled By Khmer,Was at that time Hindu, . From about 1,000 years ago. Even today , many families have relatives in Cambodia. These people do not speak Lao, But Isarn . We can argue as to whether it is a dialect of Lao or not. My children speak it. They understand Lao ,but cannot speak it.

[Orac]

So, just to briefly get back on topic, is there an English subtitle version of the movie? or do you need to understand Thai and Isaan / Lao?

I saw it with english subtitles

[troehr]

So, just to briefly get back on topic, is there an English subtitle version of the movie? or do you need to understand Thai and Isaan / Lao?

I saw it with english subtitles

Many of the Thai movies have subtitles.