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Thai language

Not to be confused with Tai languages or Central Tai languages.

Thai
Central Thai, Siamese
ภาษาไทย, Paasaa Thai
"Paasaa Thai" (literally meaning "Thai language") written in Thai script
Pronunciation[pʰāːsǎːtʰāj]
Region
EthnicityCentral Thai, Thai Chinese, Mon
Native speakers
L1: 21 million (2000)[1]
L2: 40 million (2001)[1]
Total: 61 million (2000–2001)[1]
Kra–Dai
Official status
Official language in
 Thailand
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byRoyal Society of Thailand
Language codes
ISO 639-1th
ISO 639-2tha
ISO 639-3tha
Glottologthai1261
Linguasphere47-AAA-b
Dark Blue: Majority Light Blue: Minority
A native Thai speaker, recorded in Bangkok

Thai,[a] or Central Thai[b] (historically Siamese;[c][d] Thai: ภาษาไทย), is a Tai language of the Kra–Dai language family spoken by the Central Thai, Mon people in Central Thailand and the vast majority of Thai Chinese enclaves throughout the country. It is the sole official language of Thailand.[2][3]

Thai is the most spoken of over 60 languages of Thailand by both number of native and overall speakers. Over half of its vocabulary is derived from or borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Mon[4] and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language. Thai has a complex orthography and system of relational markers. Spoken Thai, depending on standard sociolinguistic factors such as age, gender, class, spatial proximity, and the urban/rural divide, is partly mutually intelligible with Lao, Isan, and some fellow Thai topolects. These languages are written with slightly different scripts, but are linguistically similar and effectively form a dialect continuum.[5]

Thai language is spoken by over 69 million people (2020.) Moreover, most Thais in the northern and the northeastern (Isaan) parts of the country today are bilingual speakers of Central Thai and their respective regional dialects because (Central) Thai is the language of television, education, news reporting, and all forms of media.[6] A recent research found that the speakers of the Northern Thai language (also known as Paasaa Mueang or Kham Mueang) have become so few, as most people in northern Thailand now invariably speak Standard Thai, so that they are now using mostly Central Thai words and only seasoning their speech with the "kham mueang" accent.[7] Standard Thai is based on the register of the educated classes by Central Thai and Mon people in the area along the ring surrounding the Metropolis.[8][9]

In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages. Although most of linguists classify these dialects as related but distinct languages, native speakers often identify them as regional variants or dialects of the "same" Thai language, or as "different kinds of Thai".[10] As a dominant language in all aspects of society in Thailand, Thai initially saw gradual and later widespread adoption as a second language among the country's minority ethnic groups from the mid-late Ayutthaya period onward.[11][12] Ethnic minorities today are predominantly bilingual, speaking Thai alongside their native language or dialect.

  1. ^ a b c Thai at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. ^ Diller, A.; Reynolds, Craig J. (2002). "What makes central Thai a national language?". In Reynolds (ed.). National identity and its defenders : Thailand today. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. ISBN 974-7551-88-8. OCLC 54373362.
  3. ^ Draper, John (2019), "Language education policy in Thailand", The Routledge International Handbook of Language Education Policy in Asia, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 229–242, doi:10.4324/9781315666235-16, ISBN 978-1-315-66623-5, S2CID 159127015
  4. ^ Baker, Christopher (2014). A history of Thailand. Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-1-316-00733-4.
  5. ^ Enfield, N.J. "How to define 'Lao', 'Thai', and 'Isan' language? A view from linguistic science". Tai Culture. 3 (1): 62–67.
  6. ^ Peansiri Vongvipanond (Summer 1994). "Linguistic Perspectives of Thai Culture". paper presented to a workshop of teachers of social science. University of New Orleans. p. 2. Archived from the original on 20 November 2012. Retrieved 26 April 2011. The dialect one hears on radio and television is the Bangkok dialect, considered the standard dialect.
  7. ^ Kemasingki, Pim; Prateepkoh, Pariyakorn (1 August 2017). "Kham Mueang: the slow death of a language". Chiang Mai City Life: 8. there are still many people speaking kham mueang, but as an accent, not as a language. Because we now share the written language with Bangkok, we are beginning to use its vocabulary as well
  8. ^ Andrew Simpson (2007). Language and national identity in Asia. Oxford University Press. Standard Thai is a form of Central Thai based on the variety of Thai spoken earlier by the elite of the court, and now by the educated middle and upper classes of Bangkok. It ... was standardized in grammar books in the nineteenth century, and spread dramatically from the 1930s onwards, when public education became much more widespread
  9. ^ Thepboriruk, Kanjana (2010). "Bangkok Thai tones revisited". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistic Society. 3 (1). University of Hawaii Press: 86–105. Linguists generally consider Bangkok Thai and Standard Thai, the Kingdom's national language, to be one and the same.
  10. ^ Antonio L. Rappa; Lionel Wee (2006), Language Policy and Modernity in Southeast Asia: Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, Springer, pp. 114–115
  11. ^ Lieberman, Victor (2003). Strange Parallels: Volume 1, Integration on the Mainland: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800–1830. Studies in Comparative World History (Kindle ed.). ISBN 978-0-521-80086-0.
  12. ^ Wyatt, David K. (2003). Thailand: A Short History. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08475-7.


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