Endangered languages of Thailand

Language, Education and Nation-building

“…The existing linguistic hierarchy, first outlined by Smalley (1994) and later updated by Premsrirat (2006Premsrirat ( , 2007 does not seem to be changing radically, apart from the reduced usage and endangerment of some marginal and enclave languages as their speakers shift to regional languages of wider communication or standard Thai. Most Thai citizens -particularly in urban areas -are largely unaware of the country's linguistic diversity, but accept the prevailing hierarchy at the higher levels, that is that standard Thai has a dominant position in the society, and all other language varieties are inferior to it.…”

“…Leclerc 2012;Lewis 2009;Smalley 1994). 7 Many people, particularly in Central Thailand, however, see these regional languages as mere dialects or non-standard varieties of Central Thai, and not as separate languages (Kosonen 2007(Kosonen , 2008Premsrirat 2006Premsrirat , 2007Smalley 1994).…”

“…) both within Thailand and with speakers in neighbouring countries (Person 2009a;Boonyasaranai 2010). Several revitalization projects among smaller groups with no previous orthographies have started as community efforts with some collaboration by academic linguists, particularly from Mahidol and Payap Universities (Kosonen 2008;Premsrirat 2006Premsrirat , 2007.…”

“…There is currently more openness to using NDLs in various domains than ever before. Part of this localization is general resistance by minority language communities to the increasing use of standard Thai and English (Kosonen 2008;Premsrirat 2007). This indicates resistance to the trends of nationalism and globalization, and thus contributes to the increasing localization of literacy and language use (Kosonen 2008).…”

Language in the Mainland Southeast Asia Area

“…Geographical isolation is a force that still promotes language diversity in the region, where former diversity of lowland areas is on its last legs. Many of the lowland languages are heavily endangered or extinct (Bradley 2007;Enfield 2006;Suwilai Premsrirat 2007). This is quickened by effects of the concentration of political power of modern nation states in the lowlands.…”