Thailand and Laos

Abstract This chapter examines language and national identity issues in Thailand and also Laos. These two neighbouring states are grouped together here for the reason that both contain heavily dominant ‘Tai’ populations and have a long history of interaction with each other. The term ‘Tai’ itself refers to a particular group of languages which form a language family distinct from other major language families of east and southeast Asia such as the surrounding Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic and Austronesian groups. Speakers of the Tai group of languages originated in southeast China but migrated far and wide during the seventh to thirteenth centuries, reaching Assam in the west, northern Vietnam in the south, and modern-day Thailand and Laos in the southwest, where the greatest concentration of Tai speakers is still to be found, with 57 million in Thailand (90 per cent of the population), and 4 million in Laos (66 per cent of the population). The term ‘Thai’ (pronounced with an aspiration on the initial consonant which is absent from the pronunciation of ‘Tai’) is normally used to refer just to the inhabitants of Thailand, both as formal citizens of the country and as members of a single ethnic group identified by a largely shared language and culture. It is also frequently used to refer to the standardized variety of speech which has been strongly promoted within Thailand – Standard Thai. The term ‘Lao’ performs a similar function within the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, being used to refer to citizens of the country and also to the particular sub-variety of Tai language and culture which is found throughout significant parts of the country. As will later be seen, both the terms ‘Thai’ and ‘Lao’ have been of considerable importance in attempts to mould national identities within the two countries.