Are Subtitles for Movies in Issan Translated to Thai?

[jarrcbb]

I recently watched a DVD that was mostly spoken in Issan, but the subtitles were translated into Thai, so that the subtitles and the audio didn't match up.  Is this normal?  Is it possible to find movies with a lot of Issan dialog with Issan being written in the subtitles?

[cooked]

What's Isaan? Maybe you mean Lao? There can't be many movies in Isaan Lao dialect. They speak Cambodian in the next village to us....

[Mole]

There are quite a few movies where major parts of dialog is in Isan. The DVDs will all have Thai subs though and all the movies that I have come across, the subs should be in sync. Exactly what movie was it that you didn't think the Thai subs matched up with the audio and how was you able to realize this?

Isan technically is only a spoken language and not written one. Although you can kinda write it using Thai characters. Isan is virtually the same language as Lao though, but Thai people won't be familiar enough to be able to read Lao.

Why would a movie with Isan dialog have subs in Isan????

[jarrcbb]

ปัญญา เรณู 2

 

The closed captions/subtitles are translated into Thai while the dialog is spoken in Issan/Laos. 

 

I was hoping to find some movies that have Issan/Laos spoken dialog and closed captions/subtitles in Issan/Laos written with the Thai script. 

[Mole]

There aren't any and why should there be any Isan subs for the Isan parts anyway? As I said, Isan is a spoken language and people won't need subs to be able to understand it. There's also currently no fixed standard to exactly how to write Isan with Thai characters.

There's only Thai subs for Isan dialogs in movies.

[Richard W]

Why would a movie with Isan dialog have subs in Isan????

There could be subtitles throughout for the benefit of those who have gone deaf.

 

If there are subtitles just for the parts in Isaan dialect, then yes, that would be a translation rather than a display of the dialogue.  I imagine that handling alternative subtitles (e.g. English as well as Thai) would become complicated at this point - and so not be done.

[jarrcbb]

There could be subtitles throughout for the benefit of those who have gone deaf.

 

Yeah exactly, this is what a lot of Thai DVDs have for the Thai.

[Mole]

I don't see this will ever happen in foreseeable future. Not as long as there isn't any standard of writing the regional Thai dialects using the standard Thai characters. They would in that case need to invent several new characters to be able to represent all the additional tones for instance.

The deaf can enjoy the Thai subs and understand the movie perfectly. Technically they aren't really able to speak or hear Isan anyway, except when perhaps lip reading, in which case if they were really proficient in this, they could just lip read the movie as well, so no subs needed there either.

[katana]

The Thai film Yam Yasothon (2005) had Thai subtitles for the Isan dialect parts.

[Richard W]

I don't see this will ever happen in foreseeable future. Not as long as there isn't any standard of writing the regional Thai dialects using the standard Thai characters. They would in that case need to invent several new characters to be able to represent all the additional tones for instance.

The extra tone marks are not essential - see Trembly's comments in http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/598217-learn-lao/page-2 . The problems would be with loan words and onomatopoeia. Standard Thai seems to work well enough without recording the actual tones for loan words from English. I've seen descriptions of Lao which imply that mai tri and mai chattawa somehow aren't needed to represent the tones of Lao words properly - which surprised me.

The deaf can enjoy the Thai subs and understand the movie perfectly. Technically they aren't really able to speak or hear Isan anyway, except when perhaps lip reading, in which case if they were really proficient in this, they could just lip read the movie as well, so no subs needed there either.

This is why I said for people who'd *gone deaf*, not for people who'd always been deaf.

[Mole]

People who'd "gone deaf" is such a minuscule amount that it's just really not worthwhile to make dedicated Isan subs when there's perfectly working Thai subs which these people most likely will be more accustomed to read than any attempt of non-standardized writing of Isan.

[KhunBENQ]

I even noticed some TV drama or the like and was surprised to see Thai subtitles.

Asking my wife what this is about.

They speak Isan dialect

 

Another one was a DVD I purchased in Pattaya to take home for the kids.

All in Isan dialect with Thai subtitles.

 

[JDGRUEN]

In Phon Phisai the cable tv movies are in English with Vietnamese subtitles.. no Thai subtitles.

[Neeranam]

The Thai film Yam Yasothon (2005) had Thai subtitles for the Isan dialect parts.

That was pretty much the whole movie as far as I can remember.

[Neeranam]

For some strange reason, many of the Charlie Chaplin DVDs I have are spoken in Lao.

