How many languages/dialects are currently spoken or used in Thailand?

[khunPer]

My wife is from Surin province and speaks Khmer which is only 20% the same as the Cambodian language. It has no written language. In Surin province there are at least 5 languages spoken: Thai, Khmer, Essan (80% the same as Lao), Suay, Thai Chinese. The rest is available from Wikipedia. I speak Khmer to my wife and her family and friends.

My Brother-In-Law is Kong Koey from the famous Khmer Rock Kantrum group "Rock Kong Koey". The songs are sung in Khmer but have to be transliterated into Thai phonetics for Karaoke.

the Khmer people, along with the Mon, are the original in habitants of what is now called Thailand when the land was part of the Khmer Kingdom.

If Khmer is not the Cambodian language what language is?

When I was in Phnom Penh with my Khmer-speaking Surin GF, she expected to be able to talk with the locals, just like when crossing the border at Kap Choeng. However, they did not understand a word of her Khmer and she did not understand anything of theirs, so they ended up speaking English to each other.

Presume there are Khmer dialects – fit well what Estrada says that Isaan Khmer is only 20 percent of Cambodian (Central Khmer) language.

I think only the Eastern part of today’s Thailand was part of the old Khmer Kingdom, the North Western area was an independent Lana Kingdom with Chiang Mai as the capital.

Up Isaan at Surin area they speak Thai (maybe some dialect, I cannot judge) and some locals speaks both Khmer and Lao (or Isaan Lao), whilst others in same village may speak Lao and not understand Khmer at all.

[Acharn]

Here north of Korat, it is mostly Korat and Lao. Makes it hard to learn Thai as I am trying to do. My neighbor understands Thai but only speaks Korat. I am not sure how close Korat is to Thai but I can understand most of what people are talking about in Thai but I can not understand a single word of what he says.

Good points. When I was living up there, which later became amphoe Wang Nam Khiaw, all the neighbors spoke Isaan, which of course is nineteenth century Vientiane Lao. Curiously, they were all quite comfortable speaking Central Thai to me, which was a help. The neighbors introduced me to one guy they said spoke Korat, and I couldn't make out a word he was saying in what he claimed was the Korat language, but I suspect if I lived in town and found people who speak it regularly I would be able to find ways it was similar to Thai. It goes back to long before the 1827 war against Vientiane, of course. I can pretty well figure out what people are getting at, in general, in Kham Meuang (Northern Thai), Lao, and Isaan. I haven't heard much Yawi or Southern Thai. One problem with trying to count dialects is trying to decide where the boundaries are. Isaan could be counted as a dozen dialects itself. I would count it as less than 80, but each of the "mountain tribes" has a separate language, and then there's Burmese and Shan. I don't know anybody who speaks Teo Chiew as their first language, but there must be some judging from the number of soap operas where the characters speak with thick Chinese accents. Of course there was a big influx of refugees after World War II, which is why Phibulsongkhram persecuted them. Are there any native Mon speakers left? And how about the language of the southernmost Lao kingdom, Champa? Any of those left? And of course I should mention how, after thirty years, I still don't speak Thai very well. My excuse is that I didn't start learning until I was already over thirty and I've never worked as hard at it as I should. Besides, we only learn as much of a language as we need to, and I get along well enough in areas where almost no one speaks English.

[Acharn]

My wife is from Surin province and speaks Khmer which is only 20% the same as the Cambodian language. It has no written language. In Surin province there are at least 5 languages spoken: Thai, Khmer, Essan (80% the same as Lao), Suay, Thai Chinese. The rest is available from Wikipedia. I speak Khmer to my wife and her family and friends.

My Brother-In-Law is Kong Koey from the famous Khmer Rock Kantrum group "Rock Kong Koey". The songs are sung in Khmer but have to be transliterated into Thai phonetics for Karaoke.

the Khmer people, along with the Mon, are the original in habitants of what is now called Thailand when the land was part of the Khmer Kingdom.

