38 Thailand and Laos (Language and National Identity in Asia).pdf

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Thailand and Laos
Andrew Simpson and Noi Thammasathien
Introduction
This chapter examines language and national identity issues in Thailand and also
Laos. These two neighbouring states are grouped together here for the reason that
both contain heavily dominant ‘Tai’ populations and have a long history of interaction
with each other. The term ‘Tai’ itself refers to a particular group of languages which
form a language family distinct from other major language families of east and
southeast Asia such as the surrounding Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic and Austronesian
groups. Speakers of the Tai group of languages originated in southeast China but
migrated far and wide during the seventh to thirteenth centuries, reaching Assam in
the west, northern Vietnam in the south, and modern-day Thailand and Laos in the
southwest, where the greatest concentration of Tai speakers is still to be found, with
57 million in Thailand (90 per cent of the population), and 4 million in Laos (66 per
cent of the population). The term ‘Thai’(pronounced with an aspiration on the initial
consonant which is absent from the pronunciation of ‘Tai’) is normally used to refer
just to the inhabitants of Thailand, both as formal citizens of the country and as
members of a single ethnic group identiWed by a largely shared language and culture.
It is also frequently used to refer to the standardized variety of speech which has been
strongly promoted within Thailand – Standard Thai. The term ‘Lao’ performs a
similar function within the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, being used to
refer to citizens of the country and also to the particular sub-variety of Tai language
and culture which is found throughout signiWcant parts of the country. As will later be
seen, both the terms ‘Thai’ and ‘Lao’ have been of considerable importance in
attempts to mould national identities within the two countries.
As the chapter will note, modern Thailand stands out in southeast Asia a