haltest Posted April 13, 2003 Report Share Posted April 13, 2003 I have been living in thailand for a while now and my thai is getting pretty good, from talking to a few isaan people I have picked up a few differences the dialect uses. Examples bor instead of mai for questions and negatives sao instead of yeesip for twenty. Does anyone else know any ways the isaan dialect differs from central thai?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 13, 2003 Report Share Posted April 13, 2003 What you are referring to differs in that it is Lao, not Thai. It may seem like a dialect of Thai in that (a) Lao and Thai are not that different to begin with, there is some degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages; ( there are at least as people of Lao descent/speakers of Lao dialects in Thailand as there are in Laos. In Isaan there are several regional languages at play, not just Lao. For example Buriram, Surin, and Sri Saket have sizeable Khmer populations. In Sri Saket you have Suey people. There's a host of other minorities too. Anyway I think if you find Lao materials you will find the answer to your question. (I think I saw a new Lao-English/English-Lao Dictionary from the Paiboon folks who do an excellent Thai one plus Thai For Lovers and some others. Not sure if that focuses on Isaan Lao or what.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haltest Posted April 13, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2003 Thanks for the reply, yes I have seen the lao dictionary, I had assumed isaan dialect was similar in structure to thai with just a few changes, more like thai with some lao words rather than directly using lao itself. I know khmer/lao/thai all have some words in common. I will have to do a trawl on the net to see what I can find I guess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redbaron Posted April 13, 2003 Report Share Posted April 13, 2003 Hal, Traveled recently to Laos with the ex from Nakhon Phanom (on the border).. she could speak to the locals perfectly. She said she was speaking "isaan", where in BKK she would speak Thai. From what she was saying, she was speaking Lao, as she does in the Isaan villiage. She said the differences in "Isaan" language to "Lao" are comparable to say, the Aussie vs Kiwi accents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 13, 2003 Report Share Posted April 13, 2003 Yes this meshes with my own pervious experience -- coincidentally with a girl from Nakhon Phanom -- in Vientiane. It was about 80% mutually intelligible, no problems communicating (of course, some of this is that the locals there watch Thai TV and can probably understand some of the Thai influenced differences between Isaan Lao and their own Lao). Khmer is unintelligible to a Thai or Lao speaker. This is one reason why Isaan Lao people think that Isaan Khmer people are all mysterious and can cast spells and other such nonsense. (Also note that Khmer is not a tonal language.) Finally, the degree of intelligibility between "Highland Khmer" (Khmer in Thailand) and Khmer in Cambodia is much less pronounced than with Lao -- my wife can just barely "get it" when listening to Cambodians speak Khmer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markle Posted April 13, 2003 Report Share Posted April 13, 2003 I'm not all that sure that 'Issan' isn't quite a bit different than mainstream Lao, comparably to the difference to Central Thai. Anyhow I noticed a Thai - Issan - Lao dictionary in Asia Books. Sorry I forget the publisher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samak Posted April 14, 2003 Report Share Posted April 14, 2003 wow isaan dai bo? dai yoo! maen bo? maen illee! bo maen dork! wow iang? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samak Posted April 14, 2003 Report Share Posted April 14, 2003 Says markle: Anyhow I noticed a Thai - Issan - Lao dictionary in Asia Books. Sorry I forget the publisher. Thai-Isan-Lao Phrasebook; White Lotus; with MP3 sound tracks on CD-ROM; with 925 baht a bit pricey both lao and isaan are close to thai; the spoken isaan is closer to lao as it uses a lot of the same words (a couple of words are mentioned in this thread). in writing however isaan use the same alphabet as thai, while lao alphabet is slightly different but as many characters are quite close, you are able to guess what it means Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pescator Posted April 14, 2003 Report Share Posted April 14, 2003 Hi Haltest. Check out this webpage to see some of the difference in actual writing as well as the words. Lao/Issarn/thai Cheers Hua Nguu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samak Posted April 14, 2003 Report Share Posted April 14, 2003 snakehead that's the webside of the author of the book i refered to. however it seems to be down at the moment Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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