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Dialects within Isaan


gobbledonk

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I know - learn Central Thai from a reputable school and it will all be downhill from there, right ? If we step back from that for a moment, I remain fascinated by the fact that I can go to Koh Chang or Chumphon with a girl from Isaan and she may have trouble following some of the conversations between Thais from that part of the world. What I didnt realise is that different parts of Isaan have their own dialects :

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_language#Dialects

 

I dont know how significant the differences are, but the bar seems to be one place where they all get a run. Little wonder that Ms CP spoke fluent Lao on our trip to Vientiane, despite never having travelled north of Bangkok for most of her life. It would be interesting to see how well her younger sister would cope in the same situation - I'll give her a call and see if she can meet me in Luang Prabang :)

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Lao-Issan-Thai are very very close languages & all the 'dialects' in between.

Now take Khmer, Malay or Lanna/Chinese & we're talking serious stuff to learn!!!

 

So clearly one only exposed to (central) Thai (in BKK) would immediately notice how tones/sentences & even words vary as one move upcountry - even myself start noticing now with my limited (central Thai) schooling - listening to people in Laos or Issan aren't all that different, but obviously it depends if the Thais speak Thai with issan dialect or issan/lao natively! :cover::hmmm:

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All Thais study in Central Thai no matter where they live. Isaan, Kham Muang, Kham Korat, PahkDtai or whatever - inside the classroom it is all Central Thai. Outside, they immediately revert to their own language.

 

Pity the Khmer Sung of southern Isaan, who speak at Khmer dialect mixed with Thai at home. They have to study in a THIRD language at school. And English is their fourth. :p

 

p.s. Lao and Isaan Lao seem closer to Thai than Kham Muang to me. I can actually get along better in Lao than in Kham Muang, though I've spent much more time in the north. :dunno:

 

 

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I know - learn Central Thai from a reputable school and it will all be downhill from there, right ? If we step back from that for a moment, I remain fascinated by the fact that I can go to Koh Chang or Chumphon with a girl from Isaan and she may have trouble following some of the conversations between Thais from that part of the world. What I didnt realise is that different parts of Isaan have their own dialects :

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_language#Dialects

 

I dont know how significant the differences are, but the bar seems to be one place where they all get a run. Little wonder that Ms CP spoke fluent Lao on our trip to Vientiane, despite never having travelled north of Bangkok for most of her life. It would be interesting to see how well her younger sister would cope in the same situation - I'll give her a call and see if she can meet me in Luang Prabang :)

 

It (Isaan) is all Lao...to call it "Isaan" instead is just a political thing, fostered by the Thai gov't/educational system in their nation-building myth of "we're all Thais," as well as by the Lao PDR gov't as yet another expression of fear of Thai influence on Lao culture, etc...

 

Any Isaan speaker who travels to Laos can understand the language just fine, even the ones that claim that they can't...language is a very psychological thing, if we tell ourselves (for political reason or other prejudice) that we can't understand a given "dialect," it can actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

The main thing standing in the way of 100% intelligibility between the Lao dialects spoken in Isaan and what's currently spoken in Lao PDR is vocab, and the older the Isaan person, the more of the "real" Lao vocab they know...remember that the Central Thais didn't even really bother with careful administration of Isaan until about the 1960s...many people before that in Isaan couldn't even speak Central Thai at all!

 

The differences between Thai and Lao are much greater, not just vocab but also tones and to a certain extent, grammar. It's almost impossible to judge the intelligibility nowadays between "pure" Lao and "pure" Thai since those two forms basically don't exist anymore, due to most Lao PDR understanding (if not speaking) Thai due to their voracious consumption of Thai media, and due to the (relatively recent, mind you) "coolness" of Isaan Lao among Central Thais (think white young people in the US adopting mannerisms and vocab from Black English to be "cool", understanding Black English slang from watching movies and rap music, etc.). I reckon that if you could find two hypothetical "pure speakers" of the two languages nowadays, they could probably understand each other about 40-50%. However, two Isaan native speakers can always "lose" a Central Thai speaker trying to listen in on them if they really want to, I've seen it happen a lot in Bangkok.