If Khmer is not the Cambodian language what language is?

When I was in Phnom Penh with my Khmer-speaking Surin GF, she expected to be able to talk with the locals, just like when crossing the border at Kap Choeng. However, they did not understand a word of her Khmer and she did not understand anything of theirs, so they ended up speaking English to each other.

Presume there are Khmer dialects – fit well what Estrada says that Isaan Khmer is only 20 percent of Cambodian (Central Khmer) language.

I think only the Eastern part of today’s Thailand was part of the old Khmer Kingdom, the North Western area was an independent Lana Kingdom with Chiang Mai as the capital.

Up Isaan at Surin area they speak Thai (maybe some dialect, I cannot judge) and some locals speaks both Khmer and Lao (or Isaan Lao), whilst others in same village may speak Lao and not understand Khmer at all.

A friend of mine got a job with AID (U.S. government). They sent him to a Khmer language course, and he told be much the same thing. The Khmer spoken in Phnom Penh is quite different from the Khmer spoken in Surin, Buri Ram, and along the Thai border.

The old Khmer Empire stretched further West. Lop Buri was a major administrative center. I'm not sure how it overlapped with the older Dwaradi Empire(? was it really an empire? I don't think we know). I think what happened was that most of the Thai migration came down the Chao Phraya valley. In those regions they completely overwhelmed the older culture (well, of course they adopted a lot from the Khmer, including the Vishnu cult which they still celebrate). Further to the east, the heavy forest made it too difficult to settle because of the lack of transportation, so the scattered population mixed without one overwhelming the other. Anyway, Lop Buri was later the seat of a clan that sometimes held the crown in the Ayutthaya Kingdom, so it's location must have been strategically important.

Edited August 25, 2014 by Acharn

[thailiketoo]

When I was in Phnom Penh with my Khmer-speaking Surin GF, she expected to be able to talk with the locals, just like when crossing the border at Kap Choeng. However, they did not understand a word of her Khmer and she did not understand anything of theirs, so they ended up speaking English to each other.

Presume there are Khmer dialects – fit well what Estrada says that Isaan Khmer is only 20 percent of Cambodian (Central Khmer) language.

I think only the Eastern part of today’s Thailand was part of the old Khmer Kingdom, the North Western area was an independent Lana Kingdom with Chiang Mai as the capital.

Up Isaan at Surin area they speak Thai (maybe some dialect, I cannot judge) and some locals speaks both Khmer and Lao (or Isaan Lao), whilst others in same village may speak Lao and not understand Khmer at all.

Phnom Pen and Surin is like speaking Thai North and South.

[khm] 1 (National). Statutory national language (1993, Constitution, Article 5). 12,900,000 in Cambodia (2008 census). Population total all countries: 14,224,500. L2 users: 1,000,000 in Cambodia. 22 other languages in Cambodia.

My wife's family speak Khmer. In Phnom Pen understand about 90%. The rich Khmer go the the hospital in Surin and many Thai nurses communicate with them in Surin Khmer.

https://www.ethnologue.com/country/KH/languages

For listing of where and how many speak other languages spoken in Cambodia.

65% of the population read and speak Khmer. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/khm

Khmer script [Khmr].

Edited August 25, 2014 by thailiketoo

[thongsuknork]

70 % of words in thai and Lao are Same korat speaks Lao

like Baw is for no in Lao and Mai is for no in thai

cha in lao ka in Thai

not make major difference

lol

[Leung Falang]

Great resource for people groups

http://joshuaproject.net/countries/TH

[thailiketoo]

70 % of words in thai and Lao are Same korat speaks Lao

like Baw is for no in Lao and Mai is for no in thai

cha in lao ka in Thai

not make major difference

lol

The native people of Northeastern Thailand are ethnic Laotians and the language they speak is Lao, officially called "Isan" or "Thai-Isan". The name change from "Lao" to "Isan" came in the 70's when the Lao PDR was becoming Communist. A war raged along the Mekong River border in the 70's with some villagers on the Thai side fighting with the Communists, and the Thai army fighting battles to keep the area part of Thailand. Not wanting Northeasterners to identify with or become sympathetic to Communist Laos because of their shared ethnicity, the Thai government began a campaign to change the self-identity of Northeastern people from "Lao" to "Isan". The campaign worked so well that at the present time some Northeasterners don't know their language is the same as that spoken in the Lao PDR (although some Isan people still call themselves and their language "Lao").

http://www.thailao.net/both_languages.htm

[duanebigsby]

Wow!Fantastic thread.

