A Thai-speaking scholar in the United States has said that Thailand’s Thai language has “nothing” to do with the language spoken by its people, and that the Thai language was once the lingua franca of the people who spoke it.
In an interview with the BBC’s Today programme, Prof. Rang Khon Phuong-yaw said the Thai people were “never told to use a Thai name, it is a foreign name for a foreign language”.
In a statement released on Sunday, Prof Khon said that the use of a Thai language as a way to differentiate one country from another had been practiced in Thailand for centuries.
Prof Khon has been studying the history of the Thai tongue and said that it had a history of spreading throughout the country, which has left many traces of the language.
“It has been the language of many, many different people and cultures, and even though it has been around for thousands of years, it has never been officially adopted by the Thai government,” he said.
Prof. Raghavan Krishnan, an expert in Thai and the history and culture of the country from the Institute of Thai Studies, said that while the Thai family had adopted a Thai as its language, the country had no written constitution or law, so the language did not count as a native language in the country.
“We are not talking about the language itself.
It’s a different kind of language that has been used for centuries,” Prof Krishnan said.”
This is not a Thai tongue.
This is not Thai as a family.
It is not even a Thai word, but it is the language.”‘
Lack of any formal constitution’It was not until the 20th century that the language became official, he added.
“But the Thai constitution was written in 1932 and there were no rules of writing,” he told Today.
“There were no laws for writing, or anything.
There was no legal language.
It was basically a political document, but no written laws.”
Prof Krishnan added that the constitution did not specify what the name of the official language should be, but that in the absence of any legal provisions for the use or recognition of Thai, the language could be considered a foreign one.
“The Thai language and its culture have always been part of the national identity, but there is no official government document to show this, so it’s a matter of interpretation,” he added, adding that it is unlikely that the government will ever officially recognise the Thai as their own language.
Prof Krishan said that even if Thailand’s language is officially recognised, the Thai-Chinese dialect, which is spoken in Bangkok, is “not officially recognised”.
“The Chinese dialect is a dialect of Thai that is spoken by Chinese people,” he explained.
“They speak Thai as the language that the country is known for.”
As such, when they say, ‘This is Thai’, they’re not saying that it’s their language, they’re saying that they are speaking Thai as opposed to the Thai that they’re speaking,” he continued.”
That’s a completely different thing from saying that the Chinese language is Thai.
“He said that although it was not officially recognised as a language in Thailand, the Chinese-speaking people in Thailand could still use Thai as part of their identity.”
You know, there are Chinese in Thailand now, and they speak Thai in their country, and the Thai is the official national language,” he concluded.
Prof Phan Phatrung, an Associate Professor of Languages and Literature at the University of New South Wales, said he found it difficult to understand why the government would seek to create a separate language for Thai people.”
I think that’s the real problem, is the government is really pushing the idea of creating a new language for people who are not part of Thai culture,” he argued.”
In my experience, it doesn’t really have a cultural dimension.
It has a linguistic dimension.
The Thai language could easily become a foreign tongue.
“Topics:language,history,thailand,africa,australia
