pattaya127 Posted July 6, 2002 Report Share Posted July 6, 2002 it's always fun to impart of a few words in lao/issan when thai-issan expect you to say the ubiquitous thai sentence. I now use bpo pen yang for mai pen rai, which of course gets me the usual "Oh! speak lao?". Yeah, sure! I wish..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pescator Posted July 6, 2002 Report Share Posted July 6, 2002 I was in Krabi last year crossing a stream on a longtail boat. The driver was speaking Lao to his buddy I could hear and when I got off his boat and handed him his tip (he was receiving a regular pay from a bungalow operation for performing this service) I could tell that he was somewhat displeased with the amount. Before he left he yelled ironically at me with a big grin to his buddy: Khop Jai Laai Laai Duh. And I yelled him right back: Bor Phen Yang Duuh. You should have seen the look on his face! Hua Nguu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 6, 2002 Report Share Posted July 6, 2002 "Also it is varies from province to province." - Yes, this is true. I guess the "genuine" Isaan dialect is the one referred to here as Lao-Thai. However, there are also other dialects like kamen à ¢ÃÃ, and suai ÊèÇÂ, which are spoken in Surin, Buriram, Sisaket amongst other provinces... These two dialects are completely different from the Lao-Thai dialect and the Bangkok dialect. I stand to be corrected though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pescator Posted July 6, 2002 Report Share Posted July 6, 2002 Kamen or rather Khmer - it is just pronounced this way in Thailand as the "r" turns into an "n"-sound at the end of a word. And the "a" sound you hear is inserted because "khm" is an unfamiliar consonant-cluster in thai and therefore they insert the "a" sound as they also do in e.g. Sport, Sprite = Saport, Saplite etc. Khmer is the language spoken in Cambodia and - obviously - the closer you get to the border, you more you are likely to hear it. It hardly qualifies as a dialect as it is in fact a different language with much less in common with thai than Lao has. Hua Nguu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markle Posted July 7, 2002 Report Share Posted July 7, 2002 "a different language with much less in common with thai than Lao has." A pretty bold statement considering that the Khmer once ruled much of Thailand and even today most Cambodians assert that Thais have simply copied ancient Khmer culture and called it their own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 7, 2002 Report Share Posted July 7, 2002 "Khmer is the language spoken in Cambodia and - obviously - the closer you get to the border, you more you are likely to hear it. It hardly qualifies as a dialect as it is in fact a different language with much less in common with thai than Lao has." - Thanks for the clarification, but the khmer dialect/language spoken in Thailand is still mixed quite a lot with Thai, isn't it? And what about suai ÊèÇÂ, the other dialect/language spoken in the same area? Got any info I'd be happy to know. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nkped Posted July 7, 2002 Report Share Posted July 7, 2002 A pretty bold statement considering that the Khmer once ruled much of Thailand and even today most Cambodians assert that Thais have simply copied ancient Khmer culture and called it their own. ----------------------------------- Maybe, but I belief that Thai and Lao are both in the same language group that includes some languages in northeast Burma (Karen?) and others as far as southwestern China. Reasonably certain that Khmer is a different language group. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nkped Posted July 7, 2002 Report Share Posted July 7, 2002 My ex-wife, who I met in Nakhon Phanom and who grew up in Korat and Udorn, spoke of Lao as a separate language which she did know how to speak. Very much thought of herself as Thai. It was memorable when, in Bangkok, we caught a taxi and almost as soon as she opened her mouth, the driver says--"Lao." She was a tad put out at that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daeng bireley Posted July 7, 2002 Report Share Posted July 7, 2002 Khmer and Suay are both from the same language family and are related to Burmese and Mon, which is thought to be the original language of Thailand 800-900 yrs ago before the Tai moved in. Suay and Khmer speakers in thailand can understand some of each others language ( they live in the same area and their languages are similar ) Thai and Lao are a totally different type of language from Khmer apart from being tonal the grammer is quite different. I believe that Khmer in Thailand is quite different to that spoken in Cambodia, much like the difference between Thai and Lao. Both Thai and Khmer speakers understand a lot words in each others language because Thai has borrowed a lot of Khmer words and both languages have a lot of Pali Sanskrit loan words. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 13, 2003 Report Share Posted April 13, 2003 Thought I'd revive this old thread in reply to another members interest in Issan language. Some differences between Isahn language and central Thai: the ª 'ch' is sounded as « 's', puu chai (man) becomes puu sai, chang (elephant) becomes sahng. This does not apply to all Thai words though. Often there is a completely different word for the same thing. Ã 'r' can become Ë 'h': rak (love) becomes hak..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.