[Ohng]

Most Isaan and Northern dialects in the movies are the one that's not the Native dialect speaking which they already used mixed with the Thai.

 

Laos language (Not Isaan) is completely different from Isaan. It's close to the Northern one which in the past, we call Laos as Lan Chang (ล้านช้าง) and the Northern as Lanna (ล้านนา)

 

Lanna has its own written script but it is hard to read even the Lanna people and mostly used in the Temple. As far as I know, Isaan has its own script too but I am not sure you can see it widely used in Isaan unlike Lanna which they used it for the Name on most of the sightseeing places but sometimes they used the Thai script in the Lanna style instead.

[Mole]

I am a native northern Thai and speak it and I can tell you this that the Lao language is much more closer related to Isan than to northern Thai (kam muang). The Lanna script isn't taught in schools so this is the reason why people aren't familiar with it.

The Isan script you are talking about is the Lao script.

[Ohng]

I am a native northern Thai and speak it and I can tell you this that the Lao language is much more closer related to Isan than to northern Thai (kam muang). The Lanna script isn't taught in schools so this is the reason why people aren't familiar with it.

The Isan script you are talking about is the Lao script.

 

I am also a eastern Lanna native speaker as well. Even in Lanna, we do speak in many of accents depends on which town you live but the most well known one is Chaing Mai accent because it is more softer, clearer and the capital of Lanna in the past. I've been to Laos just only for 2 times as a backpacker around Pakse and Vientaine and I felt like that their accent is much more softer than the common welll known Isaan speaking (Yes, in Isaan they have different of accents as well as Lanna and in Laos) and in the restaurant they listened to Lanna and Thai musics. Anyway, asking Thai people they also think in many opinoins : http://pantip.com/topic/30586495 

 

And about the Isaan script, it's not Laos script. You can read more details here: http://www.bl.msu.ac.th/bailan/fonttham/tham.pdf or http://www.isangate.com/alphabet.html or http://digi.library.tu.ac.th/thesis/st/0440/title-biography.pdf or google it.

[Richard W]

I refuse to call the Lannathai and Isaan variants of the Lanna script different scripts. Unicode calls it the 'Tai Tham' script, but the official 4-letter abbreviation for use in locale names is 'Lana' and the font-tag in OpenType is 'lana'. You can argue for there being different regional styles, with some characters peculiar to various regions, but the same script is used for Tai Khuen, Northern Thai, Tai Lue, Lao and Isaan. It's also used for Pali. It's also the basis of the New Tai Lue script.

The archaic variant of the Lao script that is showing up in Isaan is Tai Noi. As the Lao script is really just a variant of the Thai script, I'm a little surprised that it is being encoded in the Lao script - that is inviting legal troubles. The main problem is that one needs an extra consonant or two and an extra vowel if one is to use the Thai script. Tai Noi from manuscripts seems to use subscript consonants from the Lanna script! In the same style as Tai Noi, there was the Tai Nithet script (อักษรไทยนิเทศ) in Northern Thailand, which is similar but preserves more consonants, has stronger Lanna script influence, and also includes independent vowels.

[mumjokmok]

quite a few of those mum jokmok flicks have subtitles in thai. as a thai you can either 'wow lao' or you have to read the screen. given the usual amount of screaming and activity at times you almost need them in the spoken language. i wish they'd put the subtitles in english on more movies, i only have monrak transistor....... kid tung pee noy na gloy jai pee, hang gan yang nee, nong kid tung pee bang mai?

[mumjokmok]

There are quite a few movies where major parts of dialog is in Isan. The DVDs will all have Thai subs though and all the movies that I have come across, the subs should be in sync. Exactly what movie was it that you didn't think the Thai subs matched up with the audio and how was you able to realize this?

Isan technically is only a spoken language and not written one. Although you can kinda write it using Thai characters. Isan is virtually the same language as Lao though, but Thai people won't be familiar enough to be able to read Lao.

Why would a movie with Isan dialog have subs in Isan????

 

Thai's could learn to read Lao in about an hour and a half....

[Mole]

It'll be similar to reading text message slang, which I'm sure for some will take hell more than 1.5 hours to read properly.
Since there's no standard, each subs may write certain words their own way as well, making it even more difficult to comprehend.

It's like those karaoke DVDs with Latin karaoke text, which for most people is totally incomprehensible.

There's several good reasons why there's NO Isan subs, while really no good reason to have it, except perhaps for the benefit of the odd farang wishing to learn Isan.