 

Interesting stuff. A lot of the same dynamics exist in Thailand/Cambodia between Northern Khmer (Surin, Buriram) and Central Khmer, but those dialects are even farther apart than Isaan Lao and Lao Lao, you don't have to imagine hypothetical "pure speakers," there are plenty among the two countries and mutual intelligibility is about a solid 40%. That goes up the more that the Central Khmer speaker in question understands Thai, btw.

 

As for Lanna/Kham Muang, that's just another Tai/Kadai language very closely related to Thai and Lao; just based on my Lao proficiency I can understand quite a bit of Lanna speech.

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I can understand enough Kham Muang to get by. Kham Muang still has an R sound. It has vanished in Lao, though the letter is still in the alphabet (and pronounced as L or H). Kham Muang vocabulary also has many nouns which are nothing at all like their counterparts in Thai. My Mrs told me she can pretty much tell what province someone is from when they speak Kham Muang, based on accent, speed of speech etc. The vocabulary was the same though.

 

A taxi driver from Buriram told me of his suprise at picking up a Farang woman who spoke no Thai but momentarily forgot where she was and started giving him directions in Khmer. Turned out she lived and worked in Phnom Penh. She couldn't understand his Khmer Sung, but he could understand enough of her directions to take her where she wanted to go.

 

 

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-snip-

 

A taxi driver from Buriram told me of his suprise at picking up a Farang woman who spoke no Thai but momentarily forgot where she was and started giving him directions in Khmer. Turned out she lived and worked in Phnom Penh. She couldn't understand his Khmer Sung, but he could understand enough of her directions to take her where she wanted to go.

 

 

Yeah, non-native speakers (usually farang) who learn Central Khmer usually understand next-to-nothing of Northern Khmer. Native speakers of Central Khmer do much better.

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Thanks for all the feedback guys - as mentioned previously, its interesting to be able to see so much variation in the modern entity known as 'Thailand'.

 

Reading a history of SE Asia at the moment, and the author repeatedly makes the point that many of the current borders didnt even exist until the colonial powers came to town and decided to start marking out their 'territory'. Given the terrific job they had done (and were continuing to do) in Europe, I guess we should be happy that the whole region didnt end up in ruins, despite the best efforts of the French, Japanese and Americans.

 

 

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There would be no independent Laos today, if the French hadn't seized it. It would all be part of Isaan ... which probably would not have been a good idea, since it would have meant borders with both the PRC and then North Vietnam during the Cold War years.

 

The Lao Kingdom of Lan Xang broke up into three separate principalities in the 18th century (in effect independent kingdoms), all owing some degree of dependence on Thailand. The Chao of Wiengjan rebelled against Rama III, which was not a wise thing to do. He was defeated and died a prisoner in Bangkok. His ruling family lost power, and when the French annexed Laos east of the Mekong they made the Chao of Luang Pabang the titular King of Laos. Meanwhile, the Thai government had moved tens of thousands of Laos to the Thai side of the river. This is why there are so many more Laos in Isaan than in Laos.

 

But the Isaan folks seem happy enough with it. Several have said to me, "We used to be Lao, but now we are Thai." Ironically, the folks in Isaan joke about the Laos across the river being stupid - just as Bangkok hais joke about Isaan. :p

 

Drawing international borders in the modern sense was not easy in SE Asia, since one region might be "tributary" to all of its neighbours. Thus depending on the circumstances, they might be Thai, Lao, Vietnamese or Cambodian all at the same time.

 

 

 

 

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Interesting topic.

 

My Little Guy is going to either be multi-lingual or very confused.

 

His two primary caregivers cannot talk to each other - Grandma speaks 90% Khmer Sung and only 10% Thai. The maid/nanny speaks 90% Nepali/Hindi/Burmese and 10% Thai/English.

 

Mom and family speak 40% Khmer / 40 % Thai / 20 % English.

 

Dad speaks 99 % English / 1 % gibberish

 

I can't wait for my own personal Rosetta Stone to translate for all of us!

 

Cheers!

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