I don't know any of this so I've been reading all of the comments and learning. Thanks!

My Thai buddy in Chiang Rai is actually from Chiang Saen so he speaks Issan Thai. He told me it's like Lao but some slang and idioms are different. Of course he speaks Northern (Chiang Rai) Thai and regular national Thai.

He is self taught in English and speaks fair French and German.

I'm wondering if growing up with 3 Thai dialects aids in other language development skills, or if it's just personal drive to learn language?

[h90]

Well language:

My wife from the deep south can understand 95 % of Isaan and North Thai.

And 80-90 % of Lao.

There are dialects and specific words that can't be understood but the differences are small.

(exception minorities Malay in the deep south, and mountain Thais, sea gipsies......).

Of course somewhere are people with heavy dialects. Someone from nice downtown London also has the problems understanding someone from the docs.

A Berlin guy has the problem to understand a Bavarian......But it is just some dialect you get used to in a week.

[nisakiman]

My wife is from Ubon, but Mum is from Korat and Dad is from somewhere else (can't remember where offhand), so at home they always spoke Thai, and that is her first language, although she is comfortable with Isaan and also has no problems when we are in Lao. And she speaks English, of course.

I find language a fascinating subject, and I'm always interested in discussions about it. As already mentioned, the Americans and the British are the world's worst linguists, and understandably, as English has become the global lingua franca, so if English is your mother tongue there really is no need to learn another language - you can get by almost anywhere in the world.

Continental Europeans learn other languages from an early age, and most are bilingual at least these days. I believe that if you know two languages, learning a third is much easier. You don't have to jump the hoops of understanding a completely different approach because you already know that you can't apply the structures of your mother tongue to the language you are trying to learn. Another part of the brain is already active. Because language isn't just about vocabulary and grammar, it's as much about understanding the cultural background to the language and how the people use it, the delivery.

[DoctorB]

Have quizzed Madame

Looks like Passa Yor is the same as Passa Yo

Probably in the category of Nyaw

Now discovered another one Thai Saek!!!

And then there is Passa So which she does not speak!

I suspect there are a whole raft of intermingling languages and dialects!

The critical concept is mutual 'intelligibility'?

Ha! That makes sense.

Listed in ethnologue as 'Nyaw, Alternate Names: Jo, Nyo, Nyoh, Yo Dialects' with an estimated 50,000 speakers and classed as 'vigorous'.

Thanks for clearing that up; and please thank her for her contribution.

[sae57]

70 % of words in thai and Lao are Same korat speaks Lao

like Baw is for no in Lao and Mai is for no in thai

cha in lao ka in Thai

not make major difference

lol

Thai & Lao 70% the same? nonsense! Probably half the words are cognates, but the pronunciation is often different enough as to be incomprehensible. E.g. rice for both is romanized as "khao" but the Lao pronunciation means "knee" in standard Thai. Anyway, Thai and Lao are not mutually intelligible Bangkok Thais (esp. higher class) claim to be able to understand Isan/Lao--but they don't (I test them!). Korat sounds to me an awful lot like Lao, and appears to be mostly mutually intelligible. (My Lao isn't good enough to be sure, but my Isan wife is able to communicate)--tho Koratians claim that their language is "true Thai".

[sae57]

70 % of words in thai and Lao are Same korat speaks Lao

like Baw is for no in Lao and Mai is for no in thai

cha in lao ka in Thai

not make major difference

lol

The native people of Northeastern Thailand are ethnic Laotians and the language they speak is Lao, officially called "Isan" or "Thai-Isan". The name change from "Lao" to "Isan" came in the 70's when the Lao PDR was becoming Communist. A war raged along the Mekong River border in the 70's with some villagers on the Thai side fighting with the Communists, and the Thai army fighting battles to keep the area part of Thailand. Not wanting Northeasterners to identify with or become sympathetic to Communist Laos because of their shared ethnicity, the Thai government began a campaign to change the self-identity of Northeastern people from "Lao" to "Isan". The campaign worked so well that at the present time some Northeasterners don't know their language is the same as that spoken in the Lao PDR (although some Isan people still call themselves and their language "Lao").

http://www.thailao.net/both_languages.htm

Actually the term "Isan" for the region is much older than that. I get different answers when I ask what it means ("dry" "poor") but it probably originally meant Northeast with a Sanskrit origin. The effort to Thai-asize the ethnic Lao here (& there are way more here than in Lao itself) begain with Chulalongkorn. Thailand/Siam had a treaty with France that France would not encroach on their territory. As the French took over present day Cambodia and Lao from what were parts of Thailand, the Thai state moved to force Thai language and customs on what was left (i.e. Isan) as part of convincing the French that they could advance no further. I don't think those efforts had much real effect at the time, but after 1932 the new state moved to forceably impose "Thainess" enforcing, e.g., the ban on teaching Lao. In time, literacy in written Lao was lost and the entire region was thus robbed of its literature. Nobody remembers that now, or the rebellions of the early 1900s against the incursions of the Thai state. Meanwhile there are many dialects of Lao (AWA Khmer, Suay, Korat, Phu Thai etc.) spoken in Isan, all of which are importing more and more Thai vocabulary (it's "cool" to throw in Thai words here and there, some stick).

Historically, the region has been part of the Lao empire and the Khmer empire as well as Ayutthaya and Thai. But the region was underpopulated and at some point there was a forced mass relocation of Laos into the area by the Thai state (can't remember whether it was in the Ayutthaya or Ratanakosin period) to produce rice for the kingdom.

--S

[sae57]

Might I respectfully request that posters use the standard system for Romanization of Thai? There really are significant differences between, e.g. 'p' and 'ph' and 't' and 'th' . 'Thai' and 'tai' are different words, pronounced differently as are 'pak' and 'phak'. (But I wouldn't object to using 'j' for จ and to doubling long vowels).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Thai_General_System_of_Transcription

Its far from perfect, but better than making it up as you go and confusing folks.

Thanks,

S

[hotsoup]

If you are interested in'how Thailand became Thailand',the book to read is: "Siam Mapped" A History of the Geo-body of a Nation by Thongchai Winichakul 1994 University of Hawaii Press, also 1998 Silkworm Books Chiang Mai. Explains in detail the history and causes of some of the problems and fractures in Thai regions and Thai society, and the thinking behind the 'imposition' of Thai language and 'Thainess'

[Aree Wongwanlee]

A little input from the Deep South.

Earlier, someone mentioned Yawi. It's not Thai at all. In fact it is Malay, local version. In Malaysia, it's called Jawi but the Thais tend to replace all the 'j's with 'y's like 'masjid' becomes 'masyid'. In Malaysia, Jawi refers to the Arabic script which was used to write the Malay language. In Thailand, Yawi means simply the Malay dialect spoken by the Southern Thais. It's very similar to the Kelantanese dialect spoken in the state of Kelantan, the Malaysian state sharing a border with the province of Narathiwat. There are actually some differences between Yawi and the Kelantanese Malay dialect. For example, in Kelantan, to tap rubber is to 'noreh getoh'. In Yawi, they say 'potong getoh'. Only a southern Thai Malay or a native Kelantanese would notice the difference, though.

[hotsoup]

Thread gone dead! Must suppose no-one much interested in what their g/f speaks. Doesn't she speak English, man? Good God!